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July 30, 2012

Found! Treasure Trove of Land Documents from Ontario Canada

Orphan Land Documents & Will
While on a short vacation in Ontario recently, hubs and I visited a few antique stores. I found quite a treasure at one - dozens of old land documents dating back to 1849!

Of course I couldn't pass them by so I purchased the lot. I have an overpowering urge to save and archive these kinds of old documents. I can't see them lost.

So my plan is to go through them one by one and blog about each one here on Olive Tree Genealogy. Perhaps a descendant will see a record of an ancestor. If I'm really lucky a descendant will stumble on one that I write about and want to own it. I don't want to keep these papers, I just want to be sure they are preserved and passed on to others. 

A quick glance shows that these documents are mainly land records (Mortgages, Deeds, Instruments etc) for Richmond Township, Lennox & Addington Counties, Ontario Canada. One of the documents is an original will from 1849. One that I looked at (yes I was too curious to wait!) was sent from USA but I haven't read it to know what it's about.

A few of the surnames I spotted at first glace on the outside of the documents are:
Carscallen, Dennison, O'Ray, Walker, Hall, Davis, Jemmett, Windover, Winter, Hall, Wilson, Williams, Wilde, Andrews, McQuaig, Parks & Jackson.

The original will from 1849 is for William Parks of Richmond Township.  I'm really excited to extract the names of his heirs from that document. There are approximately 20 documents dating from 1849 to 1938 but there may be more as I saw loose papers tucked inside documents.

Now I'm going to start archiving this genealogy treasure trove and placing the documents in archival holders. Eventually I'll do a bit of research on each name. If any readers are involved with Lennox & Addington Counties mailing lists or message boards, please let them know that this set of genealogy documents is coming online.


11 comments:

Writer's Desk said...

well done! Fantastic find!

Kelli Taylor said...

Wonderful - I am sure they will benefit someone's research!

Kelli Taylor said...

Wonderful - I am sure they will benefit someone's research!

Celia Lewis said...

Fabulous find - glad you saved them. And hopefully, they'll make their way to their homes, eventually. Treasures!

PalmsRV said...

Looking forward to seeing your finds profiled on the blog!

Heather Wilkinson Rojo said...

I'm glad you bought them all, and not only that, you are going to blog about them, which will make all the names available to search engines. I saw a drawer full of bank books and mortgage applications at an antique store recently, and didn't buy them. I've been kicking myself ever since. You just made me feel better!

Lennox and Addington Historical Society said...

Lovely to read about your rescue. The L&A Historical Soc. buys for the Archives at the L&A Museum in Napanee -- mandate includes Richmond twp. We would be pleased to purchase the land docs from you for the Archives and bring them home. Ultimately, docs belong in an archive. Jennifer Bunting bunting at istar dot ca (symbols omitted to prevent spam)

Anonymous said...

Thats great. My suggestion would be that you scan them and put them here on your site for public view and then donate/sell them back to the Lennox and Addington Historical Society/Archives in Napanee so that they can further be available to the public. There were usually many copies of these old deeds and to try and find their rightful owners may be a task. And if you do, they probably will go back on a dusty shelf or worse, be taken to a pawn shop or the dump. Just my opinion.

Olive Tree Genealogy said...

These documents will be winging their way to the Lennox & Addington Co. Archives next week. The arrangements have been made :-)

I will be posting the documents, one each week, on my blog and anyone interested in the originals can view them eventually at the Archives in Napanee.

Nancy said...

Where is your LIKE button???

Anonymous said...

Great gesture, Lorine. Hats off to you!