Back to England: the search for my English ancestors who emigrated to Canada

Can you break down my brick wall?

I am writing this blog hoping that it will help me with a brick wall. We all have these challenges in our family trees — points at which we can currently go no further. It might be that the documents we need haven’t survived, that the information we need was never recorded, or that we don’t even know where to look. 

I’d like to find the origins of two of my ancestors, William and Mary RABY, who emigrated from England to Canada about 170 years ago. This is a common challenge for many descendants of immigrants (though in my case, my line returned to the ‘motherland’: my ancestors left England for Ontario in the 1850s but one of their descendants — my grandmother — was born in England three generations later). 

Below, I’ve provided as much information as I can about their origins and their lives in North America.

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My Canada connection

I’ll begin with a succinct description of the family tree that connects me to William and Mary Raby, my 3x great grandparents, who emigrated from England to Waterloo County in Ontario, Canada. Their youngest son, Charles Patrick Raby (1870-?), my 2x great grandfather, was born in Ontario. He married Mary Ann BONN, the daughter of first-generation German* immigrants, Herman Bonn and Juliana KAUFMAN. Charles and Mary Ann Raby had eight children, including Walter Emmanuel Raby (1898-1969), my great grandfather. 

*They immigrated before the unification of Germany; technically, Hermann was from Bayern (Bavaria) and Juliana from Württemberg — both member states of the German Confederation.

In 1923, my great grandmother Annie Margaret MUNDAY emigrated from Buckinghamshire in England to Ontario. By 1926 she was pregnant with Walter Raby’s child — my paternal grandmother, Delia Raby Munday (1927-2012). However, Annie and Walter didn’t marry. Annie returned to England to have her baby and then came back to Canada with my infant grandmother in tow. But in 1928, little Delia made a record-breaking unaccompanied journey back to Bucks, England to be raised by her aunt and uncle. A few years later her mother, still unmarried, also returned to England. And there they both stayed. Despite my granny having no contact with her biological father or his Canadian family  — all she knew was his name — DNA has proven that Walter Raby was indeed her father (and my great grandfather), and with Canadian records I’ve traced my ancestry back to William and Mary, from England, and Herman and Juliana, from Germany. But although I can go back many more generations on my German lines, my Raby roots in England remain a mystery.

William & Mary Raby — records after 1861

I have located William and Mary’s household in the Canadian censuses of 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891. The entries are summarised below:

Year	1861	1871	1881	1891
Location	Woolwich Township, Waterloo County, Ontario	Woolwich, North Waterloo, Ontario	Woolwich, Waterloo North, Ontario	Woolwich, North Waterloo, Ontario
William Raby	Age 38, b. England, farmer	Age 47, b. England, weaver	Age 57, b. England, farmer	Age 67, b. England, farmer
Mary Ann Raby	Age 34, b. England, farmer	Age 44, b. England, farmer	Age 54, b. England	Age 65, b. England
James Raby	Age 10, b. England	Age 20, b. England, at service
Elisabeth(a) Raby	Age 4, b. Canada	Age 14, b. Ontario, at service & attending school
George Raby	Age 2, b. Canada	Age 12, b. Ontario, attending school
Alice Raby		Age 10, b. Ontario, attending school	Age 20, b. Ontario
Emily/Emilia Raby		Age 8, b. Ontario, attending school	Age 17, b. Ontario	(Emilia d. 1882)
Walter Raby			Age 13, b. Ontario, attending school
Anna Raby		Age 7, b. Ontario, attending school
Herbert Raby		Age 5, b. Ontario	Age 15, b. Ontario
Thomas Raby		Age 2, b. Ontario
Charles Raby		Age 6 months (b. Nov 1870), b. Ontario	Age 10, b. Ontario, attending school	Age 21, b. Ontario, son of William
Ronald Raby			Age 3, b. Ontario	Age 13, b. Ontario, ‘son of William’ (but really, he was Wm’s grandson)
Religion	E (not an official abbreviation, but probably denotes CofE)	Church of England	Church of England	Church of England
Origins		English	English	Birthplace of mother and father for all William and Mary’s children was ‘England’
Other details	They had a one-story log cabin, and had one non-family resident (Joseph Allderidge, labourer, b. England, age 28)	Whole family, including babies, are listed as farmers; I have only included that occupation for Mary.	Walter and Charles marked as ‘deaf and dumb’ but I believe that was an error.	All could read and write.

When did they emigrate to Canada?

I have not found William, Mary or James in the 1851 Canada census, which, in Ontario, was actually collected in January 1852. The 1861 and 1871 censuses reveal that James, who appears to be their eldest son (though no relationships were recorded in Canadian censuses until 1881), was born in England in 1850-51. Their next youngest family member (presumed daughter), Elizabeth, was born in Ontario in about 1856. 

Therefore, it would appear that the family arrived in Canada between about 1852 and 1856. Unfortunately, Library and Archives Canada has no comprehensive passenger lists prior to 1865.

In the 1901 Canada census, people were asked to state their year of immigration. However, only three of my Raby ancestors had immigrated to Canada: William, Mary and James. I’ve not been able to find James after 1871, and William and Mary were not in the 1901 Canadian census. That’s because in 1898, they moved to Fitzgerald, Georgia in the United States. 

Clues from Fitzgerald

William Raby died at Fitzgerald, GA on 23 Feb 1905, and the following obituary appeared in the Elmira Signet. I love the thought of William and Mary spending their golden years in the sun!

Former Resident of Woolwich Township Dead

We have received communication from Fitzgerald, Georgia, requesting us to chronicle the demise of Mr. Wm. Raby, who died on Feb 23rd and whose remains were interred in the Evergreen Cemetery of that place. Deceased was born in England on June 26th 1824, emigrated to Galt, and later settled in Woolwich Township, near Elmira, where he lived until 1898, when he removed to Fitzgerald, Georgia, where he spent his last few years very happily in the sunny climate which he greatly enjoyed. He leaves two sons and two daughters who live in Palmerston, Ont, a son in Millband, Ont and two sons in Calgary, N.W.T. Deceased was ill about six weeks and had reached the age of 80 years, 8 months and 27 days.

William’s gravestone in Evergreen Cemetery, Fitzgerald also states that he was born on 26 June 1824, with the additional information that he was born in Lancashire.

Mary died on 12 December 1908, and her gravestone, next to William’s, states that she was born on 13 October 1826 in Staffordshire.

These dates match William and Mary’s consistent ages in censuses.

Two other family members have gravestones in the same cemetery: their daughter ‘Minnie’ (1864-1934), the wife of H. Lambert, and their grandson Ronald Oscar Raby (1878-1974). Minnie was the nickname of Anna, who we saw in the 1871 census.

Both William and Mary were born before Civil Registration began in Britain (in 1837). However, armed with their specific birth dates and birth counties, as well as the name of a son born in England in about 1851, I expected it to be fairly easy to trace them in England. How wrong I was!

The search for James Raby

Given that Mary, the younger of the couple, was born in 1826, I would expect to find a marriage between 1844 (when she was 17-18) and 1852 (a year after James’s birth). Since William and Mary were born in different counties (and not bordering counties), it was possible that they had married anywhere in the UK. And given that their names aren’t uncommon, my starting point was to try to locate them as a family in England in the 1851 census. I would then try to find a record of their marriage and the birth of their son, James, which would also give me Mary’s maiden name. Unfortunately, I could not confidently piece together any records:

• There were no families consisting of William, Mary and James Raby in the UK in  1851, or any of William and Mary that even roughly fitted the ages of my ancestors.
• There was only one registered marriage of a William Raby to a Mary between 1844 and 1852 — in Great Oakley, Northants, 1844 — but his spouse was a Mary Ann and his birth year was about 1821. Moreover, a matching couple (with William b. Great Oakley) could be found in Geddington, Northants in 1861. Despite this, many online trees claim that my William and Mary Raby came from Great Oakley.
• Searches of online databases did not find any baptisms for a James Raby to William/Mary in the right time period.
• The births of five James Rabys were registered between 1849 and 1852. But I was able to rule all of them out.

It was possible that James was a middle name, or that the spelling of his surname was recorded differently, but before continuing the hunt, I explored other ways to find Mary’s maiden name.

Maiden name mayhem

Births in Ontario weren’t routinely registered until after 1869. Only their youngest child, Charles, was born after that date, in about 1870, and his birth doesn’t seem to have been registered. However, marriage records for many of William and Mary’s children in Ontario asked for their mother’s name. Unfortunately, it didn’t specifically ask for her maiden name, and that vagueness is reflected in the information provided. In some of their children’s records, they simply entered ‘Mary Raby’, whereas two marriage records of their children gave other surnames for Mary:

Further conflicting information was found in the death records for two of their daughters who emigrated with them to Georgia, USA: Anne ‘Minnie’ Lambert and Elizabeth McLeon both died in Fitzgerald, Georgia in 1934. Both death certificates record their mother’s maiden name as LEVISON (or, in Elizabeth’s, possibly LEVESON). William and Mary’s son Herbert also died in Georgia, in 1936, but his parents’ names were ‘not known’.

Could William have married two different women called Mary? Given that their first and fifth children both gave the name Levison, with the third giving the name Edge in between, it is unlikely that the different names signify different mothers.

Searching for combinations of Raby with the names LEVISON, EDGE and SAGER in both Canada and the UK produced a surprising and promising result: On 1 December 1856, at Trinity Anglican Church in Galt, Ontario, William Raby of Waterloo had married Mary LEEFSONE of the same place*. According to William’s obituary above, Galt was the place he had first emigrated to. And Leefsone was a soundalike for Levison.

*Witnesses were James BIGNALL, Harriott MOORE and Margaret LYNCH; I have not yet had an opportunity to trace these individuals.

So, it seems that William and Mary had in fact married in Ontario in 1856, making Elizabeth (b. c1857) their first legitimate child. 

The discovery of this marriage meant that James Raby, born five years earlier, was not a legitimate child of William and Mary. Rather, he could have been:

• An illegitimate child of William and Mary
• An illegitimate child of Mary
• A child of either William or Mary from a previous marriage
• Another relationship to William Raby (e.g., younger brother)

There was a good chance, then, that James was not a Raby at birth. However, there wasn’t a viable birth registration in England for James with any of Mary’s possible birth surnames.

Was Mary born Mary LEVISON (or similar), EDGE or SAGER? Unfortunately, the 1856 marriage record in Galt does not state whether Mary was a spinster or a widow. Of the other sources mentioned above, only the death certificates specifically asked for maiden name, and Levison was entered there. However, the names Edge and Sager clearly had significance to their children as well. I note that there are similar letters in those two names, and perhaps they are variants of the same name, with one being having been misheard. Could it in fact have been a name in between, like Sage? 

Their parents lived locally and presumably were present at their marriages — so would their children not have checked with their mother that they had the correct maiden name?

Birthplace confusion

Another problem arises from inconsistent information given by William and Mary’s children about their parents’ birthplaces. 

Both death certificates referenced above state that both parents had been born in England. Various Canadian and US census records that include the birthplace of parents also state that they were both born in England (e.g., Herbert’s census entry in Georgia, USA, 1930 and George’s census entry in Alberta, Canada, 1921).

However, their youngest child, my 2x great grandfather Charles, seemed confused about his parents’ nationalities and his ‘racial’ identity. In 1911 (Perth, ON) he said his racial origin was Irish (as was the racial background of his children, even though his wife was German and he was living with his German mother in law). In 1921 (Barton, ON), the census began to ask where both parents had been born. Charles said that his parents were both from Ireland and that his racial origin was Irish. But in 1931 (Toronto, ON) he stated that his father came from England, his mother was from Ireland, and his racial origin was English.

Given that the majority of census records, especially the ones for William and Mary themselves, say that they both came from England, I assume that is correct. I don’t know why Charles believed his mother was Irish. William’s obituary also reported that he was born in England. And most significantly of all, William and Mary’s headstones gave their birthplaces in particular, different English counties. That seems to me too specific to be wrong. And these pieces of information, albeit presented post mortem, were literally set in stone.

Searching for William Raby in Lancashire

There were three William Rabys of the right age range from Lancashire in the 1841 and 1851 censuses:

• One in Great Eccleston, a brickmaker, was still living there in 1871. 
• One was a cotton pricer and cotton spinner in Chorley. He had a son called James, as well as two other younger children. However, James was a decade older than the one I was looking for. Moreover, this family still lived in Chorley in 1861.
• The most promising candidate was living in Tottington Lower End, within Bury parish, In 1841 he lived with Betty, age 50, and three younger sisters, Jane, Alice and Betty. Significantly, he was a cotton weaver; this connects him to my ancestor, who gave his occupation as ‘weaver’ in 1871. In 1851, this William, now head of household, was a footman, but his sisters, who lived with him, were all power loom cotton weavers. All were born in Bury.
  
  Frustratingly, a William Raby of the right age was a lodger in Bury in 1861 (unmarried) and 1871 (widower). He was born in Bacup and was a bricksetter/ bricklayer, so he doesn’t seem like the same man as the weaver and footman, but since I cannot find a closer match for him prior to 1861, I can’t rule out that they were one and the same person. 

Furthermore, thanks to his sisters’ names, I found a baptism for William, the weaver from Bury, to George Raby and Betty, née Fairbrother — in August 1823, i.e., nearly a year before the birth date that was carved into my ancestor’s gravestone.

It’s possible that William Raby emigrated to Canada prior to 1841. However, I have not been able to find him in the 1851 census of Canada.

Searching for Mary Levison/Edge/Sager in Staffordshire

I’ve not found any Mary Levison/Levinson or other soundalike from Staffordshire. 

There was a Mary Sager, born in Staffordshire, living with a farmer (she was probably a servant) in Wiggington, Tamworth in 1841. Her age, 15, is a match, but because ages in this census were rounded down, she could have been older. I have not been able to locate this young woman, with the same name, in the 1851 census, and there were no marriages of a Mary Sager in that county between 1851-61. However, nine Mary Sagers married in other counties during that decade.

There were numerous candidates for Mary Edge in 1841 and 1851.

Unfortunately, compared with William, it is harder to rule out possible candidates for Mary by finding them in later censuses, since women usually married in their twenties and took on their husbands’ surname.

As an example, in Longnor, 1841 and 1851, one Mary Edge lived with her widowed grandmother, Ann Candy, a farmer. I couldn’t find her in 1861. However, she is probably the Mary Edge who married William Horobin in Macclesfield, Cheshire in 1856 (Mary Horobin in the 1861 census matched Mary Edge’s name and birthplace of Longnor). This is a good example of a woman who married across county lines.

It would be a significant challenge and time-consuming exercise to trace a large number of female candidates forward in time, and I don’t even know my ancestor’s maiden name!

A boarder brings a clue!

It’s always worth examining the less obvious details in records, especially the names of other parties who could be part of an ancestor’s ‘FAN club’ (friends, associates and neighbours).

In 1861, William and Raby’s household included a labourer from England, Joseph ALLDERIDGE, aged 28 (b. c1832).

In the 1841 England census, there were nine Joseph Alldridges (various spellings) b. 1831-3, in seven counties. However, one of these boys stood out:
Joseph Aldridge, age 10, the son of a labourer, in Tamworth, Warwickshire.

I had found a Mary Sager of the right age in Wigginton, Tamworth, Staffs in 1841. Tamworth was in fact on the border of Staffordshire and Warwickshire. The address of Joseph Aldridge in Tamworth was Gungate Street. I was able to locate Upper Gungate on a modern map, and saw that it led directly north out of Tamworth, meeting the Wigginton Road, to Wigginton village. In a nutshell, Mary Sager and Joseph Aldridge lived just a mile from each other. This was surely not a coincidence!

I believe that my ancestor’s birth name was Mary Sager, and that at the age of about 15, in 1841, she was a servant on a farm in Wigginton. Since she lived with her employer, and the 1841 census doesn’t give an exact birthplace, her birthplace and family is still unknown. It’s most likely that she came from Wigginton or Tamworth. But, extremely frustratingly, although Wigginton became an ecclesiastical parish in 1778, its parish registers only begin at 1827, the year after Mary was born. 

My working hypothesis

It seems plausible that Mary Sager emigrated to Canada between 1841 and 1856, where she married a man called Mr Levison. She then married a second time, to William Raby. Through a local or familial connection to Mary, Joseph Aldridge also emigrated to Ontario and became her boarder. James Raby, a relation of William’s, perhaps his younger brother, joined them there as well. If only I could find the hard evidence to cement my theory!

Could DNA help?

As well as traditional family history research, DNA can be a powerful tool for breaking down brick walls. William and Mary’s parents were my 4x great grandparents, and it’s possible that I could have inherited some of their autosomal DNA, and could therefore find matches to distant cousins. 

I have quite a few DNA matches in Canada, and have been able to establish that some were descendants of William and Mary Raby (as well as of Herman and Juliana Bonn). There is work to do here to analyse shared matches, and see if I can zoom in on matches that connect further back, around the 5th cousin level. If William and Mary’s parents and/or siblings had remained in England, their descendants might still be in England as well.

In Ancestry, my dad and I share a match to someone with a Lancashire Raby ancestor whose father was just old enough to be William’s father. Alternatively, he could have been another close relation to William. Her tree contains no sources, and our match is small (she and my dad only share 12cM), so it needs to be approached with caution.

Across several DNA match websites, we share no matches to anyone with an English Sager in their online tree or surname interests.

It’s still early days in my DNA hunt, but I have high hopes …

If you can help me with my brick wall, please do get in touch!