Shaving with Occam’s Razor:

A Proposed Descendancy for Edward Warren

of Fox Island, Newfoundland

by Dr. William M. Litchman, C. G., #1637

1620 Los Alamos, SW

Albuquerque, NM 87104-1122

Introduction

[Submitted to Newfoundland Ancestor by mail 10 Sep 2001, received 15 Oct 2001. Part I published Fall, 2001, Vol 18 #4, pp 185-194, Part II published Winter, 2002, Vol 19 #1, pp 35-44.]

            Occam’s Razor is a scientific or philosophical principle which states that, other things being equal, the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one. Despite the many variations in human behavior, this proposition can effectively be used as a starting-place in constructing families for which there is absent or conflicting evidence. An example is the Warren family of Fox Island, Newfoundland, who lived in a small, isolated community for many years.

            Tiny Fox Island is found just off the south coast of Newfoundland between White Bear Bay and Bay de Vieux, about 3 miles north-north-east of the eastern-most island of the Ramea group; the nearest larger mainland communities are Burgeo and Little River (now Grey River). Fishermen and their families settled on Fox Island possibly as early as 1818, and their descendants stayed as long as the fishing was good. At no time was this a large community (the peak recorded population was 134 in 1911), but both a school and church were built there between 1877 and 1884. Officially renamed Bonald’s Island sometime between 1945 and 1956, the island has been abandoned since 1956.

            The Warren family project began as an apparently unrelated collection of evidence, found in the Burgeo and Ramea parish records; three Newfoundland directories, two diaries, the 1921 and 1935 Newfoundland censuses for the Burgeo and La Poile District, and the civil vital records of Newfoundland. This collection of data was presented to a seminar on evidence and analysis as an exercise in logic. The assignment was to create a genealogical solution (one or more families) which incorporated all of the data in the collection.

            The evidence is sparse for the first years of residence in the area, partly because Rev. Blackmore, the first permanent cleric in the area, didn’t arrive in Burgeo until 1842. The family structure presented here is not the only one which could be constructed from the evidence, particularly in the third generation; there is not enough available evidence to conclusively define the whole family. However, using the principle of Occam’s Razor, this is a logical family construction and a good point of beginning.

            There are 49 individuals in the first three generations of this family, 26 of whom declare their parents by name either in their baptism record or in their marriage record. The remaining 23 have no indication in the records of who their parents might be. We can single out reasons for one father to be assigned to 16 of these. The remaining 7 are arbitrarily assigned and provide the leaven to this loaf!

            It may be helpful to refer to the chart of child-bearing years, below, for the Warren family members discussed herein. The dashed lines indicate the approximate years during which a child may be attributed to him or her running from the marriage year to the death of the individual, spouse, or the wife reaching age 44.

Chart of child-bearing years for the Warren family members:

Listed in order of appearance

Edward¹             1813 |-----------------------|1837

William²                          1837 |------|----------------|          1860

John²                              1844 |-----|49 56|----------------------|         1879

Elizabeth² (Osmond)                   1844 |-----------------------|         1867

Bavillam²                                     1849 |----------------------|          1871

Henry²                                         1849 |-----------------------|         1872

Grace² (Melbourne)                     1852 |-----------------------|         1875

Thomas²                                      1858 |----|         1862

Edward²                                       1862 |----------------------|1885

Edward³                                       1862 |                                    1862

Henry³                                                      1871 |--------------------|                   1891

William³                                                                 1862 |----------------------|                           1885

Sarah³ (Clarke)                           1860 |-----------------------|                             1883

Emma³ (McDonald)                                               1884 |---------------------------------

Susannah³ (Bagg)                                                 1894 |----------------------

John³                                                                     1892 |----|            1896

James³(Susannah³ Warren)                                1881 |--------------------------|1908

Ann³ (Vardy)                                                          1886 |---------------|     1903

Thomas³                                                                1882 |-----|                        1886

George³                                                                 1901 |--------------

Elizabeth³ (Cole)                                                   1865 |-----------------------|                      1888

Thomas³                                                                1879 |-----------------------|     1902

William³                                                                 1880 |-----------------------|    1903

Edward³                                                                 1879 |-----------|                    1891

Henry³                                                                   1881 |-----------|                  1893

Hannah³ (Matthews)                                             1879 |-------------------|          1898

Susannah³ (James³ Warren)                                1881 |--------------------------|1908

Elizabeth³ (Edward³ William Warren)                    1887 |--------|           1896

Albert John³                                                           1879 |-----------------------|     1902

Isabella³ (Bungay)                                                 1886 |----|                 1890

Edward³ William (Elizabeth³ Warren)                    1887 |--------|           1896

Thomas³                                                                1880 |--------------|               1892

Proposed Descendants of Edward¹ Warren

First Generation

1.         Edward¹ Warren was born about 1788. He died between 1849/1852 in Fox Island.

Among the earliest parish records are some Warren marriages in the Burgeo parish, which includes Fox Island: three marriages in 1844, one in July and two in September. The two September weddings (on the same day) were witnessed by Edward¹ Warren. He was not a witness at the July wedding, perhaps because he was away fishing at that time. There are two further Warren weddings in 1849, both on the same day in September of that year, one witnessed by Edward¹ Warren and the other by William² Warren. Both of these weddings take place at the “house of Edward Warren at Fox Island.” Edward¹ does not appear on any record after this 1849 wedding and so he may have died soon thereafter. Except for that, he probably would have appeared as a witness at the September wedding of Grace² Warren in 1852. In addition, there is a wedding in 1858 and two in 1862. The last two are both for men named Edward Warren.

Edward¹ Warren could be 1) one individual or 2) two individuals. Of these two possibilities, one individual is certainly simpler. He could be 1) related by blood or 2) not related by blood to other Warrens. Of these two, a blood relationship is far more likely. He could have 1) the same relationship or 2) different relationships to the marriage individuals. It is most probable that he has the same relationship to all since they (the brides and grooms) are of the same generation. If only one relationship exists, he could be 1) father or uncle (i.e. one generation older) or 2) sibling or cousin (i.e. the same generation). Of these, the simplest is that he is their father and they are all of one family.

The possibility of more than one wife for Edward¹ is raised at this point only because there is one fairly wide gap (1813-1819) in the estimated birth years for these eight children indicating the possibility of the death of an earlier spouse and replacement by another. Neither of these women are named anywhere to answer this question. It is also possible that one or more children born in this interim period either died, married, and/or moved at some point and so don’t appear in the later church records. Another argument is that the estimated ages for the children (and therefore birth years) are inaccurate and spread in a different fashion so that there really isn’t any gap at all. It is probably simpler to assume one mother for all of these children with some children lost at young ages (creating the apparent gap).

Trying to construct this family using two early male parents (i.e. Edward¹ and one other) produces many more complications. If there were two Warren men living at Fox Island early on, the second individual is never mentioned in any record. Since one parent can account for all of the known second generation Warren family members without difficulty it seems simplest to propose one male Warren parent, not two.

Two pieces of evidence support the contention for one male Warren parent. The first is a statistical summary for the 1836 census of Fox Island. [This piece of evidence was not included in this article. This summary shows 4 dwellings (families?), 2 males under age 14, 5 males between 14 and 60, one male over 60, 2 females under 14, 3 females between 14 and 60, and one male servant (is the male servant in addition to all of the other males?). This population could be composed of Edward Warren (married), age 48, William Warren (married), age 23, John Warren age abt 17, Bavillam Warren, age 12, Henry Warren, age abt 12, Thomas Warren, age abt 3, Elizabeth Warren, age abt 14, Grace Warren, age abt 6, Edward’s wife, age about 46?, William’s wife Grace, age 21?, Benjamin Hayman (married), age 32?, and Mary Hayman (his wife), aged 30?, Susan Hayman, age 9, Mary Hayman, age 7, and Elizabeth Hayman, age 4. The older man could be the single male servant. The last three girls are proposed because they appear in the marriage records for Burgeo (residence Fox Island) in 1849 and 1850. There are three too many people here but if Henry Warren was born a bit earlier than supposed, then he could be the fifth male between 14-60. That would then give us two males under 14. There are five females under 14 proposed for this group (instead of three) including the three Hayman girls but one can’t have everything! It is true that both William Warren and Benjamin Hayman were said to be present in Fox Island in 1831 (why Edward Warren was not mentioned is not clear).]

The second bit of supporting evidence to this conclusion comes from comments made by Rev. Blackmore in his diary. He lists statistical results of an 1845 census of the district of Fortune Bay extending from Bonne Bay to Cape Ray. In this listing, he notes that there are only 13 families living in Fox Island, with 40 children and 63 individuals. The families who are likely present at Fox Island in 1845 include William² and Ann (Thornhill) Warren, John² and Frances (Bonnell) Warren, Benjamin and Mary Hayman, James and Elizabeth Young, William and Mary Kettle, Kish and Esther Cains, John and Elizabeth (Warren) Osmond, James Bunter and wife, the parents of Ann Thornhill, and the parents of Frances Bonnell, ten couples, plus Edward¹ Warren (assuming he is a widower by this time), Thomas Lushman, and Edward Trick, three possible singles.

From this evidence, Edward¹ must have been born about 1788 (based on the birth year for his eldest proposed child) and died about 1849-52. If his wife was born about 1792 her fertile years could cover the years 1813 through 1836 (age 44).

            Edward¹ and his wife had the following children:

+          2          i.           William² Warren was born about 1813.

+          3          ii.          John² Warren was born about 1819.

            4          iii.         Elizabeth² Warren was born about 1822. Osmond, JohnElizabeth² married John Osmond on 13 Jul 1844 in Fox Island. John was born about 1820.

+          5          iv.         Bavillam² Warren was born about 1824.

+          6          v.          Henry² Warren was born about 1824.

+          7          vi.         Grace² Warren was born about 1830.

+          8          vii.        Thomas² Warren was born about 1833.

+          9          viii.       Edward² Warren was born about 1837.

Second Generation

2.         William² Warren (Edward¹) was born about 1813. He was buried on 12 Nov 1891 in Tibbo's Cove. , Grace William² married (1) Grace. Grace was born about 1816.

Grace³ was born in 1837 to William² and Grace Warren. Grace³ was baptised on the same day that William² Warren and Ann Thornhill (bachelor and spinster of Fox Island) were married. The implication of the bachelor note is that there must be two Williams. The simplest theory is to have only one William² with two wives in sequence, even in the face of the “bachelor” declaration for his second marriage. Secondly, the baptism of a child of William² and Grace on the same day and place as the marriage of William² and Ann only sounds reasonable with one William². William² Warren was known to be in Fox Island in 1831.

There are three other children born early enough to qualify as children of William² and Grace; all born prior to the marriage of William² and Ann or the marriage of any of his siblings. Edward¹ already has living children of these names. The children could be named Grace³ (for the mother), Edward³ (for the paternal grandfather), William³ (for the father) and Henry³ (possibly for the maternal grandfather?).

            William² and Grace had the following children:

            10        i.           Grace³ Warren was born on 24 May 1837 in Fox Island and was christened on 9 Sep 1844 in Fox Island.

            11        ii.          Edward³ Warren was born about 1837. He married Maria Young.

+          12        iii.         Henry³ Warren was born about 1840.

+          13        iv.         William³ Warren was born about 1841.

William² also married (2) Ann Thornhill on 9 Sep 1844 in Fox Island. Ann was born about 1823.

3.         John² Warren (Edward¹) was born about 1819 in Fox Island. John² married (1) Frances Bonnell on 9 Sep 1844 in Fox Island. Frances was born about 1827. She died on 9 May 1849 in Fox Island.

Sarah³ Warren (born c 1849), has no parent declared and could have been the daughter of John², Bavillam², or Henry². Bavillam² cannot be her father since he named another child Sarah³. Henry² has another child born in Mar 1850. Sarah³ has been assigned to John² and Frances.

After Frances died, five other children designated as children of “John Warren” were born. There are also two further children, probably twins, who have their parents declared as John² and Elizabeth. This means that John² must have married again after Frances’ death but before the birth of the first of the second group of children (estimated to be 1856).

There is one child, Thomas³, who married a woman named Elizabeth and had three children designated as children of Thomas³ and Elizabeth. This Thomas³ is different from Thomas³, born c 1855, who married Mary Ann; and Thomas³, the son of Edward² and Jane (b c 1869) who married Elizabeth Ann Clarke. This Thomas³, by the date of his birth, could be the son of John², Bavillam², Edward², Henry², or William³. Henry² has a child whose birth date conflicts with that of this Thomas³, and Bavillam², Edward² and William³ all have children by the name of Thomas. The only man left is John² who, with his wife, Elizabeth, could be the parents of this Thomas³.

Henry³ Warren, born c 1858, is a candidate to be a child of John², Bavillam², Henry², or Thomas². Henry² already has a son named Henry³ and another child born in that year so he is highly unlikely as a father. William³ and Albert³ John are also born in 1858 and with Henry³, these three must be assigned to those three fathers. Only Albert³ John survives to the 1921 Newfoundland census and he is found living alone as a widower in Fox Island, giving no indication as to his sibling(s). These are three of the seven arbitrary assignments to parents. Henry³ is assigned to John², William³ to Bavillam², and Albert³ John to Thomas².

Two more children, suggested by later marriage records to have been born in the late 1850's, do not appear in any of the earlier records. Mary³ Jane Warren married Ezekiel McDonald in 1880, giving her a birth year of about 1859, and after her death, he married Emma³ Warren in 1884. Ezekiel and Emma³ are alive in 1921 where we find Emma³’s birth to be Feb 1859 in Fox Island. The fact that these two Warren women from Fox Island both married the same man suggests that they might have been sisters (or at least closely related) and the closeness of their supposed birth dates suggests that they might, in fact, be twin sisters. John², Bavillam², Henry², or Thomas² may be their father and there is not much to tell us which is more likely. However, John² already has two sets of twins in his family which is encouraging. These two women are assigned to John² and Elizabeth since this seems to be the simplest construction based on the slim evidence remaining.

            John² and Frances had the following children:

Warren, Rebecca