Family Business

Before my maternal grandmother died, she wrote her recollections of growing up on a farm in western Manitoba. As she put it, a retelling of the past in the present for the future. A copy was given to each of the grandchildren as it was highly unlikely that any of us would ever experience such a life as the one she lived. My grandmother, in her infinite wisdom, had the presence of mind to not only write down her own experiences, but to include tales of the family going back two or three generations before her. In some cases this merely goes back to Ontario and Quebec (the Quebec natives were Irish, not French) or Scotland and Ireland. She also included a family tree going back to the early 1800s. That, in combination with the stories that she passed down to my mum, gives us a pretty good sense of who that side of the family was and what sort of dynamic they had.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of my father's side of the family, or more accurately, my paternal grandfather's side of the family. It is a rather ironic turn since it is this side of the family from which I derive my surname. My grandfather and his brother never talked about their family (at least not to my dad) and my grandfather's father died at the age of 58 (a matter of weeks after my grandfather and grandmother met). However, I have been trying to piece together what I can from what little information there is to go on. Events took a rather interesting turn on Saturday when I went to have dinner with my grandmother. Much of the evening's discussion revolved around family history and she showed me the Beresford family Bible which had been left to my late grandfather. The book is very large, perhaps larger than the Oxford Dictionary, and in a state of disrepair. To be honest, it probably should be given to a museum where they would hopefully be able to rebind it. It is quite a beautiful book. Anyway, the first three pages are the family register: the pages where the births, deaths, and marriages of a family were recorded. These three pages gave me more insight into the family than almost any other source we have left (except for the audio tapes of my great-grandfather's brother). But, for all the increased information it gave, more questions came to the surface.

Firstly, there are two of my great-grandfather's siblings who take on the maiden name of their mother (Pitt...apparently of some relation to the former prime ministers) but one of whom also takes the middle name "Paterson". Is this Paterson derived from a family member? It is a very Scottish surname.

Secondly, when my great-great-grandfather Herbert John Beresford married Agnes Pitt in 1879, the presiding minister was one Rev. John Pitt, minister of Abbey Church, Dunfermline. This raises two issues: one, who was John Pitt? Agnes' father? Uncle? Does this mean she came from a slightly more well-to-do upbringing? And if so, what is the story of her and Herbert John? Secondly, according to my research, the Abbey Church of Dunfermline is a run by the Church of Scotland (Presbyterians), but clearly the Beresford family considered themselves apart of the Scottish Episcopal Church, which is a fancy way of saying, the Church of England in Scotland. There seems to be an element of incongruousness.

The third and most intriguing thing to me is that, recorded in the death records, are Herbert John's mother and grandmother (my great-great-great-grandmother and great-great-great-great-grandmother). Herbert John's mother, Mary Ann "Fearnside" Beresford died on Good Friday, 1860 at the age of 30 (Herbert would have been 7 at the time). His grandmother, Isabella "Smith" Fearnside died at the age of 70 in 1877. Interestingly, both deaths occurred in the Northeast of Scotland. Mary Ann at Peterhead and Isabella at Turriff. I hadn't known anything about the family before Herbert John, but it appears that he was originally born somewhere north of Aberdeen (presumably Peterhead since that's where his mother died). Perhaps more intriguing is that there is no mention of his father or grandfather. Only his mother and grandmother (and his maternal grandmother at that!). So it appears that my next venture to Scotland will require a trip to the northeast. It's probably just as well since I haven't been up that way yet.