Day 7 - Still Orillia, doing some research

We woke up this morning and it was pouring.  A dark gray sort of day, one of those types where it would be very easy to just slip back in between the covers and have a good book and a cup of tea and take naps in between reading and sipping.

But, we are women on a mission, so we got up, got coffee, took showers, did some homework and made breakfast before leaving the motel at 10:00.   Hey! It was raining and its a vacation, so we just moseyed about a bit....

Went back to the cemetery to visit with Nicole and get business cards for our journals.  She gave us a couple very new Brennan stones to look for tomorrow when it isn’t raining, we said good by and thanked her again for the help the cemetery had given us.

Drove back down route 11 to route 400 and into Barrie. We headed to the Barrie Public Library as that is where the Simcoe County branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society is.  Found the library easily and a parking spot right across the road,  Kirsten did a fabulous job parallel parking the Subaru.

We were directed to a back corner room that is filled with books and pamphlets of all sorts.  Some cabinets are locked up and some things are out on shelves.   We hunted around looking for information and it took a little bit to understand what we were looking at.  I’m still relatively new and looking into the Simcoe County info, so felt a little overwhelmed.

A librarian came in to help someone else and we asked for some information about cemetery listings for Orillia and Matchedash area.  She came back hunted with us for a bit and found the information.  

While we were searching, I happened upon a book for Johnstown marriages 1847 - 1869.  Perused down through the index looking for Brennan, Church, Knapp, whatever family name I could think of, saw a Joel Church listed.  Looked up the page and found I had the Wesleyan Methodist transcribed records for Joel Church and Elizabeth Brennan getting married.  WAHOOOOOOOOO!  I hadn’t ever seen this,  I’ve seen copies of Joel Church and Nancy Donahoe his second wife, but nothing about his first wife and I had an about 1855 in my family tree.

We went through all the Orillia and Matchedash cemetery listings and did not find anything for Eliphalet Augustus Brennan and his wife Martha Tallman nor did I find anything for Elsie Brennan and her husband James Steel.

We left the Barrie Public Library after 3 hours and drove back up to Orillia to visit their Public Library.  Found a place to park and walked inside.  We were sent up to the 4th floor and I went to the information desk to find out about any genealogical information or historical books of the area.  I was informed the genealogical room was only opened on Monday and Wednesdays.  

I think I was a little stunned because I had been in touch with a Darcy who had some information for me about James M Brennan and Darcy had never mentioned anything about the genealogy/history room only being opened two days a week.

Well Darcy was standing right there when I asked for information and he had me sit down at a microfiche machine so I could find the James M Brennan information he had an index for.

Still good information, the newspaper I was looking at was from 1882 and it listed the marriage of Emma Brennan to George Leef.  She is a daughter of James M Brennan.

Most of the Brennan info listed in the newspapers was for much later Brennan’s and we didn’t have very much time left before the library closed. 

I asked about the death information about Eliphalet Augustus Brennan or his wife Martha Tallman Brennan and Darcy couldn’t find any information.  He went into Ancestry.com and found many of the things I already knew about.  

What this has shown me is I have a lot more research to do on Eliphalet & Martha Brennan and Elsie Brennan and her  husband James Steel in this area and see what other ideas to come up with, we are most likely going to be back in this area next year, so it gives me a year to dig around.

We are getting ready to leave the Orillia, Ontario info and head off into a non-genealogical part of the trip.  We will be exploring our beloved Algonquin Park for a couple days, chasing for moose, listening for wolves and feeding gray jays from our hand.  It will be nice to have a little down time, sit on the porch of our cabin drinking coffee checking out the loons.... well I’ll tell you about it when it happens.

So far, no call from Glenda about the Brennan info, but I’ll search that group out and see if I can contact them at a later date.