Cape Breton, Nova Scotia (08-28-18)

Well, I am kind of getting ahead of myself a bit. Before we went to Cape Breton, we spent 5 days in Halifax.  Halifax is the largest city in this area of Canada, and is where the historical records are kept for the province.  We spent 4 days combing through records.

We came up for air long enough to meet up with our friends Neil and Susan.  They live here, and we met them on our first visit here.  It was Neil that convinced us to go to Newfoundland back in 2013.

Once we had gathered all the information we could in Halifax, we left for Cape Breton. Cape Breton is an island, connected to the mainland by a causeway.

Its not a huge island, so we decided to stay at Battery Provincial Park for our entire stay. It is centrally located enough that we could reach all the places we needed to be.

It’s about 30 minutes from Port Hastings, where my father’s paternal grandparents were from, about 40 minutes from Isle Madame, where my dad’s maternal grandparents were from, and about 25 minutes from where my maternal grandmother grew up.

We really loved this park. With no reservations, we had to move sites a few times, and mostly didn’t have electric hook up, but that’s easy to do in the camper, and the park was very well kept and had great views.

As added bonuses, there were very few bugs, so we could have campfires, and there is a pair of resident bald eagles that we watched a few times.

I think we spent a total of 4 or 5 full days at the Port Hastings Historical Society. That is the area that the Kings were from, and when I said what family name I was interested in, they handed me a folder with a ton of information! I didn’t have time to digest it all so I took pictures and have been going through the information as I can.






One thing that makes it harder, is internet access. Although I have my full data allotment, Paul has nothing, so we have to share.  And Google maps is a data hog. Many public places have Wi-Fi, which helps some but it is still a challenge.

We took one full day and drove the island of Isle Madame, home to many many Samson and Boudreau families-I am related to most of the people on the island, in some way or other. We spent a few hours in the library there, and one of the guys working  there set up his computer and let me copy a “communal” family tree that was put together during a genealogy summit a few years ago.

Once we had that, we drove around the island checking out the towns and seashore. Samson Cove was very pretty.

My great grandfather Thomas Boudreau was born here on the island, in Boudreauville- there are many small towns on Cape Breton that are named for the family that lived there. I love sea glass, and it was actually really cool to find some on a beach near the town.










There are people who I correspond with who are researching the same families- so we are related in some way- and we share what information we find. I have also reached out to a few people on Ancestry DNA, sometimes to share info, sometimes just to say hi.

Leo King and I have been sharing information for a year or so now and he set me up to meet his brother Charlie, who lives on Cape Breton. Charlie and I are 2nd cousins once removed. It was very strange meeting a relative named Charlie King- that was my dad’s name.

Charlie was awesome and showed us all around, pointing out where the old settlements had been. Most were gone and the families moved on- often just down the road it seems. One challenge in doing research here is that the names of the towns have changed since the time period I am researching. My great grandfather was born in Caribou Cove- its now Port Malcolm. My great great grandfather lived in Plaster Cove- now Port Hawkesbury, and my great great great grandfather lived in Ship Harbour- now Port Hastings.  At least I feel like I have the lay of the land better now!



I got a response to a message I sent on Ancestry to a 2nd cousin who lives in Nova Scotia. The reply said “hi- I am the guy whose computer  you used the other day in the library- we are cousins??” Too funny!


The nearby town of Johnstown is where my grandmother Josephine Johnston grew up. While Isle Madame is the French/Acadian area of Cape Breton, Johnstown/Red Islands  is the Scottish area of the island.

Many of the signs are in Gaelic as well as English, including some stop signs. I have been fascinated with the differences we have found in the food and the accents on the Island. Many of the people of Isle Madame speak with a French-ish accent, and the people of Johnstown favor a Scottish one.

I remembered that the last time we were here, we missed the annual Milling Frolic by just a few days so I asked around and found out we would indeed be here for it this year!

It’s the oldest running milling frolic in Nova Scotia- 87 Years . In days gone by, people got together to “kneed “ wool cloth to shrink it. Nowadays it’s a social event, where they mill the cloth while singing in Gaelic.

They open the Sacred Heart church community center for the party. We were amazed to see hundreds of people show up for this event .

There is food served, a room where Bingo was being played, and a place for kids to do artwork.

Before all the “real singers” showed up they asked people to fill in the seats, so I got to sit while everyone else sang in Gaelic. Once the Gaelic singing was done they had a dance that lasted till 1 am. Or so we hear. We left at 10:30.

After about 10 days on the island, we were both ready to move on.

Tracking down the family (08-19-13)

Adding Newfoundland into our itinerary meant taking something out of our itinerary, but I wasn’t willing to give up my search for family.  I have been researching my genealogy on and off for the last year or so and I had really been looking forward to spending time in Cape Breton.  This post is more for my benefit than anyone else’s, so I apologize in advance for the boringness of it.  Feel free to click to another page.
So, I became interested in my family history while in Salt Lake City, sitting around while Paul researched his family.  At the LDS (Latter Day Saints) research center, I typed  my paternal grandmother’s name into the computer, just for fun.  I was totally surprised to find out that she had a step-father. No one had ever mentioned that in the family.  Ever.  Her dad died when he was young, and her mom remarried.  That sparked my interest, and something my mom had always said to me added to the flame.  She said my heritage is “Scottish, Irish, English, and French (Canadian).  But I didn’t know exactly how each branch got back to it’s original country.  So I started looking. Actually, she first said I was “American” and even went to school to argue with teachers when they said that wasn’t an acceptable answer.

Sacred Heart Church, Johnstown

I was immediately surprised to learn that not only did my maternal grandmother come from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, but the families of my paternal grandmother and grandfather also came from there, in an area about 60 miles away.

   

Sacred Heart cemetery

I loosely decided to trace each branch back to its country of origin.  After doing a lot of work online, actually being in the towns where these people lived their lives was pretty exciting to me.

Geographically we arrived at Johnstown first.  Johnstown, Nova Scotia is named for the Johnston family, who settled in the area after arriving from Scotland, and my maternal grandmother's maiden name  was Johnston.

Isabella Johnston's grave

We found the old church and cemetery where my great grandmother is buried ,and I approached everyone I met to get more information.  Unfortunately, Johnstown isn’t really a town anymore.

  Whatever stores and buildings were originally here are no longer in existence, and it mostly consists of cottages and small homes. The church parish center had an old map on the wall of what the town used to look like.

Colleen Johnston

   Luckily one of my aunts told me where to look for family cottages, and we found Hay Cove, and Colleen Johnston and her family.

Hay Cove

  We spent the afternoon comparing notes on family history.  This land has been in the Johnston family for 250 years.










This is an aerial photo of the Hay Cove area in Johnstown.

Arichat

   Our next stop was on Isle Madame.  This was moving from my mom’s family to my dad’s. We started in the town of Arichat, which I continually run across in my research.  I was very happy to just see this very small village, and drive around. 

At least two branches of my family are from this island and they happen to be the two most common surnames in the area- Samson and Boudreau. It’s tough to find fellow Boudreau family members in a town called Boudreauville! 









Everyone thinks you are a cousin! About a month or so ago, my research collided with the research of a fellow Samson family member.  It turns out, he has all the documentation for the Samson name going back to 16th century France.  With one click of the mouse, my work with that branch of the family was done.  He had also helped me find Boudreau family members. Thanks, Charles Samson!!

Samson family cottages in Samson Cove

Paul and I spent an entire day on Isle Madame- an island settled mostly by Acadians (I didn’t even know I was Acadian till I started this research). Petit de Grat is a smaller island in the area. Two, possibly three, of my great grandparents are from Petit de Grat. 

Everyone we spoke to tried to help, but we were there on a weekend, which made things trickier. For one thing, the library was closed, but Ann Marie, the woman working at the visitor center, made numerous phone calls to potential family members for me, and gave me several connections to follow up on.  We were towing the trailer at this point, and several people told us where we could drop it for the day so we could drive around without it. 



At one point I stopped to take a picture of a beautiful harbor and a man approached, asking if he could help.  I was a little confused, but he said “well, you have a huge truck, and this is a small community.  I’ve seen you at least 4 times today”.  Turns out he’s a Samson, and probably a relative of some type.

Notre Dame De L'Assomption, Arichat

Notre Dame De L'Assomption

We visited the church where my family has worshiped for generations, and took pictures of the gravestones in the old cemetery, so I can research them later, but finally we had to move on.

St. Francis De Sales, Lower River

The next stop was the Port Hawkesbury/Lower River area of Cape Breton, only about 40 miles away.  Here is my biggest puzzle.  I know that my maternal grandmother is Scottish, my maternal grandfather is Irish, and my paternal grandmother is French.  That means my paternal grandfather, Raymond King, must be English.  But I have had a very difficult time finding any records.  The French used to keep one copy of a record at the church, and send at least one to France, so there were multiple copies.  That’s great because so many churches and other buildings burned down that many records were just lost. Apparently the English didn’t follow that habit, and records are hard to come by.






Paul and I hit the ground running in the Port Hawkesbury area.  We visited several small museums, asked about churches, graveyards and other small museums, and in general tried to follow every lead we got.  Once again we were thwarted because the local library was closed for its yearly maintenance.  At least 4 people told me I need to contact Lester Morgan- his family is related to the King family and he has done a ton of research.  One person gave me his number.  I called him.  He didn’t return the call.  Another person gave me his email address.  A third person said that Lester is in the states on vacation so he won’t get any messages.  Well darn. We had to put Lester on hold while we visited more museums, churches and graveyards.  We had no luck finding any new information, which was pretty discouraging.  Then I got a huge surprise. The day after we left, Lester arrived back home and responded to my email. He said he has lots of information on the King family, and boy, does he.  It turns out he and I are related.  My great grandfather, who moved to Boston, had a brother who stayed in Nova Scotia.  Lester and I have been emailing back and forth but I’ve had such poor Wi-Fi, I’ll really be better off waiting until we get back to the states.
All through this 3 day marathon, I have been amazed at how willing people have been to help.  One girl who was working at a museum made a dozen phone calls for me.  She found a potential family member who said “send them on over”. 

She even printed out a map for us so we wouldn't get lost,and we were able to sit down and talk to Noni Hureau ( her great grandfather was my great grandmother’s brother) for an hour, gathering information.  Turns out Noni lived in the Boston area for many years before returning to Cape Breton to retire.  I now have several leads to follow on that branch of the family, plus, I have the phone numbers of several people in the area, if I need more help in the future.




The last three days have been quite the marathon, and I am mentally drained. On the plus side, I learned a lot, and got to see the places where my  family has lived for over 200 years.