Seventh Town Historical Society volunteer researcher Darlene Walmsley admits to an obsession. “When I see an old family photograph, I feel compelled to know more about the people in the picture.”

For one photo in the society’s collection, there was very little to go on. All that was written on the back was “George and Matilda Ferguson and family”. In faint pencil on the front were the names of each pictured child. Starting with these clues, and working with census records, George and Matilda were found to be George H. and Sarah Matilda Ferguson of Rawdon. The children proved to be more challenging to find as the pencilled-in names seemed to be family nicknames. Some children were listed on the 1871 census and another group of children were found on the 1881 census – so the conclusion was that the first group of children had left home by the time the 1881 census was taken.

The Ferguson family photo.

Family migration

We were also able to discover some of the family’s movements over the years – living in Rawdon Township before 1871 and Prince Edward County (Consecon and Ameliasburgh) in 1872. By broadening our search through census records, we also learned that one of the sons, Rozel, migrated to Saskatchewan around 1910 and at least three other siblings moved to New York State.

Unexpected discoveries

Ferguson death records from 1872

There was a final, poignant discovery with the mysterious absence of a couple of children who were recorded on the census, but absent from the photo. A little more digging in death records revealed some interesting facts, including the devastating impact of dysentery when the family were living in Ameliasburgh:

• A daughter Sarah was listed on the 1871 Census and died at age 5 on 17 September 1872.
• A son, Arthur (not the Arthur in the photograph), also died at age 3 of dysentery. The Arthur pictured in the photo was born in 1881.
• The children’s grandmother also succumbed to dysentery at that time.

Name variations

The wide variation in name spellings is a common challenge for family researchers – not only were surnames often misspelled by record-keeping authorities, but the common names used by people sometimes did not match their legal or registered name. This family were no exception. We found a reference to a Fergison instead of Ferguson, and with the given names, we found that: Janie was Deborah Jane, Stinson was Louis Stinson, and Mollie was actually Mary Minerva.

Another fairly common practice was to re-use given names – whether due to an early death of a child or other reasons. (An extreme example is how George Foreman named all his children George.)

George and Sarah’s first-born child was Lewis Seymour who was born 6 April 1859 and died 16 Sept 1872. There is a Stinson identified in the photo whom we assume is Lewis Stinson born 4 January 1878. In the 1891 Census there is a Louis aged 13, which seems to be a match. The family had named two of their sons Louis/Lewis. Lewis Stinson also has a WW1 registration with US address. He died 28 Mar 1950 in Clyde, New York, USA.

The Seymour middle name was recycled for their son Henry, who is called Harry in the photo. Complicating things further, another Lewis Stinson Ferguson (no relation to this family) was born to a George Ferguson in PEC in 1884. His mother was Netty Mack.

The name Arthur was given three times: first to the child who died in 1872, another Arthur (George Arthur) who was born in May 1880. This Arthur married Emma Lee in Toronto, and registered for WW1 in Connecticut, USA. The third Arthur (in the photograph) was born in 1881.

It’s said a photo is worth a 1,000 words.  This remarkable photograph surely supports that theory.