SEARCHING FOR MY 2nd GREAT GRANDFATHER, THOMAS CAIL, BORN IN PINE RIDGE, NEW BRUNSWICK IN THE MID-1800s

This is a continuation of my search from last month. However, I am going to focus solely on the search for Dora’s biological father today. To help you understand how I came to my reasoning regarding who her father may be, I started with information directly from Dora. When she married her second husband, George Wilson in 1934 she listed her father as being Thomas Cail, born in Pine Ridge, Kent County, New Brunswick. This is interesting because on the marriage record to her first husband she had listed her parents as William and Maria (Ward) Black, who were her adopted parents. How peculiar that thirty-one years later she had listed Thomas Cail as her father along with Jane Ward as her mother, who I know from her Late Registration of Birth is Dora’s mother. Since we know Jane is Dora’s biological mother, it makes sense that Thomas Cail is her biological father. As well, since her father’s name is not listed on Dora’s Late Registration of Birth, I believe it is probable that Jane and Thomas were not married. A search for a marriage record between the two did not produce any results, nor did I find any other records to back up the idea that they were married.

Since Dora was born in 1883, I decided to search the 1881 census, specifically in New Brunswick, for Thomas Cail. This produced five results, three of which were in the right age range to have most likely fathered a child. Those three are:

1.       Thomas Kail, 21, Farmer, living in Weldford with his parents, Jonathan and Euphemia, and siblings, James, William and Frederick.

2.       Thomas Cail, 28, Farmer, living in Weldford with his wife, Jane, and children, James and Loria J.

3.       Thomas Cail, 28, Farmer, living in Weldford with a Sarah (23), both Thomas and Sarah have an M under marital status, a Jessie (20 yrs) and another Jessie (57 yrs) who is widowed.

My next step was to search each of these Thomas Cails, especially the second one, whose wife’s name is Jane to see if it was Jane Ward. This is what I pieced together:

1.       Thomas Kail on other records was spelled Cail. His full name is Thomas Burgess Cail and his parents are Jonathan Cail and Euphemia Burgess. Thomas was born December 1860 in New Brunswick. He married Agnes Lawson on September 30, 1886 in Brown’s Yard, Main River, Kent County, NB. Although their marriage record states they were married in 1886, their son, Frederick’s Late Registration of Birth states he was born August 25, 1883 in Brown’s Yard, Kent County, NB. In the 1891 census the family was living in Pine Ridge, Kent County, NB.

2.       Thomas William Cail, born January 10, 1855 in New Brunswick. His parents are Thomas W. Cail and Jessie Irving. He married Jane WALKER, date unknown, and they had their first child, James Walker Cail on October 14, 1876 in New Brunswick.

3.       Thomas Edward Cail, born March 12, 1859 in Kent County, NB. His parents are George W. Cail and Jessie Girvan. After much research I’ve come to the conclusion that the 1881 census has Thomas and Sarah wrongly listed as married. I believe Sarah (23) and Jessie (20) are his sisters, and Jessie (57 and widowed) is their mother. Thomas married Emily McLeod Sullivan on September 22, 1885. Emily died in 1913, and Thomas remarried on October 20, 1915 to Sarah Jane Walker, 48 yrs, spinster. According to his children’s birth records they lived in Pine Ridge, Kent County, NB in May 1887, April 1889, March 1891.

Once I had fleshed out my three candidates’ lives a little more, I was still unable to pinpoint which one Dora’s biological father is. Making it even more challenging is that once I pieced their families together, I traced them all back to one source, their grandparents, Jonathan and Christable Cail. All three Thomas Cails are first cousins. I had expected them to be related, so that wasn’t a surprise, but I had hoped that they would have been a little more spread out geographically to help me figure out who the correct Thomas Cail is that way. Firstly, they were all in Weldford, Kent County. Secondly, to give you an idea of how small Weldford is, Cails Mills, which is where Dora was born is less than 8 km from Pine Ridge.

So, then I decided to look at how close each of them lived to Dora’s adopted family, as well as any Ward families that may be relatives of Dora’s biological mother, Jane Ward.

The family who will adopt Dora some time after the 1891 census and before the 1901 census are listed in the 1881 census as living in Division 3 of Weldford, Kent County, NB. The only Thomas Cail also listed in Division 3 on the 1881 census is Thomas William Cail. Here is the proximity of Thomas William Cail to them as well as the other Black and Ward families in that division:

·         P.11 – House #43 WARD, GRAHAM, WARD, (3 families at 1 dwelling)

·         P.12 – House #44 BLACK

·         P.13 – House #46 WARD

·         P.13 – House #47 WARD

·         P.13 – House #48 BLACK, William, Ann M, George B & William (Dora’s adoptive family on 1901 census)

·         P.16 – House #57 CAIL, Thomas (William) (28), Jane (24), James (4), Loria J (2)

Interesting thing to note here, which I won’t go into in this post since I’m only focusing on the Cail line right now, is that the family on p. 11, House #43 is Dora’s adopted mother, Anne M Black’s family. It is two of her brothers and their wives, as well as her parents, all living at the same dwelling.

The other two Thomas Cails are listed in the 1881 census in Division 2 of Weldford County:

·         P.3 – House #12 BLACK

·         P.4 – House #21 KAIL, Jonathan, Euphemia, James, William, Thomas (Burgess) (21), Frederick

·         P.7 – House #35 BLACK

·         P.10 – House #52 BLACK

·         P.38 – House #192 CAIL Thomas (Edward) (24), Sarah, Jessie (20), Jessie (57, W)

·         P.42 – HOUSE #288 Gordon family has an Eliza WARD (19) living with them, no relation or occupation stated

Based on these findings I feel my best lead is Thomas William Cail, however, without more information this will be a challenge to figure out. I have known of one DNA relative from the Cail line for a few years now, and I recently discovered another DNA relative to compare with. I will discuss that more in my next post.

In the meantime, if you are a descendant of the Cail line in New Brunswick, especially if you are a descendant of a Thomas Cail from New Brunswick, I would love to hear from you!

If you aren’t connected to the Cail family, but know someone with the surname Cail who has root in New Brunswick, please share this post with them!

Thank you! And… Happy hunting, fellow gene geeks!


SOURCES:

·         Daniel F. Johnson’s New Brunswick Newspaper Vital Statistics, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

·         New Brunswick Cemeteries, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

·         Place Names of New Brunswick: Where is Home? New Brunswick Communities Past and Present, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

·         Vital Statistics from Government Records (RS141), Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

·        1861 Census of Canada, Library and Archives Canada

·        1871 Census of Canada, Library and Archives Canada

·        1881 Census of Canada, Library and Archives Canada

·        1891 Census of Canada, Library and Archives Canada

·        1901 Census of Canada, Library and Archives Canada

·        Automatedgenealogy.com

·        Ancestry.ca