We found ourselves looking for cemeteries on this snowmobile trail
No graveyards made themselves known to us, however, so we fixed some peanut butter sandwiches at the side of a road, and then headed back to St. Ann's to check with the genealogical society people there (they'd been closed when we visited a few days ago). The woman there was very pleasant, but we still were unable to find anything new about our ancestors. We did get a phone number, however, for a local genealogical guru, Bonnie. In fact, we phoned her, and made an appointment to meet on Friday morning at (you guessed it) Tim Horton's. I also managed to telephone the Hyundai Dealer in Sydney, to book another oil change for the car. Then back to the grocery store to get some food for supper, and back to the Kabin to eat and warm up.
Summer seems to have finally arrived in Cape Breton. Although it was still a bit cool overnight, we woke up to a bright, sunny, warming day. After a leisurely breakfast we headed out to Middle River (actually quite close to our campground) to visit with Peggy and Sandy at their home, and to meet two ladies from New Zealand who are visiting them(Robin and Relna), and searching their family roots as well. If you hadn't guessed by now, this part of Cape Breton (Baddeck, Middle River, St. Ann's) is a mecca for people searching their roots. It was one of the first places for Scottish (in particular) immigrants to land and settle into a better way of life. It was also one of the first places they left, after hearing of greener pastures elsewhere in the New World. This area, in particular, was affected when, with a potato blight and a recession happening, and farming failures due to poor weather (does a lot of this sound familiar today???) made the people take note of other places. Two major migrations of Scottish people left from here in the early-mid 1850's, when 900 of the people, after having lived here for some 30 years, built 5 ships and sailed off on a mass exodus to New Zealand, led by a very stern pastor/leader, Reverend Norman McLeod. My gt-gt-gt grandmother went this way with seven of ther children. Two of her daughters, one of them my gt-gt grandmother, married and joined the other exodus/mass migration, to Ontario (mostly to Bruce County). That explains why people like myself, and the two Kiwis, and many others, find themselves on their pilgimage to this place. It also explains why many of those who were left behind, or their descendants, became gurus of the history and sociology of this area. Peggy and Sandy are such gurus, as are Walter and Roberta who we'd me yesterday. Our visit with Peggy and Sandy turned into a genealogical session of comparing notes, and discovering common ancestors with them and with our new Kiwi cousins. We sipped tea, washed down buttered scones and biscuits, and chatted for several hours, and then drove down the road to explore the Middle River Cemetery together, where we did find a couple of ancestors. We made it home in late afternoon for a lovely dinner of steak with stirfried veggies. We then went out to visit with another guru, Donnie, who is quite active in family history circles around here. He was able to provide us with some tidbits of information, and provided some more hints for investigation into our puzzles.
Yes....Summer definitely has arrived! Even nicer and warmer the next day (Friday). We managed to find Tim Horton's in time to meet up with our next guru, Bonnie. She has authored and co-authored several books on area clans and families, histories, and stories. She is also quite active in genealogical groups around here, and co-ordinates efforts with the New Zealand groups as well. She was very helpful in providing more useful hints, especially in looking over what we had already. Bonnie even gave us a very useful book about one of the families here. One of her recommendations was to return to the Court House with the Probate numbers we'd found at the Beaton Institute, so we followed up on that, and lo and behold - we discovered the Probate papers and Will for my gt-gt-gt grandfather, who'd died in Baddeck in 1855.
Eureka! This is page 1 of my gt-gt-gt grandfather's will
Then we called another guru, Lloyd, who is actively pursuing, voluntarily, maintainence and community memory of the pioneer cemeteries. He actually goes out on his own and restores broken headstones, levels and untopples them, and places signs next to them so that people will know they still exist. It is an impossible job for one man, and mother nature is winning the battle, but we applaud his efforts! When we called him, he seemed happy to meet up with us, so we decided to meet at ......(wanna guess?).....Tim Horton's for lunch. He produced several interesting family histories and maps, which we were eager to copy. So we trooped on down to the local newspaper office to do so. While there, photocopying the material, we met the editor, John, who asked if we were the people doing the Blog....and produced this very one! Apparently he has flagged the name Baddeck and when I mentioned it here, the blog showed up. Hmmmmm......maybe I should pay more attention to what I'm saying??? At any rate, we went off with Lloyd to find the pioneer cemeteries we'd failed to find the previous day. This time, with our guru guide, we were quite successful. It became quite obvious why we'd missed them, as they are not visible from the road, but off in the overgrowth, and a bit of a tramp away. We found many of the contemporaries of our ancestors, but I don't think any of our family ties were there. Many of the headstones are missing, or were never there (many of the people couldn't afford headstones), but Lloyd was very good at directing us around the sites. On our way into two of them, we saw moose tracks - I hadn't known there were moose around here, but apparently there are.
Our Guru Guide, Lloyd showing us a Pioneer Cemetery
We dropped off Lloyd after a full afternoon of "graving" , and returned to our Kabin for an evening of Blog catch-up, and sorting of data.
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