No Birth Record, No Baptism: Proving a Utah Pioneer's Canadian Birth

This research for a client illustrates how to build a defensible case for a pre-civil-registration Canadian birth when direct records don't exist.

The client was able to trace her family history back to Canada through family stories and census information but needed to establish a stronger case for the purpose of claiming Canadian citizenship by descent.

Fortunately, she was able to provide quite a lot of information, including the name of her Canadian ancestor – Nancy Cunningham – as well as a location in Canada, an approximate birth date around 1826 and the name of her husband and the son from whom the client was descended.

With that, I was able to start the hunt with the 1851 Canada census. It showed 25-year-old Nancy living with her husband, Ebenezer Thane in Townsend, Norfolk, Canada West, with two children – Martha J. (4) and Janet (1). The census recorded that she was born in Canada. So far, so good. However, there was one data point that had me worried: Nancy’s religious affiliation was “Baptist”.

You may wonder why I thought that would be a problem. Well, in a perfect world, a person’s birth in Canada would be proven by either a birth certificate or a baptism registration. But birth certificates and civil registration didn’t exist at the time of Nancy’s birth. That leaves baptism as the only direct option. Unfortunately for our purposes, Baptists don’t practice infant baptism. Children born into the community are typically baptized as teenagers or young adults, when they are deemed to be mature enough to make an informed decision about joining the faith community.

This meant that we had to rely on secondary documents to show that Nancy was born in Canada.

Census records: Nancy was captured in census records twice more in her life. In 1860, in Iowa, and in 1870 in Utah. Each time she declared her place of birth to be Canada.

Obituary: Nancy died in Utah in 1877. A contemporary newspaper obituary mentioned that she was the wife of Ebenezer Thane and the daughter of Henry Cunningham of Boston, Canada West. Boston was a Hamlet within Townsend Township in Norfolk County, Canada West, which is where she was recorded living at the time of the 1851 census.

Next, I worked on establishing that Nancy’s birth family, the Cunninghams, had been living in Canada before and around the time of Nancy’s birth.

Land records

In 1823 Henry Cunningham bought land in Townsend from Job Slaght the 3rd, son of Henry Slaght for a nominal sum. In return, Henry Cunningham agreed to care for Henry Slaght for the rest of his life. This sort of arrangement is referred to as a maintenance agreement — a legal instrument in which someone, often a child or in-law of the person being cared for, receives property in exchange for taking on the obligation to support them in old age. Here, Job Slaght III conveyed land to his brother-in-law Henry Cunningham, who in turn took on the obligation to care for Henry Slaght — Job's father and Henry Cunningham's father-in-law. The family connection that made the arrangement work was Mary, who was Henry Slaght's daughter, Job's sister, and Henry Cunningham's wife.

That same year Henry Cunningham also bought land directly from Henry Slaght.

Further land records show that Henry Cunningham sold some land in Townsend in 1826, and in 1830 sold part of the land he bought from Job and Henry Slaght. The latter record mentions that the land originally belonged to Henry Slaght’s wife Abigail Heminover who died intestate, leaving her husband with a life estate and eldest son Job with the inheritance.

Will

On 15 Feb 1842 Henry Cunningham made a will naming his wife Mary, 3 sons, Peter, the eldest, Abraham and Moses, and 5 daughters, Nancy, Elizabeth, Eliza, Miriam and Martha Obedience. All the girls were still bearing the last name Cunningham, so were presumably still unmarried. In the will Henry divided his land, consisting of lots 23 and 24, concession 3, between his three sons, to be handed over to them once they reached the age of 21. The girls all received monetary bequests of 60 pounds and 10 shillings.

Henry Cunningham must have died within the next couple of years, as an 1844 tax assessment lists the “widow Cunningham” on the E half of lot 23, concession 3, with 2 horses, 2 oxen and 4 milch cows! None of the Cunningham children appear in the tax assessment, which either means that Henry’s estate had not yet gone through probate or none of the boys had turned 21 yet.

Boston Baptist Community Meeting Minutes

Yes, I did say that the Baptist records wouldn’t be useful to prove Nancy was baptized in Canada. However, they are useful for showing that the Cunningham family had been in Canada for some time before Nancy’s birth. The congregation was formed in 1804, and the very first entry in the book of meeting minutes reported that the meeting was held in the home of one George Cunningham. This was Henry Cunningham’s father, Nancy’s grandfather. Also in 1804, George Cunningham made a will, naming his wife Mary, sons Abraham, Henry, William, George and Andrew and a daughter, Nancy, the aunt of the Nancy Cunningham of this case study.

The following year, 1805, George’s wife Mary joined the fellowship by being baptized. In 1826 Henry Cunningham himself and his wife were baptized. And in 1829 Henry was mentioned several times in the meeting minutes in connection with various tasks for the community, including “taking the lead of singing in worship”!

We have now shown that, on the balance of probabilities, Nancy was born in Canada, since her parents were settled there in the years bracketing her birth. The final step was to find corroborating evidence beyond just her obituary to prove that Nancy Cunningham, daughter of Henry Cunningham was the same person as Nancy, wife of Ebenezer Thane.

Let’s return to the census records for a moment. We saw that in the 1851 Canada census one Miriam Cunningham was living with Nancy and Ebenezer Thane. Miriam Cunningham was also living with the Thanes in Idaho in 1860. Henry Cunningham’s will listed a daughter Miriam, so, Miriam was Nancy Cunningham’s sister.

What I had not mentioned earlier is that while Nancy was recorded as being Baptist in the 1851 census, her husband Ebenezer declared himself to be “Mormon”. The importance of this data point will become clear shortly.

An 1848 tax assessment lists Ebenezer Thane on the SW quarter of Lot 21 in concession 2 - 50 acres of mostly uncultivated land. Also in the household is one female over the age of 16 – his wife Nancy. The tax assessment doesn’t list any children – their eldest would be born later that same year.

Nancy and Ebenezer Thane must have left Canada fairly soon after the 1851 census. “A Sketch of the County of Norfolk” by John Earl, which was printed in 1857 and lists all the properties in the county with their owners or occupants, does not show the Thanes on the property they were occupying in 1848, or anywhere else in the county.

The next US census after the 1860 one that showed them in Iowa has them living in Utah in 1870. Utah at that time was settled almost entirely by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – “Mormons”. From 1847 through 1868 an estimated 60,000-70,000 LDS pioneers traveled to Utah by wagon or handcart in organized companies named after their appointed captains. The 1851 Canada census already told us that Ebenezer Thane had become a member of the LDS church some time before then. The LDS Church History Biographical Database shows that the Thanes travelled to Utah with the Job Pingree Company from June 7 – August 24 1861. Also travelling with them were Ebenezer’s brother John Thane with his family and Ebenezer and John’s mother, Janet (Lochhead) Thane. Nancy’s sister Miriam had married Oscar Mann in Iowa later in 1860. They did also migrate to Utah, but not in the same company. Miriam died fairly young, leaving her husband with three young children. Oscar then married his first wife’s niece, Nancy and Ebenezer’s daughter Mary Ann (or Marian or Miriam), who raised her aunt’s children.

The final piece

A granddaughter of Nancy and Ebenezer, Ruby Thayne Nielsen, compiled a family history for the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Society. She was the daughter of Nancy and Ebenezer’s son Moroni and would have never met her grandmother as Nancy died when Moroni was only 15. However, her story is consistent with the factual data that is available and adds testimonial detail.

Summary

The family's Canadian residence at the time of Nancy's birth is established by Henry Cunningham's 1823, 1826 and 1830 land transactions in Townsend Township as well as his 1826 baptism (with his wife) in the Boston Baptist congregation and his 1842 will, bracketing the c. 1826 birth date. Nancy's parentage is established by Henry's will naming her as his daughter and by her obituary identifying Henry as her father. Nancy's identity as the Nancy Cunningham who became Nancy Thane is established by the corroborated presence of her sister Miriam — named in Henry's will, resident in Nancy and Ebenezer Thane's household in both the 1851 Canada West census and the 1860 US census and also emigrating to Utah with her husband. Ruby Thayne's family history is consistent with this evidence.

This was a fairly complex but highly interesting case, and indications are that there could be a lot more fascinating family history to discover and both the Thane and the Cunningham lines traced further generations back into the past. Nancy Cunningham and Ebenezer Thane have many descendants today who can now all benefit from this research.