Acadia Mines Family

One of my father's cousins has a photo album that belonged to our Betts ancestors who immigrated to Rhode Island in 1884 from Acadia Mines (now Londonderry), Colchester County, Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, most of the portraits in this album are unidentified although most of the photographer's imprints are from Nova Scotia. One of these is the following group photograph.

unknown group
Acadia Mines, Nova Scotia

On the back of the photograph is the following stamp:

James O'Connell
Photographer
Acadia Mines, N.S.

I need to research when James O'Connell was active in Acadia Mines to more accurately date this early 20th century photo. It appears to show what is probably a family group in front of a small store. Are these Betts or Fulton or Wilson ancestors? Are there city directories from this area? Or can I determine store-keepers from the 1901 Canadian census? Would the Colchester Historical Society have listings of small shop-keepers for this period?  I will publish an update if I can find out any information about this photograph.

Skinner Family

I've been working my way through all the scans and copies of documents I gathered on my trip back east during late July. It's slow going! I'm renaming all the scans and trying to "file" them (digitally) in ways that I can find everything in the future. However, I'm only through the first batch, from the first of my Dad's cousins I visited.  However, this is one of the largest groups of photographs and documents I copied.

My Dad's cousin has a collection of family photographs and documents from several of our ancestral lines. He has the family Bibles from my great and great-great Skinner grandparents and my great-great-great Carpenter grandparents, and also has a large collection from our Betts ancestors. I was lucky to have enough time to finally copy just about everything I wanted. I'll be posting images in the weeks to come.

Here's a gem from Ken's collection of our mutual Skinner ancestors.

My Skinner great-grandparents, their children and grandchildren - 1922
Left to right:
Front row: Frank Skinner, Myrtle Skinner, Ken Skinner, Ralph Grant holding Warren Grant.
Back row: Annie Betts Skinner, Olive Bell Skinner, Harold Skinner, Hazel Skinner Grant

John Francis (Frank) Skinner and Annie Florence Betts had 6 children although one un-named child died  before birth. Here are the family Bible records of their marriage and the births and deaths of their children.

Bible record of the marriage of
John Francis Skinner and Annie Florence Betts
28 December 1891
Valley Falls, RI

 Harold Fulton Skinner
    born Feb. 25th 1892

Harold Lamert Skinner
    Born Jan. 23rd 1893

Florence Hazel Skinner
    Born September 6th 1894

Myrtle Frances Skinner
    Born Feb. 7th 1896

Myrtle Frances Skinner
    Born Jan 7th 1897

As was common during this era, Annie and Frank re-used favorite names for successive children after a child died. Their first son, Harold Fulton Skinner had the middle name of Fulton after his maternal grandmother, Susan Fulton. After he died, Frank and Annie had another son who they also named Harold. This son (pictured above) had the middle name of Lamert, which was the name of a close family friend.  There are two successive daughters named Myrtle Frances Skinner.

Harold Fulton Skinner
    Died July 16th 1892 aged 4 mo. 21 days

Myrtle Frances Skinner
    Died Feb 24th 1896, aged 17 days

My Heritage Pie

I know I'm a little late to this but here is my Heritage Pie. Randy Seaver first blogged about this on
16 July 2011on his Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Your "Heritage Pie" Chart. The following 'pie' shows the distribution of the birthplaces of my 16 great-great-grandparents.

Birthplaces: 8 in Germany, 2 in Canada, 2 in England, and 4 in United States (Rhode Island)

Paternal great-great Grandparents -

Joseph Goff Grant - born 1 Aug 1819, No. Providence, Rhode Island

Lydia Boomer Leach - born 13 May 1827, Warwick, Rhode Island

Ernest Lord Mellor - born 2 Mar 1832, Chadderton, Lancashire, England

Hannah Worthington  - born 7 May 1833, Royton, Lancashire, England

Zophar Skinner  - born 12 Sept 1843, Valley Falls, Rhode Island

Eliza Jane Carpenter  - born 12 April 1847, Coventry, Rhode Island

John William Betts  - born June 1844, Wallace, Nova Scotia, Canada

Susan Fulton - born 13 Feb 1839, Wallace, Nova Scotia, Canada

Maternal great-great-Grandparents -

Johann Martin Veith - born 9 April 1825, Altdorf, Wurttemberg, Germany

Anna Maria Heller - born 4 Oct 1828, Hudlach, Wuttemberg,Germany

Joseph Zeiler - born 21 Dec 1826, Wuttemberg, Germany

Anna Margaretha Mack - born June 1827, Wuttemberg, Germany

Christoph Badendick - born Germany

Friederike Spierling - born Germany

Gottfried Zerull - born 4 March 1812, Garnseedorf, West Prussia

Wilhelamine Kroening - born about 1835 in West Prussia