James Turner Grieve emigrated to USA or Canada in 1869

[claudette]

Hi

I was hoping that someone may be able to give me some advice as to how to find out what happened to my great-great-uncle in either USA or Canada.

James Turner Grieve was born on February 7th 1844 in Portobello, Edinburgh and was the fourth child of John Grieve and Margaret Dempster. He appeared in both the 1851 census and 1861 census, but after that he disappeared from the Scottish records.

I have now found out through both Ancestry and www.castlegarden.org that James emigrated to the USA. He left Glasgow on the steamship Iowa and travelled to New York, arriving on August 23rd 1869.

My problem now is to know what is the best way to ascertain where he finally settled. I appreciate that sometimes New York was just the arrival point and emigrants then moved up to Canada, so I need to consider both countries.

I have looked on IGI, but so many marriage / death records have no parent info, so I have no way of cross-checking the details. Also many of the records are submissions, so I need to be careful with them.

Basically what is the best way to check for marriage / death / census records?

I have pondered the following options as to the best way forward, but don't know which is best:

a) Should I invest in a world subscription for Ancestry.com? How complete are their records?

b) What info does each state have available for searching on the internet?Should I go through each one in turn checking out the info they have available? What do I do as regards any state that has very little info online?

c) Is there a way of checking who applied for citizenship? Although James may not have applied for that.


All advice / ideas most welcome.

It's very exciting to think that I may have distant cousins over the pond.

Many thanks in advance for everyone's help. Fingers crossed that we manage to find out where he went to!

Best wishes to you all
Claudette

[paddyscar]

Hi Claudette:

There are several sites that may help you with locating information about sources in Canada & the U.S., including various state and provincial records, listed by category http://talkingscot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8420. Among these are sites for immigration and naturalization records. Being a 'British Subject' he would not have been required to take out citizenship in Canada - he would have been given all the same rights as a born Canadian, including voting.

But you may want to let us know more about how you came to believe he came to Canada or America. If this were my relative, I'd want someone to double check my search to see if I didn't miss something, before I sail the seas

You indicate that James Turner Grieve was listed in the 1851 and 1861 census, was this from ScotlandsPeople? Perhaps you could let us know how and where you searched, so that you know he may not just be misindexed or something.

The record on castlegarden only gives the name James T. Grieve, but does not give a full middle name. The age matches, but it also does not give a specific location in Scotland from where he came. What was his occupation in the 1861 census? Would it have made him enough money to be classified as a 'gentleman' (independently wealthy, with no need to work to support himself) on the 1869 passenger list? As you say, there are no parents or anything that confirms it's your James, and even Ancestry.com records are submitted from family histories and transcriptions.

There is also the option to try the 14 day trial on Ancestry before you sign up for a membership, to see how it goes.

Give us some more background on what you've tried and maybe someone can come up with something for you.

Kind regards,
Frances

[claudette]

Hi Frances

Thank you very much for your speedy reply. Also thanks for your comments about British subjects not needing Canadian citizenship. It's amazing how much you get to learn through doing family research.

I have got all my information about my maternal Grieve family through Scotlands People and have double-checked it where possible with Ancestry.co.uk and the IGI. I was interested to hear your comment about where Ancestry got its info from, as I didn't know about that. I did already know that the info on www.familysearch.org often consists of submissions, which can be incorrect.

I had already started working my way through that long list of websites you pointed out to me, but a number of them don't appear to be available anymore. That was why I posted this message to see if anyone had any good hints or tips to help me.

I had started to look into the possibility that James may have emigrated for various reasons.

James appears in both the 1851 census and the 1861 census, but I can find no trace of him in any census after that, nor can I find any marriage or death records for him in either Scotlands People or Ancestry.co.uk. (I have spent a small fortune on credits as you can imagine!)

In the 1861 census he was a scholar aged 16 living at home with his family.

In the 1871 census, James's mother and 2 brothers, John and Charles are still living at the family home, his father having died in 1863. In both the 1881 census and the 1891 census, James's mother is living with her eldest son, John in Edinburgh while Charles is still living at the old family home with his wife and family.

On a trip to Edinburgh last year, we managed to find the grave for James's father, mother and 2 sisters in Prestongrange Parish Church, Prestonpans. His father died in 1863, his mother died in 1894 and his sisters died in 1851 and 1853. I would have thought that if James had died between 1861 and 1894, then he would have been buried there with the family.

Secondly, there must have been quite a lot of money in the family at that time. James's father, John Grieve was a Coal Master and owned Prestonlinks Colliery. James's grandfather was also a Coal Master, according to John Grieve's death certificate, although I don't know where exactly.

James's father had a large house built for him in 1857. Then in 1860 he set up a brickmaking business in the grounds of his house. So he had several business interests.

After James's father died, his 2 brothers carried on as owners of Prestonlinks Colliery until 1884 when they closed it down. In the list of “Collieries of the United Kingdom at work in 1869”, John and Charles are shown as the owners of 3 more colleries in the Edinburgh area. I have yet to ascertain how long they owned these 3 collieries for. They also continued running the brickworks business in the grounds of the family home.

If James had been around, then wouldn't he have been involved in the family businesses with his brothers?

I have been to see the old family home and it is a big house, still with large gardens - the present owner has recently had 11 4-bedroomed houses built on part of the land, so that is an indication of just what the place was like.

Anyway I thought it was worth trying to see if it was possible that James had emigrated as I just felt that I had hit the proverbial brick wall!

I do feel that James had the background and the money to have been able to call himself "Gentleman" on www.castlegarden.org - I obviously share your caution about whether this James T. Grieve is my great-great-uncle or not. The only way for me to ascertain this is to find out what happened to him - to find out his parentage through any marriage or death certificates. Hence my query on this message board as I've not had to search through any American or Canadian records before and it feels a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack!

Hope this has helped to answer some of your queries and if anyone has any ideas to help me in my search, then I'd be very grateful. =D>

With best wishes to you and many thanks for your help.
Claudette

[paddyscar]

Hi Claudette:

I've had a look through the 1901, 1905 and 1911 Canadian census for variations of the surname Grieve, but without any luck for James T. or any James of a suitable age.

Unfortunately, the Canadian Census for other years are not indexed by name. A look through land grants found several James Grieve references but none with initial T or relevant arrivals.

Passenger lists for the large part are not Name based, so would require scanning each ship's list. Have you checked the Ellis Island site? Although it is later than Castle Garden, the records are more informative.

There are lists for border crossings, but those also appear on Ancestry.com.

Sorry my search wasn't more fruitful.

Frances

[claudette]

Hi Frances

Just to say many thanks for all the searches that you have done for me. Much appreciated.

Don't know if I will ever manage to track James down but at least I can have fun trying!

Best wishes
Claudette

[HeatherH]

Hiya Claudette and welcome to Talking Scot.
The best place to look for data regarding Canadian Genealogy is the Archives in Ottawa. You can access their Library online at this URL....

http://www.collectionscanada.ca/genealo ... 205-e.html

Something to keep in mind when doing research in Canada is that we are a very new country . We celebrated our 140th Birthday this July 1st. However not all provinces joined Confederation at the same time.
Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick joined together to become the country of Canada in 1867 followed by Manitoba and The Northwest Territories in 1870. British Columbia in 1871 and Prince Edward Island in 1873. The Yukon joined in 1898 . Saskatchewan and Alberta didn't join until 1905. Newfoundland was its own Country seperate from the rest of Canada until March 1949 . Lastly was the newly created Territory of Nunavut in 1999. All this will affect what kinds of records you can expect to find depending on which province your rellie lived in. Much like in Scotland in the OPRs most records pre- confederation can be hit or miss in regard to the amount of information they will contain. Its also why some provinces had census taken and others did not.
New residents in Canada from the UK did have much the same status as other Canadians however while they could vote in Municipal Elections ( until recently) they couldn't vote in Federal elections ( which continues to today and until 1999 they could collect the Canada Pension when they retired ( since that date only Canadian Citizens can get the CPP unless they were already recieving it before that date.
One particularly good site is ...

http://www.pier21.ca/

Pier 21 is Canada's version of Ellis Island. While the Building was actually in use between 1928 and 1971 they have access to a font of information going back to much earlier immigration . They have recently been voted 1 of Canada's 7 Wonders and for good reason. The Museum is now focusing on Immigration from 1867 onwards all over Canada not just those that entered Halifax.I have found the staff there to be very helpful both in providing information or in pointing me in the right direction. You will find a contact page on the site where you can ask for guidance in your quest to find your ancestors records.

Hope this is of some help.
Happy Hunting,
HeatherH

[AnneM]

Hi Claudette

Have you looked up the wills of James's parents? Given the family's standing, they should have wills, which should be on the Scotland's People site. If James is still alive at the death of either parent, he may well be mentioned and his whereabouts given. When I was researching for my husband's cousin's husband (honest!!) I found that one of his collaterals had emigrated to Australia by reading the will of his father. It was a really useful find because that chap had otherwise disappeared like your James.

Anne

John's will is certainly there for looking at in 1863, though given all the research you have done I would be surprised to hear you've not already bought it. At 25 pages it must be very informative. Margaret's is also there in 1894 together with the inventory. If you're right about the James Grieve of course he will still be in Scotland in 1863 but the 1894 will might give something about him. However, I'm sure you've done all of this already.

[claudette]

Hi HeatherH and Anne

Many thanks for all your interest and help with my quest.

There is so much to learn about different countries when you start searching for your relatives in far flung places - but it all adds to the fun (and frustation!)

HeatherH - many thanks to you for searching the censuses for me. Much appreciated.

Anne - many thanks for your tip of sending me back to the wills. I had looked at them when I first started out on this family history research back at the beginning of 2006. Your comment made me go back to them and read them again very carefully. It took some time as John Grieve's will is 25 pages long! Also, as many of you know, some of that Victorian handwriting is pretty difficult to decipher no matter how much you magnify it.

It turns out that a couple of months before James's father died, he changed his will so that James would not inherit anything until he was 25 years old. His 2 older brothers not only inherited their shares long before that, but they were also both trustees of the estate. Now how would you feel if that happened to you?

James turned 25 in February 1869 and I do think it's interesting that this James T. Grieve aged 25 arrived in New York in August 1869. Maybe he had taken the money and run.

I also found out through the will that James's father had 2 half-brothers, Patrick and Mansfield, and a half-sister, Charlotte - same father, different mother. Hadn't taken on board that fact before!

This half-sister, Charlotte along with her husband and son, plus another son born in Ontario in 1858, appear in the 1881 census for Ste-Antoine ward, Montreal, Quebec. So I am having great fun searching for all these ancestors as well now!

Any more suggestions to help me in my searches are always very gratefully received.

Best wishes to you all
Claudette