Adopted in Kingston
-
Searching for a Boy's
Natural Parents
1858-1861
The facts as presented:
Several records provided a birth date (1858) and birth-place (Kingston) for a boy who grew up in Camden Township, Lennox & Addington County, Canada West. A document created in the 1890s revealed that the boy had been adopted. Much was known about the adoptive family, and about the boy's later life and relations. But, only some quite unsubstantiated clues concerning the boy's natural parents were presented.
The challenge:
Could anything be discovered about this boy's natural parents?
The results:
All surviving baptismal records (Anglican, Roman Catholic & Presbyterian) from the City of Kingston and immediately surrounding area (the Townships of Kingston, Loughborough, Pittsburgh, and Storrington) were searched. Knowing only the boy's adopted surname limited the potential, but all events recorded around the known date of birth were examined in detail. City Directories and 1861 Census of Canada West schedules from the City and immediatelly surrounding area were consulted, to discover if any likely individuals fit the bill as possible parent candidates. Considering that the birth-mother might have died in childbirth, all extant death and burial records from the City and the immediate surrounding area were surveyed. Records from the only Orphanage that was operating in Kingston in the late 1850s were surveyed, as were a host of other records that seemed to offer potential. In the end, it was considered that the boy had been adopted very early in his life - at least by the time he was one and one half years of age. His adoptive parents had been childless after almost 10 years of life together, and may have given the boy new forenames as well as a new surname - perhaps reflecting the adoptive parents' religious convictions! Disappointingly, it was reported that no record of the boy's birth or baptism was found, and that no identification of the birth parents was possible, given what was known at that moment. DNA matching was suggested as the only other option for potentially identifying either of the birth parents, even though the odds of finding a 'match' at any level, through either Y-DNA or Autosomal DNA, were probably quite low at this time.
- - - - Project #210906 (completed 7 October 2021)