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Messages - T. Michael Sommers

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Canada / Re: Toronto streets, about 1840
« on: Thursday 09 August 12 00:13 BST (UK)  »
In my life, faith and trust tend to go hand in hand.

We seem to be using words differently.  Where you say 'faith' in this context, I would say 'confidence'.  'Faith' implies belief contrary to the evidence, or at least in the absence of evidence.  If your trust is based on faith, then it is also based on contrary evidence.  If your faith is based on trust (and the trust is based on evidence), then it isn't faith, because it is based on evidence.

2
Canada / Re: Toronto streets, about 1840
« on: Wednesday 08 August 12 21:21 BST (UK)  »
Twist it whichever way you wish T. Michael, I stand by what I said.

What did I twist?  No twisting was intended.

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It seems a shame that the OP has been given advice which they seem disinclined to explore, possibly because it doesn't fit in with their thoughts.  I know that if someone had offered me so much help and advice, I would certainly check it out, even if I thought it was a wild goose chase.  Sometimes,  the most unlikely scenario can produce the answers we are looking for.

We must be reading different threads.  No one has refused to check anything out.  Rick's last post simply listed the current guesses as to Ellen's origins, and stated that there was no evidence that favored one over the other.  That is not a refusal to check anything out.

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Personally,  I have to go by faith in certain circumstances, as I know I have my limitations.  I willingly acknowledge and trust the expertise of others who are clearly gifted and experienced individuals to help me out when I'm stuck. 

Faith is one thing; trust is another.  Trust is based on evidence: not just evidence of the competence and good faith on the part of the other person, but also one's own knowledge of the particulars of the case and also of the intrinsic probabilities.

3
Canada / Re: Toronto streets, about 1840
« on: Wednesday 08 August 12 19:07 BST (UK)  »
... after all the help you've been given, and the doubts you have cast on it, I'm not sure what it's going to take to convince you of anything to be frank.

What it will take is evidence.  All the hypotheses put forward are great, and you need some hypotheses to start with in order to have something to test, but a hypothesis is not evidence.  When confronted with multiple hypotheses (and 'none of the above' is always one of them, so it is always multiple), you can't just pick one and say it's true.

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Sometimes we can't have 'absolute proof' of everything we want in this world. 

We can never have absolute proof of anything (outside of mathematics).  We can, however, have evidence.  They are not the same thing.

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Occasionally, we have to go by having faith in those who have greater insight, intuition and expertise than we have ourselves.

Faith is the belief in a proposition despite evidence to the contrary.  Faith does not help the search for truth, historical, scientific, or otherwise.  Science did not start to progress until people lost their faith in Aristotle.

I had planned to say something about the implicit assumption, in the quoted sentence, that a person who asks a question is acknowledging the 'greater insight, intuition and expertise' of those being asked, but the only polite thing I could come up with is that, while asking a question does acknowledge that the asker does not know the answer, it in no way acknowledges a general inferiority to all those who might hear the question.

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Canada / Re: Toronto streets, about 1840
« on: Monday 06 August 12 19:50 BST (UK)  »
When was the first census that showed names of all househod members?
1850.

5
Canada / Re: Toronto streets, about 1840
« on: Saturday 04 August 12 21:43 BST (UK)  »
Hey, you folks who know more about US resources than I do -- is there any chance of finding a death/burial for Robert Lockhart born Nov 1834 in "Canada (Eng)" (both parents born in Scotland), per the 1901 census when he is Robert H (Henderson?) Lockhart, a sexton living in ED 18 1st Precinct New Orleans city Ward 3, Orleans, Louisiana, United States?

I'd check the research guide for Louisiana on FamilySearch (assuming the guides still exist on the new site) to see what kind of records are available.  It varies from state to state, and even at that relatively late date there was still no civil registration in some  places.

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Canada / Re: Toronto streets, about 1840
« on: Saturday 04 August 12 20:45 BST (UK)  »
Fantastic!  Thank you, thank you, Janey.  Elexis.  Whoever came up with that name?  And no wonder we haven't found her before!

And no wonder she changed it to Ellen.

7
Canada / Re: Toronto streets, about 1840
« on: Saturday 04 August 12 20:31 BST (UK)  »
There was another batch of Clazies in Putnam County, which is on the Hudson between Albany and New York.  I have always suspected that the appearance of Clezies in Troy was not unrelated to that fact.

Tell us your connection, TMS!

I come from the branch of the family that went to Baltimore some time between 1812 and 1819.

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In this particular case, there isn't really any Clezie in NY state -- just James Clezie who went there from Toronto and married Ellen Lockhart.

Yes, there were some.  George Oswald Clazey, married to Margaret Hall, is in the 1850 census in Carmel.  George and James were first cousins; their fathers were brothers.

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Canada / Re: Toronto streets, about 1840
« on: Saturday 04 August 12 20:22 BST (UK)  »
Hello, T Michael. If you read the thread and not just the opening post, that is what some of us have surmised (i.e. that William was Ellen Lockhart's father).

The thread is 10 pages long (now 11); if I hold off replying until I've read the whole thing, I'll never remember what I wanted to say.

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William Lockhart married Margaret Henderson in 1811 in Scotland.
In 1850, Margaret is with her new (apparent) spouse, James Cloyd(e) in NY state.
With them is her daughter Mary Dow, born and married in Scotland, and son Robert Lockhart, born in Canada.
Other Lockharts in the area who appear to be her children are John, Margaret and Jane.
So if Ellen was a child of that family, a sibling to the others, there was no question of eloping; she married James Clezie in Rensselaer County, NY state, simply because that was where her mother and siblings lived.

I see no evidence that Ellen was part of this family.

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Ellen Lockhart is not yet in evidence in NY state before the marriage.

Precisely.

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However, her two children William and Margaret are the two names that were as yet unaccounted for in James Clezie's family. The names match the couple described above.

We, or at least I, know nothing of James's mother's family, or of his paternal grandmother's family.  The unaccounted-for names could very well have come from there.  William and Margaret are such common names (the Clazies are inordinately fond of them) that little can be deduced from their presence.

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Canada / Re: Toronto streets, about 1840
« on: Saturday 04 August 12 20:12 BST (UK)  »
What proof do you have that George was James' father and his mother Jane Lockie?  Marriage certificate didn't have parents - did his death certificate?

You are assuming that the passenger list for Mrs. Clazie and 3 children in 1832 are yours and that James emigrated with his parents.  Do you have any indication of his parents in Canada or the U.S.?

A number of people have been researching the Clazies (however spelt) for some time.  Nearly every Clazie found has been fit into a single family descended from a William Clasie who first appears in a baptismal record for a son dated 1670 in Berwick (see http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=tms2&id=I3120).  Of course, there will be mistakes, but it is not likely that anyone of that name will pop up out of nothing.  Enough is known about the family as a whole it is relatively easy to narrow down the possibilities for a Mrs. Clazie and 3 children to the point that only one makes sense.

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