Two Updates

First off, the story of Arthur Dear and his wives generated some responses, including one from Elaine Perry, a fellow Dear researcher, who had located the registration of Arthur's marriage to Emily Barrett:

1854 Marriages March Quarter, Arthur DEAN [sic]/ Emily BARRETT, Wimborne District, Volume 5a, Page 440

So Emily wasn't lying after all when she said that she was his wife.  She might not have been his only wife, but she was indeed married to him.  Elaine is in touch with one of the descendants of Arthur's third wife, Clara Green, who has copies of all three of his marriage certificates, so I am waiting to see how he described himself -- bachelor or widower?

The second update is that the indefatigable and irreplaceable Guylaine has clarified some of the mystery of Mary Ann Robins by proving that the two daughters of Elizabeth McLaney Dennis Sanders Elrod Sanders (phew!), Catherine Elizabeth and Mary Ann, lived to adulthood, married, and had families.

Catherine Elizabeth Elrod in fact married a member of another branch of the entangled Richardson-Dennis-Bryant family tree and moved to Cleveland, Ohio where she died during the cholera epidemic in 1854.  I had known that nearly all the family perished that summer from researching the tree from the husband's side, but had never learned the name of his wife.  Now, having approached it from the wife's side, the other half of the story appeared.  Catherine Elizabeth even brought along a Sanders cousin from Ontario to Cleveland to add further evidence; it was very thoughtful of her, even if it meant that her cousin also succumbed to cholera.

Mary Ann Elrod had married while still very young, about fourteen, and was the mother of eight children, whose descendants can be found in Ontario, California, Idaho and Washington.  Mary Ann's grave at Brighton, Ontario suggests that she was born on or about 29 July 1820 (she was aged 43 years, 7 months when she died on 29 February 1864); Mary Ann Robins was born in circa July 1825 (1911 census) or in circa 1827 (death certificate) and was unmarried.

It's clear that Mary Ann Robins and Mary Ann Elrod were two different people.  

Guylaine discovered that Mary Ann Robins is indeed buried in the grave of Matthias and Elizabeth Sanders at Thornhill Community Cemetery.  Mary Ann Robins is found on every census from 1851 to 1911 (except for 1901, on which I still can't find her) living with Matthias and Elizabeth's son Henry or with Henry's daughter Josephine.  So Guylaine looked for Henry's will and discovered that Mary Ann Robins was, according to Henry, his niece.  He left Mary Ann some land, the right of occupation to his house, $100 from the proceeds of a mortgage he held on land farmed by his son, an annuity of $15 and one-half of all the rest of his personal estate and effects (the other half going to his daughter Josephine).

Now to work out who Mary Ann Robins' parents were.  As she is buried with Matthias and Elizabeth Sanders, it's unlikely that she was the daughter of one of Henry Sanders' wife's siblings, and so I'm looking to the Sanders side of the family.

Henry's siblings were:

• John, born 18 Oct 1799 and married Penelope Cameron on 27 March 1827, aged 27.  Certainly old enough to have fathered a child in circa July 1825 or in 1827.  She could even have been a child of his marriage except that her surname would have been Sanders or, if born just before the marriage, Cameron.  I don’t have any details about John and Penelope’s family and deaths, or if John had a previous marriage, just that he was living at Lot 1, Concession 31 in Markham in 1837 (aged 38).  I haven't found them on the 1851 census or later, or in the US.
• Andrew McLaney, born 12 Feb 1802, married Sarah Brannum on 15 Nov 1832 (aged 30) and Mary Nixon on 30 May 1838 (aged 36).  Certainly old enough to be Mary Ann’s father, but unlike John, I know about his family (with Mary at least) and have found him on censuses – if he were Mary Ann’s father, why was she living with Henry all those years?
• Martha, born 12 June 1804 and married by 1828 to Patrick McKenzie Bryant, a member of the same family discussed in an earlier post.  Could have had Mary Ann Robins prior to marriage, but it’s hard to say because we don’t have her marriage date.  It’s possible that Martha had married a Mr Robins and was a widow when she married Patrick Bryant, but if so, why didn’t she take her daughter to live with them in Brighton?  If Mary Ann were Martha’s illegitimate daughter, why was her surname Robins and not Sanders?
• Margaret Susan, born 23 July 1809 and married James Wheeler Benedict on 27 Jan 1830 (aged 20).  Possible that she had a child before she married.  Her marriage record says that she was a spinster when she married Benedict.  She would have been 16-18 when Mary Ann was born, but Mary Ann likely would be called Sanders rather than Robins.
• Joseph Mathias, born 3 March 1811 and married Charlotte Wilcox on 26 June 1833 (aged 22).  Doubtful that he would have been the father as he would have been only ~14-16 years old.
• Catherine Elizabeth Elrod – aged only ~6-8 when Mary Ann was born
• Mary Ann Elrod – aged only ~5-7 when Mary Ann was born

The most likely candidates are the three eldest – or Henry himself.  "Niece" could have been a euphemism.  Henry married Elizabeth Howman (or Hawman or Hammon) on 9 December 1829 at Vaughan Township, and it was in Vaughan Township that Mary Ann Robins was supposedly born (detail from death certificate).  Henry was born 8 November 1806 and was 23 when he married.  He could well have become a father in 1825 / 1827 (aged 19-21).

Earlier today I was leaning towards John as the possible father, based entirely upon speculation that, since he can't be located after 1838, he had died and his daughter went to live with his brother Henry.  Now I'm beginning to think that "niece", rather like "ward", may have been a polite way of saying "illegitimate daughter" and that Mary Ann Robins was the daughter of Henry Sanders.

The good news is that I now know that Mary Ann Robins fits somewhere in the family tree.