A Foster Child in Nova Scotia

[carricknew]

New Information!

I have found George and Mary Ann's grave stone and Mary Ann is listed as Mary Ann Brown on it.

So I think possibly she is Jame's actual mother and George is a step father - not a foster father as it says on his death certificate.

Still doesn't explain why he left them both off his marriage cert...

[J.J.]

There is also no explanation for the surname of the mother being Sullivan if she's a Brown.

I suppose if there was no marriage of George Martin to Mary Ann then the acting father could have been said to foster the child in the true sense of the word..."foster father"

Here is an area well populated with Brown & Sullivan ...and on this page a Mary Ann was claimed to be in household but then scratched out!
Elizabeth Brown 54    Mary Ann  31?    Susan 17   Mathew 17   Margaret 14   Alvaretta   5
http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/1871/jpg/4396281_00323.jpg

[J.J.]

Sorry, I see now that the above Mary Anne appears to have married a George Fox...
https://www.novascotiagenealogy.com/ItemView.aspx?ImageFile=1814-23&Event=marriage&ID=40598

Mind you I looked for them in 1871 and cannot see them...also one must wonder why she'd been scribbled in several years after she'd been married, had the marriage not worked out? A possibility to look into, then?

[carricknew]

Hi JJ,

Thanks for your reply. I was surprised to get any after such a long time.

In regards to the grave stone, I was working on the assumption that maybe MaryAnn was a Sullivan (maiden name) and married a Brown - had James and then re-married to George Martin. Which might explain the grave stone.
It's interesting that you suggest they were never married - I hadn't thought of that before. I have never found a marriage certificate for them, but just assumed that it had never been scanned or something - I also have never found a birth record for James.
I thought before that maybe MaryAnn had been married and the marriage didn't work out. I did a small bit of research on it and discovered that in those days if you wanted a divorce they werre pretty well documented (had to write to the paper and name and shame your other half) and I have never found any evidence of this.
It's still soemthing I look in to often but never seem to get anywhere with. I'm always hoping to find someone else researching the Browns or Sullivans who know of the family but it hasn't happened yet.
I am pretty sure MaryAnn is Jame's real mother (thought it doesn't explain leaving their names off his marriage cert) and possibly she remarried. But I don't know for sure

[polarbear]

Hello. Some food for thought .....

I was wondering if you had looked sideways and followed Alveretta forward? She is with Mary Ann and George Martin in the 1881 Census but it looks like she might be the same Alveretta who is with Elizabeth Brown and named as Brown in the 1871 Census. It is too bad relationships are not given but surely Elizabeth would have been too old to be her mother, although not entirely impossible, of course; she is possibly her grandmother though? Marriage and death info for Alveretta may provide the info that was missing from the certs for James.

PB

[J.J.]

Good one, polarbear, I had not looked closely at the age rage of Elizabeth to Alveretta, just to Mary anne... I had checked the 1881 & it only gave me an Alveretta Brown in Ontario 1881...
 (Whose eldest sister was born in Nova Scotia so something to look into, carricknew,  if this bunch is yours...) or are you saying she was now a Martin? That would indeed make sense then that she might also be an offspring...

adding: I'll post the 1881 where she is now surname Martin  http://data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/e/e325/e008116937.jpg
So the mother may have been married to a Sullivan, ( Mary Anne was down as Scottish ancestry 1871) then a Brown, the children taking on the surname. I'll look around for the marriage for Alveretta, silly me I was looking under Brown...

[polarbear]

Thanks J.J.

I think Alveretta could have married under either Brown or Martin. Forgot about the possible Sullivan connection ... another possibility? With a name like Alveretta, she should hopefully be easy to trace.

PB

[J.J.]

Must apologize to cosmac  as she had posted the 1881 information, and I should have reread the thread to make the connection ...but I guess it still all came about in a roundabout way...

Alveretta is proving harder to find than I'd thought...I also cannot find children to confirm parents of Mathew, Susan, etc...

[J.J.]

I may have found her birth, though....unnamed female baby, mother Mary... birth Aug. 5th1866 Manchester, Guysborough, Nova Scotia  https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F2W3-6RP

also found a marriage for sister Susan Brown & James William Sullivan married 1871 in Guysborough County, her parents Matthew and Elizabeth (same as Mary Ann stated when she married George Fox 2 February 1868/St. Of Canso, Guysboro, Nova Scotia)
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F2KG-V4Y

Her death has mother's surname but hard to read Derl/Darl?
https://www.novascotiagenealogy.com/ItemView.aspx?ImageFile=122-1162&Event=death&ID=207551