Two years ago, when we could all still travel, I went to Kings County Nova Scotia very excited. I intended to find a treasure chest of genealogical info, fairly quickly and easily. For 20 years, we had all been wondering if Hannah Susan West Rushton had been born in Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island, and if in Nova Scotia, where? and if in PEI, why? (see West Pedigree chart)
The West name and the Scholfield (Susan's mother) name were very popular in Kings County. I had previously found online a wonderful book called A History of King's County, Nova Scotia, Heart of the Acadian Land, Giving... the title is so long that no one even knows the whole thing. It was written by A. W. H. Eaton in 1910, in that romantic scholarly language of noble souls and stout hearts that historians used 100 years ago. I have ordered it and it is currently en route to my house for some indulgent Christmas reading.
So I happily entered the Kings County Museum in Kentville, NS, to find a....brick wall.
I knew from Mr. Eaton's book that Susan's mother, Pheby Scholfield West, was born into a large, stable, well-documented family headed by Hannah Ward Schofield and Nathan Schofield. One of Pheby's sisters was even named Hannah Susan. I expected to find a marriage record for Pheby and her husband Levi West and birth records, if not for Susan herself, at least for several siblings. And from there, I expected to find Levi's parents, his birth info, and then go back even further.
Sure enough, the Kings County Museum had an entire book on the Schofield family, aka Scofield, Scovil, Scovel, Scoville, etc. (Our family appears to have added the L in the middle when they moved to Cumberland County.) I found the same abundant info on Pheby that was in The History of....Acadian Land, Giving...But no marriage. Not even when the nice genealogist intern searched all the church records. There is a big book on the West family, too, so we searched thru that. Nothing.
Then the nice genealogist intern suggested that Levi West was just a passerby from England or someplace who traveled thru long enough to meet Pheby and then they went somewhere else and got married, never to return. After all, West is not an uncommon name. NO! If that were true, that would call into question the whole Mayflower descendancy and cousinship with Canada founding father Sir Charles Tupper and everything else I thought was true.
By this time the other patrons of the museum were listening to all of this and offering advice. Every one of them had either Wests or Schofields or both in their families.
Finally, we ended up at the simplest strategy and only one left, and that was to enter Levi West in the name database and see what came up. Only 3 Levi Wests: the first one 50 years too old, the next one 100 years too young, and the last one just blank, no info whatsoever.
So when none of the names with info are correct, you take the one who has no info at all, right?
So this Levi West, birth date and place unknown, nothing else known, is a child of Samuel West and Charlotte Schofield West, with 2 brothers. The parents were married in 1804 and the brothers were born in 1810 and 1811. Does that fit with our Levi, who was born between 1806 and 1810? It could possibly be! I notice that one brother went to PEI, and I remember that our Susan may have been born in PEI. Even more promising, and looking like a trip to PEI is in our future.
At this time, one of the patrons says that not only does he have Wests and Schofields in his line, but he thinks that his line could be my line! Garnet Misner offers to go home and get his family tree. Will I still be there in half an hour? Like I could be dragged away!
Incredibly, we now have a long-lost cousin Garnet, and his well-researched descent from Levi's sister Sarah Jane. We now have a wealth of info on Levi's PEI brothers Abner and George and their descendants, which I am happily corroborating.
But we are still left with 2 big IFs:
IF this book, which I foolishly did not write down the title of, is acceptable proof to the Mayflower Society, and
IF this Levi, son of Samuel and Charlotte, is the father of Susan or not!
Stay tuned!
http://www.kingscountymuseum.ca/genealogy/
Comments
Post a Comment