Sunday, August 4, 2013

Theodore's son Gustav, or How I Discovered a Home Child in my Family Tree



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Theodore's son Gustav, or How I Discovered a Home Child in my Family Tree

This is a copy of my article about finding a British Home Child in my family tree which was re-printed in the most recent issue of The British Home Child, the newsletter of the Ontario Genealogical Society’s BHC-SIG (British Home Child Special Interest Group), vol. 3, issue 2, June 2013, pp. 15-17.    It's similar to the draft I posted here on Sept 6/2010.


Theodore's son Gustav, or How I Discovered a Home Child in my Family Tree

                                         Marcia Cuthbert

[This article was previously published (with a few small edits) in the Toronto Tree, Volume 41, Issue 5, September/October 2010.]

The name my grandfather was known by in Canada was Augustin Richard HAGUE. He died at age 37, on August 7th, 1905, of typhoid fever during the devastating typhoid epidemic in Winnipeg. At the time of his death, all seven of his children were under 12 years of age. Thus almost no information about him was retained to be passed on to the next generation.

One thing that we did know about him for certain was that his date of birth was February 15th, 1868. It was said that he was English, but it was not known exactly where in England he was born. The registration of his death that I obtained from the Vital Statistics Agency of Manitoba, when I first started my search about 15 years ago, stated only that he was born in England1.

His 1893 marriage record that I obtained shortly after that from Vital Statistics Manitoba2 indicated that he was born in London. And what was vitally important for my later research, his mother’s name, Mary REYNOLDS, was documented there.

On the other hand, an item relating to his death, obtained from the Diocese of Rupert's Land Anglican Archives3, stated that his place of birth was Birmingham.

And to add to the mystery, two of Augustin’s children’s marriage certificates from the 1920’s listed his birthplace as Manchester. So was it London, Birmingham or Manchester? All were possibilities but no one seemed to know for sure.

For ten years off and on I tried to find his birth certificate under the name he was known by in Canada, that is, Augustin Richard HAGUE. Finding no success I finally decided that I would wade through the entire microfilm of 1868 births in England, looking at every child born that year with what to me was the somewhat unusual first name of Augustin.

Since his surname was HAGUE I decided to start with the H’s. The very first name beginning with H in the March quarter of 1868 was Gustav Richard Rudolph HAAG4. Since the name Gustav sounds something like Augustin, and Richard was thought to have been his middle name, I ordered the certificate. To my amazement, this Gustav’s mother was Mary Margaret HAAG, formerly REYNOLDS! So I had found my ancestor’s place of birth at last, on Frith Street in Soho, the artists’ quarter of London - although with a very German-sounding name.

Further research led me to discover something that none of us, his descendants, had known - that Gustav/ Augustin’s father, Theodore HAÁG, was a violinist and orchestra conductor, born in Budapest, son of another Gustav HAÁG, a major in the Austrian army. Theodore had immigrated to England on the ship, the Magnet, in 1851, and was enumerated in the 1851 UK census as Theodore “HAGEN”, Professor of Music5, Bateman’s Buildings, Soho, London.

In the 1861 UK census Theodore is shown in Newcastle-upon-Tyne with his wife, Mary, and their first two children, Charles (age 4) and Louis (1 month). In the 1871 census, Theodore is enumerated twice! In one case he’s shown in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, as married with children: Charles (14), Albert (7), Mary (5) and “Gustave” (age 3). But there’s no mention of his wife, Mary, or their second son, Louis. In the second enumeration he’s shown as a widower, stopping by in a coffee house at 23 and 24 Charing Cross, London, with fellow Professor of Music, Frederick “NAWIRTH” (actually NEUWIRTH)6.

In 1874, Theodore died at only 49 years of age, leaving his children all under the age of 18 as orphans, including my grandfather Gustav who by then was only 6 years old. It is therefore no wonder that so much of the family history was lost.

The 1881 British census shows Gustav, shown as Augustine (with a final “e” on the name) HAAG, living in a Roman Catholic orphanage, St. Phillips, at 11 Oliver Road in Birmingham. His four siblings - Charles Maria Henry, Louis Paul Gustavus Rudolph, Albert Edward and Mary - are nowhere to be found in the 1881 census.

For a long time I had no information about Augustin’s whereabouts between his appearance in the 1881 UK census and his 1893 marriage in Winnipeg, Canada. At some point I put a post on the HAAG Genforum7. Not long afterwards I received an e-mail message from England from the granddaughter of Albert Edward, one of Augustin’s brothers. Albert’s granddaughter had her grandfather’s army records which listed as his next of kin, his brother Gustav (my grandfather) at MCGEE’S Farm, Eardley Post Office, Quebec, Canada, just across the river from Ottawa.

Family lore had indicated that Augustin had come to Canada as a boy with an aunt but that the aunt had decided to go back to England. No one seemed to know where his parents were and why he would have come with an aunt.

On the chance that he might have been sent to Canada with a group of orphans, I wrote to the Dr. Barnardo Homes in England but no records were found. I then tried the Catholic Children's Society (Westminister)8 who confirmed that they had Gustav HAAG listed on their database of Canadian migrants, that he had sailed in 1881/2, and that he had been sent to Ottawa, Ontario.

So it seems that Gustav was indeed one of the Home Children recognized in 2010 by the Canadian Parliament in the officially designated Year of the British Home Child.

At the time I was researching this, the ships’ passenger lists of child migrants were being transcribed by the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa9. A preliminary draft of the transcription showed a “Henry HOAG”, age 14, sailing from Liverpool on October 28th, 1881, on the ship Peruvian with Father MANNING’S group of 13 children destined for Quebec. I checked some of the boys’ names from the Peruvian ship in the 1881 UK census and found that, while a number of them were listed in orphanages in that year, there was no such person as “Henry HOAG” anywhere in the 1881 census. The name on the microfilm of the ship’s passenger list is extremely difficult to read - almost illegible - but it has now been transcribed as Gustav HAAG and that is how it appears is on the Library and Archives Canada Home Children site10. The handwritten names may be seen on page 1 of the Peruvian passsenger list at the Library and Archives Canada Passenger Lists 1865-1922 site which indicates that Cardinal MANNING’S group was “sent to the Bishop of Ottawa”11.

I would be interested in knowing about Augustin’s life at MCGEE’S Farm in Eardley, Quebec, and where he was between his arrival there and the time of his 1893 marriage in Winnipeg. I am hoping that some further information may be revealed.

As a postscript I could add that knowing one’s ancestor’s religious denomination can usually be helpful to genealogists in tracking down the records. We always thought that my grandfather was Roman Catholic. The story was that he didn’t tell my grandmother, who was a Protestant from Northern Ireland with family roots in the Orange Order, and that she only found out after they were married when a priest came to the door. But in the computer age new, and sometimes contradictory, information is always coming to light. Not long ago Ancestry put a collection of London, England, Births and Baptisms, 1813-1906 on line, including records from more than 10,000 Church of England parishes. Lo and behold if it doesn’t include the baptisms of Gustav HAAG at 6 years of age and his older brother, Albert Edward HAAG, in the Church of England (Anglican) Parish of St. Paul’s, Walworth, Surrey (now part of London) on July 15th and 23rd , 1874, not long before their father, Theodore HAAG’S death in Newington, Surrey, on September 1st, 1874, of phthisis (tuberculosis).
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1 Manitoba Family Services and Consumer Affairs, Vital Statistics Agency, 254 Portage Avenue Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3C 0B6. Summary now on line at http://vitalstats.gov.mb.ca/Query.php where his death is listed twice - as Augustus HAGNE and Augustus HAGUR.
2 Shown on http://vitalstats.gov.mb.ca/Query.php as Augustus Richard Hogue. 3 Diocese of Rupert's Land Anglican Archives, 935 Nesbitt Bay, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 1W6
archives@rupertsland.ca Listed as Augustus HAGUE. 4 I found the record on the Family History Library microfilm of Births in England, March Quarter, 1868, but
it is now shown on FreeBMD at http://www.freebmd.org.uk/.
5 I’ve come to learn that this term meant a practising musician rather than an academic.
6 On the Ancestry site, the second enumeration is mis-transcribed as Theodore “HOAG” and so I didn’t find it at first, and learned only later that he might have been a widower in 1871 when I found the World Vital Records transcription.
7 http://genforum.genealogy.com/haag/ 8 Post Adoption & Care Team Leader, Catholic Children's Society (Westminster), 73 St Charles Square,
11 http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/passenger/001045-119.01-e.php? &sisn_id_nbr=1857&interval=20&&PHPSESSID=uedl33bs1eu4r1k0f12trvvtv1


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Friday, August 2, 2013

Discovery of a Marriage and a Birth


This is a copy of my article which was published in the latest issue of the Toronto Tree, Volume 44, Issue 4, July/August 2013, pp. 6-7.   It’s based upon an item that I had posted earlier on this blog.  


DISCOVERY OF A MARRIAGE AND A BIRTH

Marcia Cuthbert

Adapted from a post on my blog, THE HAÁG FAMILY OF BUDAPEST, BERLIN AND LONDON: theodorehaagfamily.blogspot.com

In January 2013, taking advantage of some free credits on FindMyPast, I did a search for some of the unusual names in my family tree, one of them being that of my great grandfather, Theodore Haág. To my surprise, in the Westminster Baptisms database I found a reference to an 1852 baptism in London of a Charles Theodore Edward Haag. My Theodore had arrived in London in 1851 and so it was possible that this could be his child.

When I looked at the transcription of the record, I was amazed to find that the child’s father was in- deed Theodore Haag. Here is what the FindMyPast transcription showed:

First Name: Charles Theodore Edward 
Last Name: Haag 
Record set: Westminster Baptisms 
County: Middlesex
Mother's Given Name: Augustsa 
Father's First Name: Theodore 
St John The Baptist, Great Marlborough Street 
Baptism: 30 May 1852 
Birth: 03 Mar 1852

I suspected that the baby’s mother’s name might be “Augusta” rather than “Augustsa,” but with my computer I wasn’t able to access a copy of the original record. However, my second cousin in England was able to scan and e-mail me a copy and this is what it said (with question marks indicating a couple of illegible words):

BAPTISMS solemnized in the Parish of St. John Baptist, in the German Church, Savoy Strand in the County of Middlesex in the Year 1852
When Baptised: 1852, May 30th 
Born: March 3rd, 1852 
Child’s Christian Name: Charles Theodore Edward 
Parents Names: 
Christian–Theodore / Augusta [not Augustsa] 
Surname: Haag 
Abode: Compton place, Brunswick Square 
Quality, Trade, or Profession–Musician 
Sponsors: Mr (?) Chs. Jacobi & (?) Mother of the child.

The fact that this Theodore was a musician by profession meant that this is definitely my Theodore. His musical career as a violinist and orchestra leader is well documented in the 19th century British newspapers, many now available on line. But because of early deaths of parents leaving only very young children in two generations, we didn’t even know of the existence of Theodore until I discovered him through my family history research.

Of considerable importance is the discovery of the Haags’ association with the German congregation at the historic Savoy Protestant chapel in their earliest days in England, pointing towards a whole new direction for research in Protestant rather than Catholic records on the continent.

Looking up Compton Place on the map, I found that it is within steps of a route I have taken many times to and from a friend’s apartment on Judd Street in London, not knowing that my great grandfather had once lived so close by!

Now that I had the baptism of a previously unknown child of Theodore’s, I checked FreeBMD and found the following entry for a March 1852 birth:

Surname: Haag 
Given Name: Edward 
District: St. James

Could Edward Haag be the same person as Charles Theodore Edward Haag?

I ordered the birth registration and it provided the maiden surname of the mother, Auguste 
Müller. Here is the information contained on the certificate:

1852 BIRTH in the Sub-District of St. James Square in the County of Middlesex
When and where born: Third March 1852; 10 Queen Street, Regent Street 
Name, if any: Edward HAAG 
Name of Father: Theodor HAAG 
Name and Maiden Surname of Mother: Auguste HAAG, formerly Müller 
Occupation of Father: Musician

When Theodore had arrived in London from Berlin via Bremen on the Magnet in 1851, the “List of Aliens” that the ship’s captain was required to provide shows that Theodore had signed the list as “Theodor Haag and Wife.” Until now, the earliest wife I had known about was Mary Margaret Reynolds (my great grandmother), mother of their five children born between 1857 and 1868. But according to the UK 1861 census Mary Margaret was born about 1839, which would mean she was only about 12 in 1851, somewhat young to have been the “Wife” listed on the Magnet. The discovery of Edward Haag’s birth registration, with Auguste Müller as the mother, has provided the solution to the mystery.

A sad postscript was the discovery shortly afterwards on the FamilySearch website by my second cousin and fellow researcher of a Carl Edward Theodore Hagg (misspelled surname), with the following data:

Burial date: 16 July 1852; 
Burial place: St James, Westminster, Middlesex; 
Birth date: 1852; 
Age: 0.

This name also shows up on FreeBMD. The certificate was ordered and its arrival confirmed that this was the much too early death of Theodore Haag’s first son.

Among the remaining questions:
Where is Theodore and Auguste’s marriage certificate?
Who and where were their parents? And siblings, if any? All I know of Theodore’s family is that his father was said to be Gustav Haag, a major in the Austrian army, deceased by the time of Theodore’s 1872 third marriage, to Sarah Underwood.
Who is Charles Jacobi, shown as sponsor at Edward’s baptism?
And what had happened to Auguste when by 1857 Theodore had started a new family with second wife Mary Margaret Reynolds?

And some tried and true ways of finding answers:
Take advantage of free trials of databases when they’re available.
Search for your ancestors’ names under various spellings; for example, Haag, Haág, Hague, Haig, and even Hagg!
Find a research buddy somewhere in the world, possibly by means of Genforum, which is where I found my second cousin.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013


Discovery of Theodore Haág’s First Marriage, to Auguste Müller, and the Birth of their Son, Charles Theodore Edward Haag


In January 2013, taking advantage of some free credits on FindMyPast [1], I did a search for some of the unusual names in my family tree, one of them being that of my great grandfather, Theodore Haág.   To my surprise in the Westminster Baptisms database I found a reference to an 1852 baptism in London of a Charles Theodore Edward Haag.  My Theodore had arrived in London in 1851 and so it was possible that this could be his child. 

When I looked at the transcription of the record, I was amazed to find that the child’s father was indeed Theodore Haag.    Here is what the FindMyPast transcription showed:

First Name:  Charles Theodore Edward
Last Name:  Haag 
Collections from:  United Kingdom 
Country:  England 
Category:  Vital Records (Birth, Marriage, Death) 
Record collection:  Births & baptisms 
Record set:  Westminster Baptisms 
County:  Middlesex 
Year:  1852 
Mother's Given Name:  Augustsa  
Father's First Name:  Theodore 
Birth Year:  1852 
Parish:  St John The Baptist, Great Marlborough Street 
Baptism:  30  May 1852 
Birth:  03  Mar 1852 
I suspected that the baby’s mother’s name might be “Augusta” rather than “Augustsa” but I wasn’t able to access a copy of the original record.  However my second cousin, Karen, in England was able to print and e-mail me a copy of the original and this is what it said (with question marks indicating a couple of illegible words):

- BAPTISMS solemnized in the Parish of  St. John Baptist, in the German Church, Savoy Strand [2] in the County of    Middlesex  in the Year 1852
- When Baptised -  1852, May 30th    
- Born - March 3rd, 1852
- Child’s Christian Name -  Charles Theodore Edward
- Parents Names-
Christian -   Theodore   /   Augusta [not Augustsa]
Surname -  Haag
- Abode -  Compton place, Brunswick Square
- Quality, Trade, or Profession -  Musician
- By who the Ceremony was performed -  Rev d Dr. Scholl  //  Sponsors.  Mr (?) Chs. Jacobi  & (?) Mother of the child.

The the fact that this Theodore’s profession was musician meant that this is definitely my Theodore.  His musical career as a violinist and orchestra leader is well documented in the 19th century British newspapers, many now available on 
line [3].  But because of early deaths of parents leaving minor children in two generations, we didn’t even know of the existence of Theodore until I discovered him through my family history research. 

Looking up Compton Place [4] on the map, I found that it is within steps of a route I have taken many times to and from friend Marion’s friend’s apartment on Judd Street in London, not knowing that my great grandfather had once lived so close by!

Now that I had the baptism of a previously unknown child of Theodore’s, I checked on FreeBMD [5] on the internet and found the following entry for a March 1852 birth:  

- Surname -  Haag  
- Given Name - Edward 
- District  - St. James
- Volume - 1a 
- Page - 304

Could Edward Haag be the same person as Charles Theodore Edward Haag?  

I ordered the birth registration from the General Register Office in London [6] at a cost of ₤ 9.25 ($15.14 CAD) and it arrived about 17 days later providing the maiden name of the mother, Auguste Müller.    Here is the information contained on the certificate:

Registration District: Saint James Westminster
1852 BIRTH in the Sub-District of St. James Square in the County of Middlesex

1.  When and where born: Third March 1852;  10 Queen Street, Regent Street 
2.  Name, if any:  Edward HAAG  
3.  Sex:  Boy 
4.  Name and Surname of Father:  Theodor HAAG 
5.  Name, Surname and Maiden Surname of Mother:  Auguste HAAG, formerly Müller 
6.  Occupation of Father:  Musician
7.  Signature, Description and Residence of Informant:   Auguste Haag, Mother, 10 Queen Street, Regent Street
8.  When registered:  Thirtieth March 1852 
9.  Signature of Registrar: James Roberts, Registrar 
When Theodore had arrived in London from Berlin via Bremen on the Magnet in 1851, the “List of Aliens” that the ship’s captain was required to provide shows that Theodore had signed the list as “Theodor Haag and Wife”.   Until now, the earliest wife I knew about was Mary Margaret Reynolds (my great grandmother), mother of their five children born between 1857 and 1868.  But according to the UK 1861 census [7], Mary Margaret was born about 1839 which would mean she was only about 12 in 1851, somewhat young to have been the “Wife” listed on the Magnet.   The discovery of Edward Haag’s birth registration, with Auguste Müller as the mother, has provided the solution to this previously unsolved mystery.

A sad postscript was the discovery shortly afterwards on the LDS website [8], by my second cousin and fellow researcher, of a Carl Edward Theodore Hagg, and the following data:

- Burial date - 16 July 1852;   
- Burial place -  St James, Westminster, Middlesex;   
- Birth date - 1852;  
- Age - 0.  

This name is also shows up on FreeBMD .  With the details provided there -  Deaths, Sep 1852;   Hagg, Carl Edward Theodor;   St James Westminster;   vol. 1a;   page 209 - the certificate has now been ordered and should arrive soon from the General Register Office.

Among the remaining questions:

- Where is Theodore and Auguste’s marriage certificate? 
- Who and where were their parents?  And siblings, if any?  All I know of Theodore’s family is that his father was said to be Gustav Haag, a major in the Austrian army, deceased by the time of Theodore’s 1872 third marriage, to Sarah Underwood.
- Who is Charles Jacobi, shown as sponsor at Edward’s baptism?
- And what had happened to Auguste when by 1857 Theodore had started a new family with Mary Margaret Reynolds?    

And some possible ways to find answers:

- Take advantage of free databases when they’re available. 
- Search for your ancestors names under various spellings;  for example,  Haag, Haág , Hague, Haig, and even Hagg!  
- Find a research buddy somewhere in the world, possibly by means of Genforum [9] which is where I found my second cousin.
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Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Theodore's Grandson, Augustin Hague's WW1 Silver Memorial Cross Found on eBay

Here's an article I wrote about finding Augustin's WW1 Silver Memorial Cross.  It was published in the Ontario Genealogical Society Toronto Branch newsletter, the Toronto Tree, Vol. 20, Issue 1, January/February 2009, pp. 1-3.  Page one of the published article may be seen at 
http://www.torontofamilyhistory.org/TT%202009%20Jan%20Feb%20p1.pdf



ANCESTOR’S WW1 SILVER MEMORIAL CROSS FOUND ON eBAY
Marcia Cuthbert, OGS 13789
On July 28th, 2008, I was Googling some of my ancestors with unusual names to see if anything new had been added to the internet since my previous regular search.  To my amazement I found an advertisement on eBay from someone in Minnesota who was selling the Killed in Action Canadian Memorial Cross medal of my uncle, Augustin Hague.  The ad was accompanied by several photos of the sterling silver medal, now heavily patinated, showing Augustin's name and service number on the back, with a pin converting it into a broach, instead of the usual pendant suspended from a purple ribbon.  It seemed that the sale had already ended before I came across the eBay item, and so I wondered if it would still be possible to track down the vendor and, through him, the successful bidder.  
The person who was selling the medal had written on the eBay site that he had purchased the medal with the intention of adding a KIA Memorial Cross from a Minnesotan to his collection.  But after doing some research on the internet he learned that Augustin was a Canadian from Winnipeg and so he decided to pass the medal on to someone else.
Augustin was killed at age 17 in WW1 in 1916, and the medal, also known as the Silver Cross, was originally sent to my grandmother who had been living in Winnipeg but who at the time was staying with my aunt in Minneapolis.  Both are now deceased as is my cousin, but I wrote to my cousin’s son who still lives in Minnesota to let him know about the eBay sale.  He didn’t know about the existence of the medal or how it got out of our family.  But he had used eBay before, which I had not, and through his membership managed to locate the purchaser who lives and works in Peru -   but originally is from Sudbury, Ontario!
After some initial e-mailing back and forth, the purchaser called me from Peru to let me know that he was coming back to Canada for a few days and would be willing to resell the medal.  He also wanted to meet to get some tips on how to do family history research.  So a few days later we met at the Toronto Reference Library for an introduction to Ancestry Library Edition where he was successful in finding a couple of generations of his British ancestors.  
The medal had been sent to his home in Sudbury. But a friend and I were planning a trip through Northern Ontario in August, passing through Sudbury at the same time as he was going to be there!   So on August 26th I made the purchase while we were in Sudbury  - less than a month after first seeing the ad on eBay - and the medal is now back in our family’s possession.
At the November 24th OGS Toronto Branch meeting, I showed the medal in a display of materials relevant to family history along with a copy of the eBay posting and some other information about Augustin readily available on the internet - his 1915 attestation papers on the Library and Archives Canada Canadian Expeditionary Force site with his faked date of birth, his listing on the Vimy Ridge Memorial on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site, and his name inscribed in the Canadian Books of Remembrance.   But the advertisement was taken off the eBay site very shortly after I discovered it.  So it seems amazing that I was Googling Augustin’s name during the short period of time that it was there.  A lesson that can be drawn from this is to keep up regular searches on the internet.   You never know what you might find!

Monday, September 6, 2010

Theodore's son Gustav, or How I Discovered a Home Child in my Family Tree


This is the draft of an article that I submitted for publication in the newsletter of the Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society.   It was published, with only a couple of very minor changes, mainly to the footnotes, in the Toronto Tree, Volume 41, Issue 5, September/October 2010.  As of November 23rd, 2010, page one of the published article can be seen at 
http://www.torontofamilyhistory.org/TT%202010%20September%20p1.pdf  


Discovering a Home Child in my Family Tree

The name my grandfather was known by in Canada was Augustin Richard Hague.  He died at age 37, on August 7th, 1905, of typhoid fever during the devastating typhoid epidemic in Winnipeg.  At the time of his death, all seven of his children were under 12 years of age.  Thus almost no information about him was retained to be passed on to the next generation.
One thing that we did know about him for certain was that his date of birth was February 15th, 1868.  It was said that he was English, but it was not known exactly where in England he was born.  The registration of his death that I obtained from the Vital Statistics Agency of Manitoba, when I first started my search about 15 years ago, stated only that he was born in England.
His 1893 marriage record that I obtained shortly after that from Vital Statistics Manitoba indicated that he was born in London.  And what was vitally important for my later research, his mother’s name, Mary Reynolds, was documented there.
On the other hand, an item relating to his death, obtained from the Diocese of Rupert's Land Anglican Archives, stated that his place of birth was Birmingham.
And to add to the mystery, two of Augustin’s children’s marriage certificates from the 1920’s listed his birthplace as Manchester.  So was it London, Birmingham or Manchester?  All were possibilities but no one seemed to know for sure.  
For ten years off and on I tried to find his birth certificate under the name he was known by in Canada, that is, Augustin Richard Hague.  Finding no success I finally decided that I would wade through the entire microfilm of 1868 births in England, looking at every child born that year with what to me was the somewhat unusual first name of Augustin.  
Since his surname was Hague I decided to start with the H’s.  The very first name beginning with H in the March quarter of 1868 was Gustav Richard Rudolph HAAG.
  Since the name Gustav sounds something like Augustin, and Richard was thought to have been his middle name, I ordered the certificate.   To my amazement, this Gustav’s mother was Mary Margaret Haag, formerly Reynolds!  So I had found my ancestor’s place of birth at last, on Frith Street in Soho, the artists’ quarter of London - although with a very German-sounding name.
Further research led me to discover something that none of us, his descendants, had known - that Gustav/Augustin’s father, Theodore Haág, was a violinist and orchestra conductor, born in Budapest, son of another Gustav Haág, a major in the Austrian army.  Theodore had immigrated to England on the ship, the Magnet, in 1851, and was enumerated in the 1851 UK census as Theodore “Hagen”, Professor of Music
, Bateman’s Buildings, Soho, London.   In the 1861 UK census Theodore is shown in Newcastle-upon-Tyne with his wife, Mary, and their first two children, Charles (age 4) and Louis (1 month).  In the 1871 census, Theodore is enumerated twice!  In one case he’s shown in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, as married with children:  Charles (14), Albert (7), Mary (5) and “Gustave” (age 3).  But there’s no mention of his wife, Mary, or their second son, Louis.  In the second enumeration he’s shown as a widower, stopping by in a coffee house at 23 and 24 Charing Cross, London, with fellow Professor of Music, Frederick “Nawirth” (actually Neuwirth)
.
In 1874, Theodore died at only 49 years of age, leaving his children all under the age of 18 as orphans, including my grandfather Gustav who by then was only 6 years old.  It is therefore no wonder that so much of the family history was lost. 
The 1881 British census shows Gustav, shown as Augustine (with a final “e” on the name) Haag, living in a Roman Catholic orphanage, St. Phillips, at 11 Oliver Road in Birmingham.  His four siblings - Charles Maria Henry, Louis Paul Gustavus Rudolph, Albert Edward and Mary - are nowhere to be found in the 1881 census.
For a long time I had no information about Augustin’s whereabouts between his appearance in the 1881 UK census and his 1893 marriage in Winnipeg, Canada. At some point I put a post on the Haag Genforum.
  Not long afterwards I received an e-mail message from England from the granddaughter of Albert Edward, one of Augustin’s brothers.  Albert’s granddaughter had her grandfather’s army records which listed as his next of kin, his brother Gustav (my grandfather) at McGee’s Farm, Eardley Post Office, Quebec, Canada, just across the river from Ottawa.  
Family lore had indicated that Augustin had come to Canada as a boy with an aunt but that the aunt had decided to go back to England.  No one seemed to know where his parents were and why he would have come with an aunt.   On the chance that he might have been sent to Canada with a group of orphans, I wrote to the Dr. Bernardo Homes in England but no records were found.  I then tried the Catholic Children's Society (Westminister)
 who confirmed that they had Gustav Haag listed on their database of Canadian migrants, that he had sailed in 1881/2, and that he had been sent to Ottawa, Ontario.   So it seems that Gustav was indeed one of the Home Children, now being recognized in 2010 by the Canadian Parliament in this officially designated Year of the British Home Child.
At the time I was researching this, the ships’ passenger lists of child migrants were being transcribed by the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa.
 A preliminary draft of the transcription showed a “Henry Hoag”, age 14, sailing from Liverpool on October 28th, 1881, on the ship Peruvian with Father Manning’s group of 13 children destined for Quebec.  I checked some of the boys’ names from the Peruvian ship in the 1881 UK census and found that, while a number of them were listed in orphanages in that year, there was no such person as “Henry Hoag” anywhere in the 1881 census.   The name on the microfilm of the ship’s passenger list is extremely difficult to read - almost illegible -  but it has now been transcribed as Gustav Haag and that is how it appears is on the Library and Archives Canada Home Children site.
  The handwritten names may be seen on page 1 of the Peruvian passsenger list at the Library and Archives Canada Passenger Lists 1865-1922 site which indicates that Cardinal Manning’s group was “sent to the Bishop of Ottawa”.
I would be interested in knowing about Augustin’s life at McGee’s Farm in Eardley, Quebec, and where he was between his arrival there and the time of his 1893 marriage in Winnipeg.   I am hoping that during this Year of the British Home Child some further information may be revealed.
(1143 words)
As a postscript I could add that knowing one’s ancestor’s religious denomination can usually be helpful to genealogists in tracking down the records.  We always thought that my grandfather was Roman Catholic.  The story was that he didn’t tell my grandmother, who was a Protestant from Northern Ireland with family roots in the Orange Order, and that she only found out after they were married when a priest came to the door.  But in the computer age new, and sometimes contradictory, information is always coming to light.  Not long ago Ancestry put a collection of London, England, Births and Baptisms, 1813-1906 on line, including records from more than 10,000 Church of England parishes.  Lo and behold if it doesn’t include the baptisms of Gustav Haag at 6 years of age and his older brother,  Albert Edward Haag, in the Church of England (Anglican) Parish of St. Paul’s, Walworth, Surrey (now part of London) on July 15th and 23rd , 1874, not long before their father, Theodore Haag’s death in Newington, Surrey, on September 1st, 1874, of phthisis (tuberculosis).
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1 Manitoba Family Services and Consumer Affairs, Vital Statistics Agency, 254 Portage Avenue
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada  R3C 0B6.  Summary now on line at http://vitalstats.gov.mb.ca/Query.php where his death is listed twice - as Augustus Hagne and Augustus Hagur.
2 Shown on http://vitalstats.gov.mb.ca/Query.php as Augustus Richard Hogue.
3 Diocese of Rupert's Land Anglican Archives, 935 Nesbitt Bay, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 1W6
archives@rupertsland.ca  Listed as Augustus Hague.
4  I found the record on the Family History Library microfilm of Births in England, March Quarter, 1868,  but it is now shown on FreeBMD at http://www.freebmd.org.uk/.  
5 I’ve come to learn that this term meant a practising musician rather than an academic.
6 On the Ancestry site, the second enumeration is mis-transcribed as Theodore “Hoag” and so I didn’t find it at first, and learned only later that he might have been a widower in 1871 when I found the World Vital Records transcription.
8 Post Adoption & Care Team Leader, Catholic Children's Society (Westminster), 73 St Charles Square, London, England  W10 6EJ