1836–?

Fourth Generation: Sarah Warner < William Warner < William Warner < William Warner

My 2nd great grandaunt (3rd great aunt)

Sarah Warner was the daughter of William Warner and Sarah Leitch. She was born on January 15, 1836 and baptized at the Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal on May 22 of that year.1

No further information about her has been found.

Baptismal record for Sarah Warner, Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, 18361

Notes

Sarah’s baptismal record record says that her father’s name was “William Weaver” but it is almost certain that this was an error on the part of the priest who transcribed the couple’s information into the Cathedral’s record book. Here is the reasoning supporting that assertion:

  1. The entry, like all the entries on the page and neighbouring pages, is in a beautiful calligraphic script, with the name of the Rector and the parents added in a different script. This indicates that one particularly talented priest had transcribed the information into the book, based on written information given to him, probably in William’s handwriting.
  2. The parents names at the bottom of the entry are entered in a script that resembles William Warner’s handwriting from other documents (we know from other documents that Sarah could not read or write).
  3. The transcribed last name in the body of the entry is clearly “Weaver” in the priest’s handwriting, but the signed last names at the bottom, probably in William’s handwriting, appear to say “Warner.”
  4. For both parents’ names, the initial capital “W” in “Warner” ends with a loop that somewhat resembles an “e”. The next letter is clearly an “a”. The strokes of the following letters appear to make up the rest of the name: “rner”.
  5. Mistaking the loop in the “W” for an “e” would make it easy for the priest to mistake “Warner” for “Weaver.”
  6. However, the two signatures clearly have one too many strokes for the final letters to be “ver”.
  7. In Sarah’s name, the letter after “a” is clearly “r”.
  8. Three years later, on May 12, 1839, another daughter of William and Sarah, Hannah Maria Warner, was baptized in the same cathedral (as “Anne Maria Warner”).2 In that entry the child is identified as the daughter of William Warner and Sarah Leach.
  9. In the 1836 record for Sarah, the mother is also identified in the body of the entry as Sarah Leach.
  10. The probability is very low that a single congregation would have two couples of child-bearing age, one named William Warner and Sarah Leach, and the other named William Weaver and Sarah Leach.
  11. No evidence has been found that there were more than one “Sarah Leach” (or “Leitch”) in Lower Canada at the time, If there were two Sarah Leaches, it seems very unlikely that they would both go to the same church, that they would both be about the same age, and that they would both be married to a man named “William” with the last name “Weaver” or “Warner.”

Sources

1 Institut Généalogique Drouin; Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Drouin Collection; Author: Gabriel Drouin, Comp. Source Information: Ancestry.com. Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2008. Original data: Gabriel Drouin, comp. Drouin Collection. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin (entry for Sarah Weaver (Warner), Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, 1836).

2 Institut Généalogique Drouin; Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Drouin Collection; Author: Gabriel Drouin, Comp. Source Information: Ancestry.com. Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2008. Original data: Gabriel Drouin, comp. Drouin Collection. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin (entry for Anne Maria Warner, Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, 1839).