I Still Want to be a Mayflower Descendant - Chopping Branches off the Tree - Part 13

 Last year's episode of Anne Searching for Ancestors in Nova Scotia ended with our missing links in the Mayflower Descent still missing.  As you will remember, the descent of Passenger Richard Warren on down to Planter Samuel West is proven.  My documents of my 2xgreat-grandmother Susan West Rushton down to me are solid.  It's how we get from Samuel to Susan that's the problem.

1782	1804	1810 & 11	1853	1854-1875	1861 & 71	1881	1891	1901	1911	19 18
Saml born	Samuel marries	Samuel has kids
					Levi lives in Roslin w wife and kids	Levi lives in Kings Co   w son
			Susan marries	Susan has kids	Susan lives in Roslin w husb and kids	Susan lives in Roslin w husb and kids	Susan lives in Roslin w husb and kids	Susan lives in Springhill w dau	Susan lives in Roslin w son	Sus dies

You can see from this chart what we are missing.  Samuel never lives anywhere nor dies; his son Levi is neither born nor dies but is alive sometime; and Levi's daughter Susan is never born but does live and die.

I have searched every record imaginable, and am now reduced to following breadcrumbs.  The genealogists at the historical societies say that the records from this time period are so sparse that I will have to find my proof from somebody's diary or Bible that they happened to donate to the society.

Last year Cousin Debbie and I followed the breadcrumbs to Prince Edward Island - specifically, we knew that Levi's brothers lived there for many years, so why not Levi?  And some records say Susan was born there.  The only crumb we found was that somebody thought Levi was in PEI in 1831 and wrote him 3 letters, which he never picked up.

But we did gain a lot of valuable background info to support our thesis that Levi and his wife Pheby went to PEI long enough for Susan to be born and then returned to Nova Scotia.  1. There was massive migration into PEI at that time from Nova Scotia and elsewhere but no records were kept and 2. Sooner or later, the farmers who wanted to settle in PEI ended up leaving because they couldn't own their own land.  

This year's breadcrumbs led me to the New Brunswick Archives, because Levi's brothers George and Abner relocated there from PEI.  I thought, Why not?  If you don't look for a diary or Bible, you won't find one.  (No, I didn't find one.)  Some years ago, someone had put a tantalizing clue on https://www.findagrave.com/ which has since been taken down -- that a paper written on the History of George West indicated he had several brothers.

 I think this is the History of George West referred to, as the archivists couldn't find anything else similar - it doesn't mention any brothers, so that's falseby Vonda Adams

The clue sounds like the Three Little Pigs -- one brother, Alfred, built a house of straw on Coles Island; the second brother, John, built a house of sticks in Hillsboro; and the third brother, nameless, built his house of bricks in Woodstock.  All these places are in New Brunswick.

Coles Island, center; Woodstock to northwest; Moncton and Hillsborough to northeast; Nova Scotia across bay to southeast

So I set out to prove who the three brothers were and how they are either related to us or to someone else.  I spent two days in the Archives with their very helpful staff reminding myself how much I hate microfilm and learning everything there is to know about every West in New Brunswick.  The George West and Descendants book doesn't actually say that Abner and George have any brothers at all - no Levi or anyone else.  But we are following every breadcrumb to the end of its trail.

I read a lovely romance about the first settlers of Coles Island.  Little Pig Bro #1, Alfred West, moved there. His name is really Joseph Alfred West and he was born in 1862, way too late to be a brother to Levi & Co. Alfred is the son of John Jackson West, who is the right age to be Levi's brother, except that he was born in England.  That whole family came to New Brunswick from England around 1832. 

Brother #2, John West, matches a John W. West who was born in Hopewell, close to Hillsboro, in 1825.  He died very young and likely that caused his wife and kids to move to Maine. I don't know who his parents were, but it is more likely than not that he is the John who is the son of Rosalinda and Enoch West born in the same year in the same county.

I searched for a Brother West #3 who went to Woodstock.  That man would be poor Edward West, who is way too old to be Levi's brother.  Poor Edward married poor Sally Barker in Fredericton, who died and left him 4 small children.  At some point the family moved to Woodstock, where the children grew up and married.  In Woodstock, they died young or their spouses died young, but either way, Edward had a bunch of small orphaned grandchildren too.

So after crossing off Little Pig West Brothers #1, 2, and 3, we are back where we started, except now we have definite evidence that there is no one in New Brunswick who casually mentioned their brother Levi in their diary.

Possibly you remember that I posted the following on July 26 2022 in I Still Want to be a Mayflower Descendant Part 11:The township book stops mentioning Samuel's family, just to hide from me.  On the other hand, a West Lines book by Margaret Adelia Ells indicates that Charlotte and Samuel had 3 children:  Abner and George born in Cornwallis in 1809 and 1811, and Levi.  Note the lack of information for Levi!  

Where did Margaret Adelia get her info from?  I think from later records where Abner and George gave their birth info because they wanted their descendants to find them.   Abner and George probably said they had a brother named Levi. 

I found out that this is true!  All the info that Margaret Adelia got came from family historians who were kin to Abner and George.  I met a very nice cousin who wants to remain anonymous; I'll call her  Georgina.  She said she knew older relatives, amateur genealogists who gathered their info from writing to each other asking questions.  Yes, that's how we did it in the olden days before there was an Internet. These lovely ladies didn't even have the ability to travel to archives.  I found the motherlode!  One of these delightful detectives, Nellie Greene Fox, donated her binder of correspondence to the Kings County Historical Society. Thank you Nellie!  Now we can tell what they were thinking as they researched and decided what direction to pursue.

Some discouraging info is that Levi's mother Charlotte, who has an obituary in PEI saying she died in Truro, Nova Scotia, in 1868, has no obituary or any other record there.  Truro's archivists say that means she was only passing thru and had no family there.  They directed me towards PEI, and we already know there is nothing there.

Also, multiple archivists told me that Baptists kept little or no records.  A Baptist preacher was itinerant.  He traveled from parish to parish, baptizing and marrying as he went.  Keeping records was a personal choice, so only those with Type A personalities wrote things down and dragged them along to the next settlement.  Any such record is now in the attic of one of the preacher's descendants, providing they haven't thrown them away in the last 200 years (see above, Type A personality).This is a factor of the Great Awakening in North America, an explosion of religious interest in personal salvation that reached Nova Scotia in the late 1700s.  The Baptists especially sprang up everywhere as preachers traveled the land inspiring the people and starting new congregations.  These new groups didn't have stationary buildings in the beginning.  The records they wrote don't indicate, for instance, in what church or even town people were married in.  Instead they reference who performed the ceremony.

I did learn that there was a triangle of ties among Moncton in Westmoreland County, New Brunswick; Cumberland County, Nova Scotia; and Prince Edward Island.  People traveled often, settled and re-settled, in this triangle.  That lends more support to our theory of the 3 brothers --- George and Abner settled in PEI and re-settled in Moncton, while Levi left Cumberland to try out PEI and then returned.

This map of PEI shows the triangle:  PEI in green; Moncton, New Brunswick in orange; and Cumberland County, Nova Scotia in yellow.  The Wests lived near Summerside when in PEI.  Abner and George lived in Dundas and Moncton when in New Brunswick.  Levi lived in the Pugwash/Oxford area when in Nova Scotia.

So, no more info on Levi the Missing Link.  But we are not without results.  This time, instead of adding to the family tree, we chopped off branches that didn't belong.  That is valuable too.

References:

Notes on the Wests of Coles Island, a Manuscript and a Placemat, 1981, Manuscript Collection (MC72), Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB   

W.J. West, The Wests of Coles Island, the story of a family, 227 pages.  MC2966 Norman Dixon fonds, West, file 13A12, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB   

Vonda M. Adams, The West families: George West 1811-1891 and descendants, Manuscript Collection, MC80/2055, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB 

West, Family Profiles, First Families, https://nbgs.ca/cpage.php?pt=428

Censuses of Canada, 1851, 1861, 1871, New Brunswick, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB 

Ken Kanner, Early families revisited, page 320, Manuscript Collection MC80/1790, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB

Purdy-Carter genealogical collection, MC2852, MS1A: on microfilm F20981; see sheet for Samuel West, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB 

Personal Notes of Nellie Fox, West #1, GY.WEST.1, Kings County Museum, Kentville, Nova Scotia

Summerside Journal, Obituary of Mrs. Charlotte West, April 1 1869, p. 3, Prince Edward Island,  https://islandnewspapers.ca/islandora/object/summersidejournal%3A18690401

Colchester Historeum, 29 Young Street, Truro, Nova Scotia

https://www.reformedreader.org/history/benedict/baptistdenomination/novascotianewbrunswick.htm

www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/great-awakening