How I Found Norman Parker Smith in Online Records - Pt I

Benjamin and Norman Parker Smith were two of my maternal grandfather's brothers. They died in infancy in 1889 and 1903 in Quebec. Finding their graves was an eight year search that began when I knew absolutely nothing about genealogical research.

When I first realized that, unlike my grandfather and the rest of his siblings, I could not locate Benjamin and Norman's graves, I had no online memberships. I stumbled on interment.net and later findagrave.com, there were free resources at Library and Archives Canada and, of course, there was Google.

Google led me to a cemetery where my great-grandmother's relatives were buried and I had hopes of finding records because the cemetery was associated with a church, but I had no luck. Once I had an Ancestry World membership I was able to search the records of the Insitut Genealogique Drouin who had filmed the civil copies of church books in all denominations in Quebec, but still I found nothing for the babies. The collection did not include the records of that church in Buckingham and somehow Norman Parker had no records that I could find even though he was born after the family had moved to Thetford Mines, about 250 miles to the east. I knew a Canadian research trip was needed but couldn't find the right time. I moved on to other research and genealogy activities.

One day, much to my surprise, Ancestry provided me with a hint about Norman Parker. It was his baptismal record from a church in Montreal, a place that was completely unexpected.

The names and dates in the record were a match, though, and sadly he was baptized only eight days before his death as recorded in the family Bible. I thought that meant his burial record would be in this same church book, but he was not buried from this church.

Years went by again, and it was Spring 2017. The Dean family (also of Quebec) reunion was coming fast. I began researching the children of my 2nd great-grandparents. My great-grandfather and three of his siblings were baptized at the same church, according to church records, but I couldn't find a record for the fifth. Further searches showed that the book for Maggie Dean's likely year of baptism was not in the collection on Ancestry. I knew I wasn't going to make it to Canada for research before the reunion but were there online resources that I was missing? Did someone else have these records online? It dawned on me how much of a beginner I was when I started researching Quebec ancestors and how many records come online every week now. I needed to approach my search like a beginner. I needed to start from scratch but with my eight years of experience behind me.

I remembered the DearMYRTLE Beginner's Series in 2015. Practically the first thing DearMYRTLE mentioned was the Family Search Wiki, which I had turned to since then when researching a new area. And so that is where I went, and the very first link I clicked showed me that it might be possible to find these records from my desk on Long Island. BMS2000 had indexed a baptismal record for Maggie Dean at the Waterville Congregational Church in 1872. I was on my way!

To be continued.