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Subject: Re: [TGF] Name Variation, a name change or a priest who can't spell
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2012 17:03:45 -0400 (EDT)



Nora wrote:

>I have looked at the records at FamilySearch. For the most part the
handwriting appears very neat and very consistent. It appears to me that
the priest, Fr. Smith, made a neat copy of his records into this
register at some point. He then went back and signed each record with a
thicker pen, or darker ink, in larger handwriting. This "copying over"
introduces the possibility that he made transcription errors. In fact,
regarding the entry of Denis' baptism, the previous record is the
baptism of James, son of Wm. Quinn and Catherine Mackey. I would argue
that the surname "Quinn" for Hugh was caused by Fr. Smith losing track
of where he was in the old record while copying into the book. Also note
the entry for the baptism of Margaret McGuire, two records up from
James'. One of her godparents was named Anne Kesidy [Cassidy]. I'm sure
we could find many similar variations.<




As I was reading this I remembered that the original church, built from
wood in 1825 was destroyed by fire in 1847 and a new stone church was built
in 1858. Fr. Smith was the first priest to live in Richmond and was there
from 1839 to 1849. The earliest register that is available for St. Philips,
which the church labeled as no. 1 begins with a baptism dated 1 December 1836
and is signed by Fr. Smith. A case could be made that after the fire in
1847 Fr. Smith copied a burned or damaged register into a new register
recovering the records from 1 December 1836. Fr. Smiths tour of duty comes from
the book "St. Philip's Roman Catholic Cemetery," published by the Ontario
Genealogical Society, updated in 1996. "...the community were tended to
spiritually by itinerant priests...Fathers Heron and Cullen, who served these
needs in the early days, were followed by the Reverend T Smith, the first
priest to take up residence in Richmond and the incumbent from 1839 to 1849."


Ann Gilchrest

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