The first Petit Pitts

Several years ago, when I was kick-starting my family tree research with earnest, I visited various cousins and aunts to collect photos and memories of our common relatives.  Somewhere in  my travels, I was given a photo of a very young child, sitting on a porch railing, on the back of which was written, "Petit Pitts."  Although we knew it was a child connected with my father's family, nobody seemed to know who the child was.  I collected it with the rest of the documents in my "Dad's family" envelope and went on my merry way.

Some time later, I asked my aunt (my father's older sister) if she knew who Petit Pitts was, and she told me unhesitatingly that that was what my grandparents had called my father.

"Ah," I thought, "so I have a photo of my father as a young child.  Good to know."

It was a few years after that conversation that my uncle, (my father's younger brother) made reference to there having been an older brother, Tommy, who had died as an infant.  He couldn't tell me much more than that because it had happened many years before he had arrived.  But his sister should know.  So we called his older sister and asked her about this mysterious older brother about whom I had never heard before that day.

She gave me what details she could, and although she wasn't clear on the exact dates, she knew that he had  lived just shy of a year, and he would have been older than my father.  Then she said, "There's only one picture was ever taken of him.  He's sitting on the railing on the porch on Percy Street."

"Wow!  That's the photo I have," I realized.  "I must have a photo of Tommy."

I couldn't wait to get home to verify that the child in my photo was sitting on the railing of a porch. 

This would mean that the photo I have must be the first Petit Pitts.  And my father, who came along seven months after his older brother had died, was then called by the same affectionate term.

But I couldn't find the photo! 

I was quite intrigued to learn that my father had had an older brother, so I set about to prove it of course.  I am, after all, a genealogist.

Since nobody had been able to tell me quite when this child lived, all I had to guide me was a timeline of post 1920 (the year my aunt was born) and pre-1926 (the year my father was born).  So at least I knew I only had to look in a five year period for his birth record; but those records are still closed because of privacy laws (the person could still be alive).

But at time I was doing this research, at least the death records up to about 1925 were available (they are available up to 1934 now).  That narrowed my search to only three years (since my aunt was born in 1920, he could not have been born before 1921 and if he had lived almost a year, he could not have died before 1922).  So, I started looking for death records of a Cherryholme in Ottawa from 1922 to 1925 (I used to spend many hours cranking film through microfiche machines).

Eventually, I found the record that proved the existence of this uncle I never knew I had.

1925 August 10th:  Thomas Cherryholme, born September 16, 1924, son of Thomas Cherryholme and Mildred Raymond of 12 Percy Street, died age 11 months, as a result of acute infective diarrhea, vomiting and dehydration, which he had suffered for 2 weeks.   (Death Records of Ontario)

It was some years later that I came across the same photo in amongst my father's papers.  But this photo is clearly marked on the back,  in handwriting that could have been one of my grandparents.  It says, "Thomas Cherryholme."

Thomas Cherryholme
1924-1925

I find it surprising that the child pictured is less than a year old, but the photo is clearly marked "Thomas Cherryholme" and we know that he only lived from September of one year until August of the next.  Obviously, the photo must have been taken shortly before his death.

Later still, in 2005, as part of another genealogical research project (which will be the subject of a post later this year), I spent numerous hours in our National Archives and Library.  While there, I prowled through their genealogical collection of baptismal registers from Ottawa area parishes.

I found a treasure-trove of family-related records at several parishes, but pertinent to this post was:

Baptism of Thomas John Cherryholme
The Remarks column indicates that he died August 11, 1925

So now, without having access to the provincial birth records, I do in fact have his birth record by way of finding the baptism entry in the parish register.  Again, both these death and baptismal entries clearly demonstrate how errors creep into genealogical records.  My grandmother's name was Marilda but it is shown as Mildred and Millie in these registers.

There's another photo that's seems to have disappeared; it's one of my aunt as a teenager standing outside a building with a much younger child standing beside her.  I know I've had this photo in my possession; but I can't find it anywhere, in spite of turning this place upside down and back again! 

On the back of that photo was written "Jeannette and Petit Pitts."  The child is wearing the same hat as the child on the porch, and he looks very much like the child in the photo shown above.

He's just about five years older.

The child in that photo could not possibly be Thomas, of course, because Thomas died before his first birthday.  But my father was six years younger than my Aunt, and my Aunt told me that my father was called Petit Pitts. 

So apparently, not only did my father look like his older brother, he was given his older brother's nickname, and, just as most of us did, he wore his older brother's hand-me-down clothing.

But why oh why can't I locate those two photos now that I so badly want them?