I've just requested scans from a box of his family's letters at Stanford and on one hand I can't wait to get my hands on them and on the other hand it's like "Oh fuck no this means I have to read more old handwriting"
Though I only searched the Anglican and Presbyterian churches, not the Roman Catholic ones and some other denominations I guess
HMS Terror AB Charles Johnson you continue to elude me…
While I was going through Halifax baptisms to research the Best family, I was also double tasking by seeing if I could find some potential baptism records for Charles Johnson.
I thought probably I‘d find a few dozen Charles Johnsons, given it seems like a common name. But somehow I found none!
Big thanks to Katherine Ryan, the managing director of the Randall House, for the tour!
Prior to this trip I'd done all my research on a laptop at home, so it was a thrill to be able to tour the house and walk through a home that Charles' family, and likely also himself, had stood in.
The Rawdon church records are digitized, but Halifax and some other NS region church records are not, so I was hoping I’d be able to find his baptism in person while I’m here on vacation.
Born 5 Aug 1824 in Rawdon, Hants County, Nova Scotia. Baptized 1 March 1825 at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Halifax.
Most of his Rawdon siblings were baptized there, but his dad had Halifax connections so maybe they were visiting.
The problem with Charles Best is that there are so many online and local resources about his family that I can actually dig in to him personally in a way that I can't with most sailors from Europe, and I've become a little obsessed.
Trying not to get up and scream in the middle of the Nova Scotia Archives because after multiple sessions here and going through microfilm records for 18 different churches, I finally found Charles Best‘s baptism record 🎉🎉🎉
A few days ago I spent the afternoon at the Randall House in Wolfville, Nova Scotia!
Charles Best, AB aboard HMS Erebus on the Franklin expedition, lived in Wolfville briefly, and his mother Isabella ran a school out of the Randall House around ~1830-1840.
