Hello Everyone,
I'm trying to make sense of a situation going on with my ancestors the Harwood family, who were living in Sunderland in the late 1800s. It's all quite complicated and I've got several threads on the matter, but what I'm now trying to look in to is the life of Stanwick Harwood.
I know that Stanwick was born sometime in January, probably early January, in 1879 in Sunderland. He was baptised on 8 Jan 1879. His parents were Ralph Harwood and Elizabeth Benson.
He appears in Sunderland on the 1881 census living with Ralph and Elizabeth. Confusingly his forename isn't given properly - it just appears to say F S. I can find no other evidence however that he ever went by a name beginning with F. The writing is poor, so it might not say FS at all anyway.
I suspect at some point after this there was a family breakdown. It's a long story but his Dad Ralph joins the army again in 1885 and lies about being married and on the 1891 census his wife Elizabeth is living with two other men who could potentially be her new parter and is pregnant with a child that potentially isn't Ralph's as he was quite likely to be in India at the time. (Unfortunately I'm not 100% certain of when he was in India as he could have in theory come back on leave - but that's another issue).
Anyway, clearly something was happening to the family because in 1891 Stanwick was taken into care in Sunderland and eventually sent to Canada by the Annie Maphearson agency. I am going to apply for his records, which I am told may reside with Bernados but apparently due to COVID you can't apply at the moment?
He travelled from Liverpool on the 19th March 1891 and arrived in Halifax, Canada on the 29th March 1891. He went to the Marchmont home in Belleville and was still living there when he was 13, on a census that was taken sometime in 1891.
The next record I have for him is his marriage in Northumberland, Ontario, Canada on 23 October 1901. He married an Alice Taylor, who was Canadian, and was apparently working as a farmer.
Frustratingly I can't find him or Alice in 1911. I've no evidence to show he ever left Canada. One issue might be his name. He's been written down as Stanwicks, Stanwick, Stan, Stanwise and I've tried those variants with no joy.
He does reappear in 1921 with Alice living in Northumberland Ontario and working as a carpenter.
After that I have no further trace of him. I've no idea if he and Alice ever had children or what happened to the after that point.
I would be grateful to anyone who could point me to further information about what his life in Canada might have been like.
Thank you