Sharing Cleveland, Buffalo, and Canada Resources

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It's really exciting to come across a new resource that brings an ancestor's story to life. It could be an historical map, a dictionary full of unfamiliar words and archaic terms, or a cemetery database.

As I've researched Mary Jane Sheridan over the past few months, I've discovered several such resources that have made understanding her life and the records she left behind easier. As her residence changed over the course of her life, I've focused on not one, but five different localities. And I have found some wonderful resources that I'd like to share here so that other family researchers can benefit from them.

Here are some of my favorites and how I used them:

BUFFALO, AND ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK

• Map of the city of Buffalo, N.Y. (https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/agdm/id/30004/rec/2) This 1856 map was really helpful to me in locating Catholic churches in the neighborhood where the Sheridan family lived and might hold their sacramental records.
• Map of Erie County, New York: from actual surveys (https://lccn.loc.gov/2012593657). Historical maps are such great resources! This 1854 map of Erie County included the Buffalo area as well as Evans, where the Sheridans moved before their immigration to Canada.

Evans, in Erie County, New York, where the Sheridans lived from about 1855-59, from an 1854 map.¹

• Buffalo as an Architectural Museum (https://buffaloah.com/a/bamname.html) On this website I found a nomination for the State and National Register of Historic Places which included an amazing history of the Hydraulics, now known as Larkinville. Mary Jane Sheridan's father, Henry, was a teamster and shoemaker in the late 1840s-early 1850s in the Hydraulics.

 

CANADA

• FamilySearch Wiki (https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Main_Page). Always a fabulous resource, the "Canadian Land and Property" page on the FamilySearch Wiki defines numerous terms, including "bar her dower": "When a woman gives up her right to lands which her husband owned she 'bars her dower.' This is done whenever his land is sold and is shown in the land record. If this is not done it could be for many reasons such as: divorce, adultery, insanity, nonresident, whereabouts of wife unknown, sale of land for taxes, man single or widowed, and various others." This term appeared in a land transaction that Mary Jane and her husband made in 1869. 
• Brief Historical Timeline of Ontario (https://geneofun.on.ca/ontariogenweb/ontario-genealogy-timeline.html). Noting various historical events which occurred in Ontario offered potential clues to various happenings in the Sheridan and Cassidy family timelines.
  
• H.R. Page, Illustrated Historical Atlas of the Counties of Lincoln & Welland, Ont. (https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/viewer/845867/?offset=0#page=44&viewer=picture&o=info&n=0&q= ). I was able to pinpoint the exact location of Mary Jane Cassidy's land in Grantham Township right next to the property of M. A. & E. Saul, her nieces.
• Community Property Map of Canada. Start with this blog post for a step-by-step explanation of using this map. Note that it does take a bit for the website to load, so be patient. Another great map site where I found the exact land location for Philip and Mary Jane Cassidy's farm on lot 23 in the 9th concession in Grantham, Lincoln, Canada West.
   

CLEVELAND, CUYAHOGA CO., OHIO

• Diocese of Cleveland, Cleveland Catholic Cemetery Burial Search (https://clecem.org/account/login.aspx?returnUrl=%2fBurialSearch.aspx). A really handy database for all of Cleveland Catholic Cemetery burials. Create a free account (under "Register as a New User") to look for exact plot locations for your ancestors in the dozens of area cemeteries. A word of caution: Confirm the death and burial dates with original sources if possible; I've found two mistakes on the database, including one on Mary Jane's burial record, which was later corrected.
  
• Cleveland Historic Maps (https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=ddb0ee6134d64de4adaaa3660308abfd). Overlaying historical maps onto current street maps, I was able to locate Mary Jane's residences in 1891 and 1898.

 

This snip of Cleveland's Public Square is overlaid with a map from 1898 from the Cleveland Historic Maps website.

GENERAL RESOURCES

• Occupational Family History Researcher's Dictionary of Old Occupations (https://www.familyresearcher.co.uk/glossary/Dictionary-of-Old-Occupations-Index.html). While I'm familiar with the union definition of a "Teamster," I found an historical definition on this website: a teamster, "drove a team of horses and wagon for hauling goods. In early days the wagon may have been pulled by team of oxen or mules." Henry Sheridan worked as a teamster in Buffalo for a time.

Who knew there were this many historical occupations beginning with the letter Q? I didn't!²

• Ireland XO Reaching Out (https://www.irelandxo.com/#) I've turned to this website many times for insight into Irish surnames, naming traditions, variations and diminutives, religious traditions, and more. It's here I discovered that a land record recorded under the name Felix Cassidy was Philip Cassidy's name variation.

I hope that these resources prove helpful to readers as they navigate their own research journeys. More as I find them.

Until next time...

© Nancy Gilbride Casey, 2025. All rights reserved.

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NOTES

¹ Samuel Geil and Robert Pearsall Smith, Map of Erie County, New York: from actual surveys (Philadelphia: Robert Pearsall Smith, and Buffalo: John Angell, 1854); imaged, Library of Congress (https://lccn.loc.gov/2012593657 : accessed 4 Feb. 2025); citing Geography and Map Division, LOC, Washington, D.C. 

² Jane Hewett, Family Tree Researcher (https://www.familyresearcher.co.uk/glossary/Dictionary-of-Old-Occupations-Index.html : accessed 18 Feb. 2025), "Dictionary of Old Occupations."