Field Trip To Find More on Caldwells and Irvines in Wellington County- Fergus, Ontario

My husband agreed on his day off to drive out to Fergus (about 1 hour and 15 min) to the archives where the Caldwells and Irvines settled for a time.  I had one hour in the archives before it shut down for lunch.

GREAT TIP

I will need to come back to the archives to look at the microfiche of the Drayton newspaper.  This is a great place to find obituaries which are loaded with names, dates and places.

I could not believe how resourceful and excellent it is to be there.  The staff just think family history and are so knowledgeable about resources and how to make connections.

Here I am outside the archives with the boys.  They were thrilled to come because they got to go to McDonalds with dad while I was in there and got some cool Kung Fu Panda toys.

This is my mom, Diane Morton (daughter of Jack Wintson Morton and Mary Irene Nelson)  when she was visiting in January we drove out to Bosworth.  The funny thing about visiting the places your ancestors used to live means that this town may or may not be a town any longer!  As we were driving expecting to arrive as per my description from the map, we hadn't arrived.  Well as any self respecting Canadian girl would do, I stopped at the nearest farm supplier and asked for instructions.  Turns out Bosworth no longer exists so we went further down the road and found this very large graveyard just before Drayton.

When we left Brampton it was warm and sunny, who knew only 1 and a half hours later it would be so cold.

We weren't having a lot of success so when we found the name Irvine on the tombstone I just took it hoping that there would be a connection.  Well, now I know there is.  At the time I had no idea.  This young woman Eva Lillian is the daughter of Susan who is the daughter of Andrew Irvine (1821-1883) and Hannah Brintnell (1831-1882) who are also the parents of John Irvine (1852-1925) who married Rebecca Caldwell (1865-1943) who are the parents of Lottie Irvine (1888-1960) who married George Walter Morton who are the parents of this handsome man-Jack Morton who is my grandpa. 

Something I didn't realize until recently is that Jack was born in Bosworth!!  When Lottie was pregnant with him in Warner, Alberta she had two small boys and no family so she decided to have Jack back east.  She took the train all the way and delivered Jack with her family around her.