John Colp (abt. 1807)

Born about 1807 in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia

Ancestors

Descendants

Problems/Questions Profile manager: John DeRoche [send private message]

Biography

I am still searching for solid documentation of the ancestry of John Colp & his wife Sarah Lohnes.^[1]

Most of the following details are duplicated in the profiles of sons James Simon and Gabriel Henry.

In the 1871 census family #205 of the subdistrict is living in a single-family house (#174) and consists of fisherman John Colp, age 64, & his wife Sarah, 54, with their five children: Catherine 20, Solomon 17 (a fisherman), Cassindra [sic] 15, Simon 12, & Gabriel 8. The three youngest children are attending school. Both parents are coded as adults unable to write (but are not coded as unable to read). Catherine & Solomon are not yet old enough for the literacy question to pertain. The family is Wesleyan Methodist (“W. Meth”), and ethnically “German.”

By the 1881 census (house #272, family #304), John is listed as 72 & Sarah as 63. The eldest child, Catherine, has married and left. Remaining are Solomon 27, Cassander [sic] 25, Simon 24 (who is listed first in the house, before his parents, as if he is the functioning head of the household??), and Gabriel 17. John is now identified as a farmer, but all three sons are fishermen.

1891 finds son Simon (age 34) married to Ada (i.e., Ada Jane Wagner; shown as age 30), in their own household, not yet with any children, but living there also is Simon’s widowed mother Sarah (age 73) and a 7-year-old girl named Jennett [sic] Spindler. (Although Jennett might have been a relative, she – like Sarah – is coded merely as a “lodger,” which was standard practice, in this census, for non-members of the primary nuclear family.) Mother Sarah is shown as able to read but not write, while Simon, Ada, and little Jennett can do both. Still, of course, Methodists. Simon is still a fisherman.

Sources

• John DeRoche, family oral history.

• Census of Canada (manuscript), 1871, Nova Scotia, Lunenburg District (195), Ritchy's Cove subdistrict (E), p. 53, dwelling 174, family 205.

• Census of Canada (manuscript), 1881, Nova Scotia, Lunenburg District (11), Ritcey's Cove subdistrict (B), p. 66, dwelling 272, family 305.

• Census of Canada (manuscript), 1891, Nova Scotia, Lunenburg District (38), Ritcey's Cove subdistrict (8), p. 73, family 367.

• Edwards, Gail. 2009. "Gail's Genealogy Page." Kolb index. Accessed July 2013 at [1], and specifically at [2].

Footnotes

1. ↑ J. DeRoche, May 2017.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to John deRoche for starting this profile. Click the Changes tab for the details of contributions by John and others.