Browns from Barkerville

Doing genealogy requires you to be part sleuth and part blood hound. After 38 years and a Masters in Library Science I’m still learning new tricks on how to do research.  If you listen carefully to how someone else found their ancestors you can pick up clues on how to do your own research. I’m a member of the South Cariboo Genealogy Group. On Thursdays from 10-1 I volunteer helping other people doing their family history. We have a small library, but the public library, where we are located, also offers free access to Ancestry, the major holder of records worldwide you can access online. There is also several other online genealogy services, familysearch.com, findmypast.com and individual countries provide access, some for free and some for a small fee.

Let’s get started with Maria Catharina Moeckel, who you say? Ah, that would be Maria Catharine Brown, my great grandmother. My grandmother was Mary Louise Tegart, her daughter. So now you figure out where you are on the tree.

Let’s start with the family and how I missed a major clue for a couple of decades. You can access the Canadian Census for 1881 at Archives Canada. The Browns had been living in Barkerville for ? By 1891 they were in Victoria, but returned to Barkville in 1894, two years before Henry Brown died. I was delighted to find them on the 1881 Census

Brown, Henry 31 Germany

Catharine 28 Germany

Annie  7 US

Katie 6 US

Elizabeth 5 BC

Emman 3 BC

Mary 1, BC

Mickel, Mary K. 51 Germany

Mary 13 Germany

I want you to pay very close attention to the name Mickel, because when I ordered Catharine’s marriage certificate for her second marriage to John Parter Fraser in 1898 it gave her maiden name as Michael. Which then made sense that the women also listed with the family was actually Catharine’s mother. So with a little bit of luck it was off to Germany with the name, thank heavens for soundex, which provides search capabilities for names that sound similar, but spelled differently.

And now you have two more generations.

Maria Catharina Moeckel born 27 November 1852; Evangelisch, Langenhain, Oberhessen, Hesse-Darmstadt. Father: Johann Heinrich Moeckel and Mother: Maria Katharina Werner.
Stay tuned, for more information on Johan and Maria and an interesting note on a birth certificate.

Winter Research

Crunchy snow at 6 AM, black dog with snow bound nose as she looks for a place to do her business, me huddled in boots, jogging pants and my warm dark blue jacket. After five months we have this down to rocket science, because we both know what comes next; for Molly it’s breakfast and a warm bed beside the woodstove, for me it’s a hot cup of coffee, some soft music or CBC and a few hours to contemplate life with my husband, but this morning he is away on his last business trip before retiring. So, while I have a few hours on my own, I thought it would be a good idea to contemplate some of the research I’ve been doing on my mother’s family. I know, I’m really researching working on the Hudson Bay Company, but for the past few months I’ve done a side step, to begin weaving two families together. 

Unfortunately, once again I’ve found of the two lineages that came to the Pacific Northwest there are very few or none of us left. George Edward Prosser, my mother’s father, was born in Manitoba while his father was serving with the Northwest Mounted Police. It seems his father, Samuel Nevers Prosser from New Brunswick and his mother, Mary Jane Martin from Aroostook Maine travelled back and forth. If we think young people today can’t settle down, all I can say is these people didn’t stay in one place too awfully long! They seem to trapeze back and forth to Maine a few times. Mary’s brother Charles B. Martin and her sister Laura (Routh) came to King County in Washington State. George’s father Samuel’s last days were spent in Custer Montana and his brother Ezra (easy name to research) was in the Portland Oregon area.

On the 1921 Canada census I found my grandfather George Prosser working as a butcher in Clinton. Great time to discover this, now I have to wait until summer to visit the local museum in Clinton. My grandmother, Dora (Manson) Prosser was in Vancouver with my mother Maxine. Travel was possible by train from Clinton from 1916 to Squamish and then by steamship to Vancouver. It wasn’t until 1918 that the government of John Oliver stepped in to push the railway through to William’s Lake and open up the Cariboo. So travel to Vancouver became relatively easy for my family. My mother, Maxine use to regale me with stories of going off to Vancouver. I can remember when a round trip cost $12 and you could see some of the most specular scenery the province has to offer. In later years, I would sleep most of the five hours or delve into a good book, but the tourists were treated to great discussions with the conductors that always brought a smile to my face.

Winter is not something to be endured; rather it is a time for contemplation, warm fires and lots of steaming cups of coffee. Come spring, it will be time to move soil, bring out all the gardening tools not to mention sorting through camping equipment and time for family research and writing will have to wait once again. It is only early December and spring is at least four months away.