Prince Edward Island Family Trees

Alberton Church of England records state that Mary Anne, wife of George Watts, died at the age of 42 in 1871, which would put her year of birth at 1828. She was married and buried in the Church of England, and the Mary Anne Smith born to John and Sarah Smith on 9 March 1828 is the only girl in the PEI Baptismal Index who comes close to meeting these criteria. She was the only Mary Ann/Marianne/Marion, and the only Church of England, girl named Smith baptized in the 1820s on the Island.

Mary Anne was baptized in New London, and married in the Church of England in Alberton. This follows the movements of John and Sarah Smith and the rest of their family, from New London to the Western Road, Lot 2. Some of the baptismal records for John and Sarah give her maiden name, Vincent.

According to records in the Alberton Museum, George Watts and Mary Anne Smith were married on November 17 1862, by a Church of England minister, the Reverend Dyer in Alberton. Witnesses were John and William Smith. John Smith and Sarah Vincent also had two sons with these names, or the witnesses could be Mary Ann's father and a brother. In his diary on that date Rev. Dyer wrote, "about 2 o'clock I married Smith's daughter Mary Anne to a young man from London England by the name of George Watts whom I had previously called in church. The parties said their lessons very well. The ceremony being over I gave the bride a certificate with a short address as to how they should live in the fear of God."

Mary Anne was 34 at the time of her marriage. The Rev. Dyer was 54 in 1862 - he would not call a man of 40 a young man, so I am assuming that George Watts was between 25 and 35 years old when he married Mary Anne.

The PEI Baptismal index lists two children for George and Mary Anne: John Henry and Joseph Thomas (b. 1865) and one for Mary Anne alone, Frederick William (1870-1881). All were baptized in the Alberton Church of England. This is another indication that the Church of England was Mary Anne's church, and not just her husbands.

The Rev. Dyer mentioned that Mrs Watts was just alive when he visited her early in 1871. When she died he said on April 19, "buried poor Mrs Watts this evening; she has been a great sufferer. I hope that God had mercy on her soul and forgave her of her sins." This was not his usual entry: the baptismal record for Frederick, without a father's name, and this statement by the minister, leaves me to believe that George James Watts died sometime around 1865. This would explain why he wasn't listed as a tailor in the directory published around that date.

Another connection between Mary Anne and the family of John and Sarah is what happened to her children after she died. In the 1881 census, Joseph Watts, age 16, was living with Jane and William Simmonds. Jane Catherine, daughter of John Smith and Sarah Vincent, married William Simmonds, a farmer in Lot 2. Mary Anne's older son, John Henry, went to the New London area looking for work after her death; with both parents gone he was possibly in search of family connections, for instance, his uncle Thomas Simmonds.

Although records say that Mary Anne and her youngest son Frederick were buried in St. Peters in Alberton, I was unable to find a grave marker in that cemetery. It is possible that George had died (or left the Island) before this because the birth/baptism record for Frederick did not include his father's name. However, Mary Anne is identified as the wife, not widow, of George Watts on the death record in the Alberton Church of England records.

Finally, Smith is a common name, and Mary Anne a popular girls name at the time of her birth. However, there were not that many Smith families on the Island that were also Church of England. None of the family trees of this branch of the Smith family propose an alternate life for Mary Anne. Mary Anne, who died in April 1871, was not named as a surviving sister in the estate papers of Joseph Smith, dated November 1871.

One possible source of information on what happened to George James Watts is the diary of the Rev. Dyer, which is held at PEI Archives. I only had time to look up the date of their marriage, the date of Frederick's baptism, and the date of Mary Anne's death, but there may be an entry about the couple after the baptism of Joseph Thomas.