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The End of Grandpa Judd
the Judds of Croydon, Tottenham and Toronto
Table
of Contents
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The Search
1998 |
My search for Grandpa Judd began with a search for his grave. There
are many civil and church records to help find your ancestors, but nothing
compares with standing where they rest, and you never know who else you'll
find nearby. But my Grandmother didn't know where he was buried. Grandma
Judd, named Emma Martha Balaam, died in 1918 and was buried in the
cemetery of St. James the Less, but Grandpa Judd's whereabouts were a mystery.
"He was a sailor who died years earlier. We never heard much about him",
was all my Grandmother could say.
Grandpa Judd was the father of my Grandmother's Grandmother. My Grandmother
was Irene Boyd, daughter of Muriel Marchment, daughter of Augusta Judd,
daughter of Grandpa Joseph E. Judd. Apparently his grandchildren had never
even met him, and they were born in the 1880's, so the tracks Grandpa Judd
left were probably faint, or so I thought. I resorted to the civil records,
little knowing the enigmatic Grandpa Judd would become such an interesting
discovery. |
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First, there were two recorded deaths of men named Joseph E. Judd in
Ontario, one at Toronto in 1871 and one at Portsmouth in 1885. Although
the Toronto date was attractive, if Grandpa Judd died in 1871, how would
his three children be born in 1873, 1877, and 1880? Grandpa Judd must have
died at Portsmouth in 1885, even though we know he lived in Toronto. If
you locate the Judds in the 1871 and 1881 censuses, you'll see everyone
you'd expect to see in the family: Joseph born around 1835, wife Emma,
and children Emma, Augusta, Bertha, Florence and Albert. If you follow
Joseph year by year in the Toronto directories, he appears right up to
1884, but no more. From 1885 on, you'll find his wife Emma appearing instead.
So Joseph went to Portsmouth alone, and died there within a year -- why
Portsmouth? |
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Next the 1881 census for Portsmouth was examined, in case Judd relatives
were there -- a guess. One expects to find a census with names laid out
on large ledgers, surname, given name, gender, etc. Periodically the head
of family's surname appears in the left-most column indicating the next
family's members, but there were no Judds. It wasn't easy searching
-- in Portsmouth then, almost everyone was an individual, as one finds
when the census records a large hotel. Those that had families had employments
like 'guard' and 'warden'. A quick peak at the Frontenac County Atlas for
1878 revealed that Portsmouth was the name of the town, absorbed by the
City of Kingston years ago, that was home of the Provincial Penitentiary,
which is now Kingston Penitentiary, and Rockwood Asylum, now named Kingston
Psychiatric Hospital.
 Last
piece to the puzzle: Grandpa Judd's death registration. When he died, he
was 50 years old, born in England and a Baptist and this agreed well with
the census material. He died of general paralysis -- I would discover later
that was a misprint. But the clincher was the word found in the registration
book in the row labeled occupation: "insane".
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| Discover the earliest Judds |
Now read about Grandpa Judd, born in England, who came to Toronto not
as a sailor, but a cabinet maker, and died in an asylum near Kingston.
Grandpa
Judd . |
Last
piece to the puzzle: Grandpa Judd's death registration. When he died, he
was 50 years old, born in England and a Baptist and this agreed well with
the census material. He died of general paralysis -- I would discover later
that was a misprint. But the clincher was the word found in the registration
book in the row labeled occupation: "insane".