The BREVITY of Father John MacDonald - Tythes, Masses, and Notes 1838-1866 (primarily Glengarry County area, Ontario)

By Duncan (darby) MacDonald U.E.

The BREVITY is the companion book of the Diary of Deaths 1838-1866. While this book is a valuable source of information on its own, the two books together give researchers a complete picture of the Roman Catholic settlers of Glengarry County when used together.

After Duncan MacDonald finished extracting death information from the diaries of Rev. John MacDonald (the Roman Catholic priest of Glengarry County) and publishing them in 1989 as the Diary of Deaths 1838-1866, he continued to extract information of genealogical interest from the diaries, publishing his additional findings in this book in 1993.  The result is astonishing.  It appears that the good Rev. John MacDonald was a stickler for recording extraordinary detail about his flock.

This book includes deaths that are not listed in the Diary of Deaths (oftentimes a note made to add to the register but didn't get done), fascinating details of tythes and of the individuals who gave them (and some who didn't), misc. payments such as for genealogical lookups and dispensations, tidbits about individuals appearance or character, loaned money, family trees/sketches usually related to dispensations for marriages for consanguinity (some include detailed lot and concession information etc), details of the Masses for the dead, sick or for a person's marriage. conversions, promises of marriage, Banns, marriages, expenses paid, births, baptisms, daily activities/travel of Father MacDonald, etc ...

Of great benefit to family history researchers is that Father MacDonald often identifies a person with details of who they are related to and how, along with the township, Lot and Concession on which they or their relative lived. Very helpful in sorting out the many people in the congregation who had the same names.

Contents include:

• Introduction
  • Tythes
  • Masses
  • Marriages
  • Deaths
• Sketches/trees of family relationships - consanguinity
• Records -- organized alphabetically by primary person surname, given name
• Index of 'Other Names'. This is an Index of persons other than the primary persons whose events are recorded in the book. Those people and their events are organized alphabetically by surname and given name within the book, so an Index for them would be redundant. Click to browse Index of Other Names

NOTE 1: There is a companion volume:
Four years before The BREVITY was published, Duncan McDonald created and released the companion volume, Diary of Deaths recorded by Rev. John MacDonald (R.C.) 1838-1866 which contains death records that Father John MacDonald recorded in the same diary between 1838 and 1866.

NOTE 2: About print quality:
GlobalGenealogy.com acquired MacDonald Research Centre after the passing of its founder and primary transcriber/compiler, Duncan MacDonald. We are pleased to make his books available under the new MacDonald Research imprint. Each book has been reprinted as it was prepared by Mr. MacDonald, without corrections or additions. Modern technology helped us reproduce the original work in as-good-as, or better quality as that which was originally published. Much of MacDonald's original work was created on a typewriter. His well-worn "masters" were made on a photocopier. We've cleaned them up as much as possible without re-keying all of the content resulting in books that are useful and complete, but of a print quality that reflects the technology of the time in which they were originally published.

Details:

136 pages
8.5 X 11"
Originally published by MacDonald Research Centre, Brockville, 1993 on ISBN-0-921133-62-6
This edition published by Global Heritage Press/MacDonald Research Press, Carleton Place, 2022 ISBN13: 978-1-77240-200-1 (soft cover - coil bound)