My first roadblock in my search was the
spelling of the surname; variations
include Leisk, Liesk, Lisk, Lesh, Laesk, Lask, Lesk, Leysk, Laysk, and Lusk. Even online search engines are not very
flexible with multiple spellings of a surname.
Although my family used Lisk for the most part, for simplicity's sake I will use Leask in
this article. Leisk and Leask are the
more common variations I have found in the Ontario records.
My great grandmother Luella
Griffin was born in Windham, Ontario. In the early 1980's I was sent a transcription of her parents marriage record - Ellen Lisk & Peter Smith Griffin. The marriage records listed Ellen Lisk's parents as James Lisk and Jane St. Clair; and stated that Ellen was born in the Shetland Islands.(Bill Yeager, Archivist at the Norfolk Museum and a Griffin descendant was most helpful in my early research.)
My research very quickly
came to a dead end; I could not get past the information on the marriage
certificate. I then looked at everyone else in the Windham
area with the same surname, hoping this would expand my research.
I found wills for Abram and
Samuel. Although these wills listed spouses and children I was no closer to
confirming that they were siblings of my Ellen.
Ellens mother Jane was
living with the Goodlets in the 1861 and 1871 census in Windham so I knew Marion was a sister. Jane was listed as a widow.
1861 census Windham, Ontario |
From a site developed by John Cardiff http://www.nornet.on.ca/~jcardiff/ I located an obituary for
my 2x great grandfather Peter Smith Griffin and in the obit was the following
“His wife was Ellen Leask, a
sister of the late Capt. Abram Leask of Windham.”
Finally, I had confirmation tying my Windham Leasks
to Abrams family.
A note to John and I
discovered that he was a descendant of Captain Abram Leask. He was able to provide me with information
which further helped with my research.
From John I learned that Jane’s husband James
was thought to be a fisherman, the most common occupation of his neighbours in
Burra, Shetland Island. John had also learned from another Leask descendant
living in the Windham area that James and his second son drowned (an all too
common death for Burra fishermen of his day), presumably together, presumably
while fishing, some time prior to his widow and surviving children coming to
Canada.
Searching
for my Leask family in Shetland has been a bit of a needle in a haystack until
I found the marriage of Abram and Mary. Previous family members had failed to discover Mary’s surname so
research in the Shetland islands had not proceeded. All documents I had previously found for
these two, where a maiden name should have been included, always showed Marys
last name as Leask. The conclusion many
Leask researchers made was that her maiden name was unknown.
Abram Leisk Minn and Mary Leisk Gussigirth married 17th February 1842
Although parents names were not mentioned in this marriage record I learned location though. Mary was from Gussigarth and Abram from Minn; two very small settlements on Burra, and a very short distance from each other.
This led me to census records where I found there were two families in Gussigarth and three in Minn.
This led me to census records where I found there were two families in Gussigarth and three in Minn.
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