Martha Wrathall of Lanark County (1822 - 1859)

My wife is a McCormick (her ancestors are primarily from Montague Twp. in Lanark County) and in our genealogy work we have come across a sister-in-law of her great-great-grandfather Robert McCormick, by the name of Martha Wrathall b. circa 1822, Bathurst Twp, d. 1 Feb 1859 and m. Joseph McCormick (sometimes spelled McCormack, for reasons too complicated to go into here) b. circa 1816. That her last name is Wrathall has been established through various source documents, i.e. marriage certs. of some of their children and the 1851 census record of Montague Twp., as well as a Perth Courier wedding announcement for one of their daughters, Martha Jane McCormick, naming her the d/o Joseph McCormick and Martha Wrathall. We have even found her burial plot in McVean Cemetery in Numogate, Montague Twp. Unfortunately there is little else information we can find out about her - who her parents or her siblings are.

We have, over the last few months, scanned through a lot of documentation re: the Wrathall family in Lanark County and continue to come up empty on Martha. We are aware that Lupton Wrathall Robinson and Rebecca Wayland produced an offspring, Martha Wrathall, born in England 1807 [see Descendants of Edward & Frances Hudson ], before they moved to Canada c. 1817. We are fairly certain that these two Marthas are NOT one and the same. We are curious as to whether or not you may have any information on this particular Martha Wrathall and what line of Wrathalls she falls under.

[From] Marriages, from Rootsweb - Lanark Co., 1876 :

5349-77 Abraham HAINES (Hainer?), 50, widower, NY state, Watertown US, s/o Jacob HAINES & Maria SCISSON?, married Martha Jane McCORMACK, 21, Montague, Smith Falls, d/o Joseph McCORMACK & Martha WRATHALL, witn: Dougald McQUARRIE & Joseph McCORMACK, both of Smith Falls, 25 Dec 1876 at Smith Falls.

Also, a photo by Keith Thompson of [Martha's] headstone can be found in McVean Cemetery (Numogate, Montague Twp.) (page 4).

My wife closely examined this headstone several years ago, and confirms that the year of death is 1859 and Martha was aged 37 years, which puts her year of birth c. 1822. Unfortunately when we visited McVean Cemetery in September (2008), the inscription on the headstone wasn't visible - the headstone, sadly, had fallen over.

Additional marriage certificates of offspring have been added as source documents to Donna's public tree on Ancestry.com "DLMcCormick Family Tree" for those who would like to examine these documents more closely. Spellings of the name Wrathall on these documents vary due, as is often the case in these instances, to incorrect transcribing from the original document or to the information being documented incorrectly in the first place.