Born in Ontario, not Austria

Proving you can’t always believe a transcript no matter how good the source, here is a photo of the original 1899 death Register showing Reuben Peer, age 79, born in Ontario. You’ll have to click through the photo to my Flickr account to read it properly.

It reads: Reuben Peer, male, 26th February 1899, age 79, Residence 10th Concession Elizabethtown Township, Farmer, widower, born Ontario, Cause of death Lagrippe & Pneumonia, name of physician Dr. Dixon, Denomination Methodist, Name of person making return Dr. Dixon, Date of Renumeration – 26 Feb, 1899, folio #14857

A good solid piece of information and one that I am glad to have.

On the other hand, here is the report I purchased for about $25 back in 1985 from the Office of the Register General of Ontario. Very official and very wrong. It doesn’t even list all of the information available from the record and references data that wasn’t even part of the old records. Not very genealogy friendly.

It reads as follows:

Source: Ontario Office of the Registrar General – Information Extracted for Geneaology – Issued at Toronto – July 19, 1985 – (Mrs) K.V. Bell

Not to be too picky or anthing, but if you look at the origianl, there is no mention of Austria. In fact there is no refernce to Austria anywhere on that entire page (note: I cropped the image because it was too big). One has to wonder why Mrs. Bell reported Austria in the official trancript. You can imagine my surprise to see the actual record and find out the truth. This of course, makes sense out of something which made no sense for many years. Thank you Mrs. Bell.

And thanks to Lorine McGinnis Schulze of Olive Tree Genealogy for pointing this long standing misconception out to me.

It is fortunate that through computers and the enquiring minds of millions of Genealogists that we no longer have to rely so heavily on second hand information.