Discovering Bertha Leslie

Over four years ago I fell in love with Bertha Leslie. I was attending the first ever youth family history camp, hosted by Brigham Young University. I was looking through my tree (which luckily for me was quite empty) and realized that my great great grandmother Bertha Leslie only had one child and likely should have had more. After a quick general search in FamilySearch's entire collection, I discovered the death certificates of two of her daughters who died at 3 and 5 months.

1921 Death of Myrtle Irene Norman (1)

1923 Death of Loretta J. Norman (2)

As a teenage girl I was instantly in love. I could hardly imagine what this young mother had gone through, and I was determined to account for all her children and record her entire life.

Bertha Leslie was born about 1901 in New Brunswick, according to censuses. She was the child of Samuel Leavitt and Rosanna Leslie, one of their ten children  She grew up in St. George, Charlotte County until her marriage to Charles Norman of Nova Scotia, on 25 April 1918.  Charles had been previously married and brought with him two sons and a daughter ranging from six to only one year old, Chester, Darrell, and May. Bertha then had six of her own children with Charles; Rosie, Myrtle, Loretta, Arnold, Eva, and Dorothy.  Dorothy married Horace Chatterton and is my mother’s paternal grandmother. Myrtle Irene died only three months after her birth, and Loretta at five months, the infant daughters I mentioned previously.  Bertha was, however, outlived by her other children, and passed away in 1938, buried in St. Stephen, Charlotte County.  Charles joined her the next year. Any time I think of her story, I am inspired by this woman who took on the care of three young children who were not her own, and persevered after the heart wrenching loss of her own babies.

There is an issue that might have caught your eye. Bertha should be a Leavitt. Yet she goes as Leslie in any records available before her marriage. Seeing as how she specifically names Samuel and Rosanna as her parents in the marriage, however, I was quick to write this off as a quirk in the family. 

After a complicated foray into Samuel Leavitt's life (which I will describe in the future), I then moved back to Bertha to fill some record gaps. I had previously scoured every database that could possibly contain her missing death certificate, which should have been available. I found nothing until, scuttling through Ancestry public member trees, I discovered that someone else had found it. The reason for my failure turned out to be a bad writing job and subsequent incorrect indexing, rendering my many different searches unfruitful. With this new knowledge I consulted the New Brunswick archives once again, and there it was. Bertha Norman, a perfect match, except for two details. Her parents were recorded as John Lasley and Exzelia Hooper.(3) 

At first this was a moment of frustration, then a bell went off in my mind. I had seen those names before. Exzelia was a very odd name to be sure, however, Bertha had given the same name to her eldest daughter, Rosie Ezelia Norman. Even more promising, Rosanna Leslie, or Lasley as the spelling varied, had a brother John. Suddenly my excusing of Bertha surname seemed inexcusable, because it had led me to miss an obvious truth. Insult was added to injury when I looked back through my research and noticed that on the 1911 census for the Leavitt household, where Bertha first appears, she was listed as niece to the head of house. 

I share this journey not because I am proud of my amateur haste and more experienced mistakes. I share because I think there is something essential to be learned. First, we need to be careful. As researchers we go through periods of low attention, retention, and even just inexperience while we learn and exercise the unique skill set that is critical genealogical reasoning. There is a burden of proof that we are expected to meet, and sometimes we let the logic of our perceived reality create a bias and error in our work. Examining and reexamining ourselves and our findings is wholly essential. The mistakes I made in my youth may have been okay as a beginner but would put a massive black spot on my abilities if I were to repeat them today. We should never be in such haste to find the narrative we want or lazily desire, that we miss the true lives of these once living. Second, when research is approached and executed correctly, often the stories we discover are richer and far more influential to us. Projecting our understandings of life and how events fall into place does not challenge us in any way. Learning the true stories of multiple adoptees in my tree caused me, who has never had to consider the situation, relate the experience to myself as a part of my own personal story. The truth in our trees can sometimes not be what we expect, but will still be moving as we learn about and love the ones who came before.

(1) "New Brunswick Provincial Deaths, 1815-1938," database with images (https://www.familysearch.org : 13 September 2019), Myrtle Irene Norman, 14 Oct 1921. Citing Provincial Archives, Fredericton.
(2) "New Brunswick Provincial Deaths, 1815-1938," database with images (https://www.familysearch.org : 13 September 2019), Loretta J. Norman, 19 Jun 1923. Citing Provincial Archives, Fredericton.
(3) "New Brunswick Provincial Deaths, 1815-1938," database with images (https://www.familysearch.org : 13 September 2019), Bertha E. Norman, 2 Mar 1938. Citing Provincial Archives, Fredericton.