Searching for Later Traces

of a

Boy Born in Brockville, Ont., 1902

The facts as presented:

An Ontario provincial birth registration showed that a boy was born near Brockville, Leeds & Grenville County, in mid-February, 1902. His mother and father were identified by name. But, all traces of the boy and his parents between 1902 and 1921, when the boy was enumerated within an older couple's household many miles away, were hidden. The boy's life after 1921 was well documented. When the boy married in the home of the older couple on Amherst Island, Lennox & Addington County, Ontario, he gave his mother's full name as something different than his birth registration showed.

The challenge:

Could anything more be discovered about the boy's life between 1902 and 1921. And, could any facts be unearthed about either of the boy's natural parents?

The results:

Over the course of several months, the boy's birth was found to have been remarked as having been 'illegitimate'. An early candidate to be the boy's mother was identified in an Athens, Ontario, Census of Canada schedule from 1911. Her origins were recorded as 'USA', and subsequent investigation confirmed her identity and circumstances at the time of the boy's birth. A great deal of tangential and considered sleuthing eventually established the boy's circumstances in 1911. He had been separated from his mother for quite some time, and was living in a place quite some distance from where she was residing. Additional investigation highlighted the family of a youth who had also been enumerated with the boy in the older couple's household in 1921, to the extent that common circumstances were established for both boys in the 1911 to 1921 period. Baptismal records were found for both boys, in registers at the Anglican Diocese of Ontario Archives, in Kingston, dated probably from about the time of their entry in to the older couple's household. With a great deal of very pointed and directed investigation, it was concluded that the mother probably misrepresented her maiden surname when the boy was born, and that she probably provided a fictitious father's name when she registered her son's birth in 1902. No traces of the mother have been found anywhere in Canada or the US, in records created after 1911, under any combination or variation of the names and other details she provided at the time of her son's birth, and at the time of her admission to the Leeds County House of Industry shortly thereafter, or for names and details provided by the 'boy' when he married.