Lavinia Roberts - A Family Found

There is often a discussion as to the value of sites such as ancestry.ca or My Heritage. For me, I have found some valuable records on Ancestry but most of the records were located through research at my provincial archives now housed at The Rooms here in St. John's, Newfoundland or through familysearch.org. Where web services such as Ancestry really stand out is the connections that you can make. Below is an example of how I found the family of Lavinia Roberts.

I have spent considerable time searching for the birth record of my gr. gr. grandmother Lavinia to no avail. I do know she was born in Brigus, Newfoundland around 1845. She married John Salter on October 10, 1870 in Forteau, Labrador. They had two sons, George and John Jr.

The information I have came from two documents; her death record which stated she was 82 in 1927 and her marriage record which stated she was born in Brigus. Unfortunately it did not list her parents names. That was most common for the time.

My grandmother had told me that Lavinia was a third cousin to Captain Robert Bartlett, the famous 20th century explorer who had accompanied Peary in his search to reach the North Pole. She had also mentioned a sister Emma and brother William. Armed with this information I set out to the provincial archives to find Lavinia's birth record. Boy was I disappointed. I got zilch. It seemed I had nowhere to turn. That was more than 20 years ago.

It wasn't until this year that I came across a fellow family historian who had made a connection with my Chevalier relatives. Upon further investigation, I discovered that she had many Roberts relatives in her tree. This family of Roberts also came from Brigus and settled in Forteau as well. Many of their birth records too were missing but not their death records which recorded their place of birth and their ages. Some of the offspring moved to the other side of the border to the Canadian Labrador - Cote Nord, Quebec. I had found, finally, Lavinia's family. Listed with her relatives were her sister Emma, brother William and four other siblings. Her father was Esau (Evan) and her mother was Ann Medkiff. The information led me to find the dates of birth and death for Lavinia's ancestors back to the 1700's. And yes, just as my grandmother had told me, Captain Bob was indeed her third cousin.

And that is how I found Lavinia Roberts's family - through connections.

Thank you Irene Roberts Richard.

Lavinia Roberts Salter