Who the heck is Zaidain?

When I was a teenager and just starting in on this genealogy thing, my grandfather (considerably younger than his siblings and the only one not born in Lebanon) got his sister Jean to write (or maybe dictate) what she could remember of their father's side of the family. These notes are wonderful. Here is some of the information contained in them:

My great-grandfather Markus Hanna was the youngest of five children: Nicola, Roomiyee, George, Rahmee, and, of course, himself. They were all from Shebaa, in Lebanon (Syria at the time). As Christians, they faced persecution there, and were therefore keen on making a better life for themselves in the New World. Markus' oldest brother, Nicola, chose Australia as his new home. He and his wife and their son Ferris moved there in the 1880s. Ferris was educated both at the University of Beirut in Lebanon and in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. 

Now, Auntie Jean didn't mention Nicola's wife's name at all; the only information we have on her is a little note in the margin that she was "aunt to Zaidain". The notes contain zero explanation for who the heck this Zaidain is; clearly it's something Auntie Jean expected her audience to know.

Unfortunately, when I tried to follow my great-granduncle Nicola's branch of the family in Australia, I came up empty-handed. Until one day, I was contacted by a researcher who had seen my tree online and told me that the family I was looking for didn't go by the name Hanna (as my family did), but Nicholl. And also, Nicola's wife's name was Annie.

Okay, I thought, whatever. That's nice, but what proof do I have that this is true? However, a lead is a lead, so I followed it.

And down a rabbit hole I went!

It was not at all hard to find the Annie Nicholl this researcher was talking about. Firstly, we have this obituary which appeared in The Argus (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) on 7 June 1930:

NICHOLL--On the 4th June, 1930, at Carlton, Annie, widow of the late Nicholl Hannah Nicholl, loved mother of the late Faris Nicholl, beloved auntie of Joseph Hannah, aged 78 years. (No flowers, by request.) At rest.

This obituary seems very much like it's connected to my family. We have a family described here where the father's name was Nicholl (an anglicized variation of Nicola), and included the name Hannah; and whose son's name was Faris (Ferris); and Annie died in Carlton, which is a suburb of Melbourne, which is where my Ferris Hanna was said to have been educated. Moreover, this Annie's age of 78 at death in 1930 gives her a birth year of about 1852 - this works decently since my Nicola Hanna (who would be Annie's husband if the connection is true) was supposed to have been born around 1840. A twelve-year age gap between spouses is quite unremarkable in this culture; my own great-grandmother Zahra, Markus' wife, was fourteen years his junior. (In fact, they met because she was a 14-year-old student in his classroom and he was smitten. Incredibly creepy by today's standards, but they were married for over 70 years, and were by all accounts deliriously happy together.)

At any rate, this was very promising, so it was definitely time to do a little more digging into the life of this Annie Nicholl.

Since we can see from this obituary that her son Faris predeceased her, I went looking for information about his death. Turns out, his obituary was also printed in The Argus, on 18 February 1925:

NICHOLL--On the 16th February 1925 (suddenly, at his residence, 235 Lygon street, Carlton, Faris, dearly beloved son of Annie and the late Nichola Nicholl, aged 48 years.

So here we have, again, documentation for the family of Nichola, Annie and Faris Nicholl. We also have an approximate birth year of 1877 for Faris.

This led me to an incredible resource available online: Annie Nicholl's naturalization file. The documents in this file are definitely about the same person as the Annie Nicholl I'd been looking into, as it -- like Faris' obituary -- gives her address as 235 Lygon Street. Moreover, the documents in the file give her son's name as Fares. 

The file is an absolute treasure trove of information, and makes the connection to my family all the more likely, as it gives Annie's birthplace as "Shippah, Hasbyah District, Syria (Mount Hermon)" -- that's my family's ancestral village of Shebaa. 

The file also says that she was a manufacturer of women's underclothes; that she came to Australia in 1896; and that her father's name was Joseph Habeeb.

As a fun aside, I also found an article in The Brisbane Courier on 30 September 1903 entitled "A Courageous Constable", which could be about this Annie Nicholl that I was investigating:

A Syrian woman named Mrs. Nicholls was driving a horse attached to a dog-cart along Petrie-terrace yesterday afternoon, when the animal shied at a passing tramcar near the Caxton-street corner. A man named Henry Davis caught hold of the reins, but the horse reared, the winkers came off, and the animal bolted towards Roma-street, throwing Davis to the ground, but fortunately not injuring him. The cart shortly aftwards collided with a post, breaking the axle, and one of the wheels came off. The horse still continued to gallop along the road, and when near the bridge at Roma-street dragged the cart on to the footpath and headed straight for the fence. The woman, meanwhile, had maintained her seat in the vehicle. Constable Scanlon, however, recognising the danger the woman was in, rushed between the horse and the fence, and struck the animal on the nose, causing it to swerve out towards the roadway. He then attempted to rescue the woman, but she was apparently too terrified to render any assistance, and clung to the reins. The horse then continued bolting along Roma-street, with the constable in chase, and when near Skew-street Constable Scanlon overhauled the horse, and seizing the reins managed to stop the animal. The woman was then helped from the cart, frightened, but unhurt.

The amazing thing about this story is that in the naturalization file, one of Annie's guarantors was a John Edward Scanlon, sergeant of police, who in 1914 (about eleven years after the above article) said he had known Annie for twelve years!!! 

The only part of the story that I can't reconcile is the location of Brisbane as opposed to Melbourne - the incident was reported in a Brisbane newspaper and also definitely happened in Brisbane, as I checked Google Maps. All the streets mentioned (Petrie Terrace, Caxton St., Roma St., and Skew St.) all lie within about a kilometre of one another, and Petrie and Caxton do intersect, as do Roma and Skew. Possibly this is all a coincidence and this Syrian Mrs. Nicholls who met a Constable Scanlon in 1903 is a totally different person from the Annie Nicholls I'm researching who had a Sergeant Scanlon vouching for her in 1914. Another possibility is that they're the same woman and Annie simply lived in Brisbane before moving to Melbourne, or was visiting Brisbane from Melbourne.

But anyway, back to the real nitty-gritty...

There are a few more sources I found that round out the story for this Annie Nicholl, and confirm existing documentation:

• Annie's notice of intent to apply for naturalization, which appeared in The Argus on 25 January 1921:

  I, ANNIE NICHOLL (widow), of Syrian nationality, born at Shippah, Mount Hermon, Syria, and resident twenty-five years in Australia, now residing at 235 Lygon street, Carlton, intend to APPLY to the Home and Territories department, Melbourne, for NATURALISATION.

• The death index for Fares, which gives his parents as Nicholas Nicholls and Annie Hablap (obviously a horrendous transcription error of Habeeb).
• Australian Electoral rolls for 1924, which show Fares and Annie again at 235 Lygon Street.

And then things get even more interesting. There's a personal notice which appears in The Argus on 23 August 1930:

Mrs. Annie Nicholl, of Drummond street, Carlton, widow, who died on June 6, left by will dated September 16, 1929, real estate of a gross value of #20,279 and personal property of a gross value of #106 to her nephew, Joseph Abdullah Hannah, of Drummond street, Carlton. The will was lodged for probate yesterday. The real estate includes properties in Russell street, Melbourne.

#20,279 in 1930? According to this calculator, that's the equivalent of over a million dollars today! Wow. Apparently the underclothing manufacturing business was very profitable. (Incidentally, Annie was busted for, by the sounds of it, running a sweatshop, according to an article in The Argus on 31 July 1901; she pled guilty to "employing three improvers in excess of the number allowed under the Factories and Shops Act" and paid a fine of #1, with #2/2/costs.)

But the real takeaways from this newspaper item about Annie's will are that she seemed to be living with her nephew Joseph Abdullah Hannah (who was also mentioned in her obituary), and that he was her sole heir. The facts that he's her nephew and that his middle name is Abdullah suggest that he is also Lebanese/Syrian. So he seemed to be a key person to investigate next.

The 1931 Australia Electoral Rolls provide a match: there is a Joseph Hannah living at Drummund Street in Carlton, the same street of residence given in the newspaper notice about Annie's will. Joseph is also listed there as a manufacturer, implying that he took over Annie's business. Then in 1936, Joseph is joined on the rolls (still at Drummond Street) by a Felix Joseph Hannah, at the same address. The likelihood is that this is Joseph's son. I know from my research into my Lebanese ancestors that the convention in this culture is for the last part of a person's name to be the name of their father. So for example, my great-grandmother Zahra, whose father was Khalil Solomon, was given in records as "Zahra Khalil Solomon". Therefore, with a name like Felix Joseph Hannah, his father is likely to be Joseph Hanna. (And incidentally, if Joseph's full name is Joseph Abdullah Hanna, then his father is likely to be Abdullah Hanna.)

Moving on, the National Archives of Australia website came through again, with an index listing of Felix Joseph Hannah's WWII enlistment record. It gives his full name, Felix Joseph Hannah, and states that his date of birth was 14 August 1913. This explains why Felix didn't show up on the 1931 electoral rolls as he was about 18, yet did show up in 1936, when he was 23; according to this Australia government page, the voting age was 21 until 1973. Felix's next of kin is listed as Alma Hannah (likely either his wife or his mother), and, most interestingly, his birthplace is listed as St. Felix, Canada.

Interesting. Because of course we know that my great-granduncle Nicola, his wife, and their son Ferris had some family in Canada, i.e. my branch of the family! And maybe they had even more family in Canada on Nicola's wife's side, too - Quebec was a major destination for Lebanese people at the turn of the 20th century, lots of people from Shebaa ended up there. And indeed, Felix's baptism record is incredibly easy to find in Quebec, and is a beautiful match:

St. Felix de Valois, County Joliette, province of Quebec
Le quatorze août mil neuf cent treize, nous prètre-curé soussigné, avons baptisé Felix Joseph né aujourd'hui, fils légitime du Joseph Hanna, marchand et du Maria Chaarre, de cette paroisse. Le parrain a été John Hanna, marchand de cette paroisse, oncle de l'infant, la marrain Alida Robertson, domicilié en cette paroisse, lesquels ainsi que le père ont signé avec nous, lecture faite.
signatures: Joseph A Hanna, Jhon (sic) A Hanna, Alida Robinson.

Translated, this says that Felix Joseph Hanna was born and baptised on the 14th of August 1913 (the exact date given in the Australian WWII enlistment record). He was the son of Joseph Hanna (merchant) and Maria Chaarre, who lived in the parish of St. Felix (the exact birth location given in the Australian WWII enlistment record). The godfather was the baby's uncle, John Hanna, and the godmother was Alida Robinson, who lived in St. Felix. 

This record places Joseph and his family in Canada in 1913, even though by 1930 they were in Australia with Annie Nicholl.

I kept looking for other records in Quebec which had to do with Joseph Hanna and his family:

• There's a baptism record for "Marie Dorice Hanna", this time in St. Zenon, County Berthier, Quebec. It was dated 15 November 1918 (birth and baptism on the same day), and her parents were given as Joseph Hanna, merchant, and Karemy Shaar, living in the parish. I would ordinarily be hesitant to accept that this was a definite sibling match to Felix's baptism record (since the mother's first name is given as Karemy rather than Maria, although the maiden name Shaar vs. Chaarre is a match), were it not for the fact that the signature for Joseph Hanna on Marie Dorice's baptism record is absolutely the same as the one on Felix's.
• Unfortunately, immediately below Marie Dorice's baptism record is a burial record for Karimy Shaar, dated a week after Marie Dorice's birth and baptism. Karimy was 29 years old, and is given as the wife of Joseph Hanna, merchant of the parish.
• There is then a marriage record in Oka, County Deux-Montagnes, Quebec, for Joseph Hanna, merchant living in St. Zenon, widower of Karimy Shaar; and Salomia Shaar, living in Oka. The date is 28 April 1919.
• Heartbreakingly, there's a burial record for Marie Dorice in St. Zenon, 3 June 1919, age six months, daughter of Joseph Hanna and Kerimy Shaar of that parish.
• There's another baptism record, on 15 April 1921, from St. Nicholas Syrian Orthodox church in Montreal, Quebec: Gladys Hanna, daughter of Joseph Hanna and Salamia Shaar from Sheba Syria [emphasis mine]. Godmother was Rahme Hanna from Sheba Syria; godfather was Elias Saber of Rashaya Al-Wady Syria. Given that Rahme's last name is Hanna and she's also from Shebaa, the odds are good that she's related to Joseph.
• Going back in time a bit from Gladys, there's a baptism record in St. Zenon for Alfred Geoffrey Hanna, December 1915, son of Joseph Hanna, merchant, and Karenny Shaar of that parish.
• Again in St. Zenon, there's a baptism for Mathilda Amanda Hanna, born and baptised 22 January 1917, daughter of Joseph Hanna, merchant, and Karemie Shaar of that parish.

So at this point, I had the following information about Joseph Hanna, the nephew of Annie Nicholl, where Annie is suspected to be the "aunt of Zaidan" who married my great-granduncle Nicola and had one son, Ferris: By 1921, Joseph had children Felix Joseph (1913), Alfred Geoffrey (1915), and Mathilda Amanda (1917) by his first wife Karimy Shaar, and Gladys (1921) by his second wife Salamia Shaar.

The National Archives of Australia then provides a terrific record entry for an immigration application. The date is 1925, the applicant is Annie Nicholl, and the people she wants to bring into Australia are surnamed "Stanuze" (no idea why), but the names are, for the most part, an incredible match: Salamia, Felix, Albert, Geoffrey, Amanda, Gladys, and an infant aged 2 months; all of Canadian nationality. So clearly, this is the point when Annie gets Joseph and his family to join her in Australia. 

And I don't think it's a coincidence that this document is dated the same year her son Fares died. The way I interpret this is that Annie was a survivor; she'd lost her husband and her very beloved son, was without heirs, was without family around her, and needed someone to love and to live for. There's even another application by Annie Nicholl in 1925, for permission to bring her sister-in-law "Mrs. Habib Joseph" and three children Suonia, Wadza and Saleem to Australia; but since Joseph Hanna appears to have been Annie's sole heir, I suspect this other set of relatives never ended up coming to Australia. So in 1925, Annie was trying to make things happen for herself, and was reaching out to all kinds of family to find someone to give her a reason to get up in the morning. I'm happy to say it looks like she found it with the Joseph Hannas.

But notice that the application to bring Joseph's family over also mentioned an infant, aged two months. So I found that baptism record from Quebec, too. The church was again St. Nicholas Syrian Orthodox in Montreal. The baby was named George and was born on 3 June 1925, and baptised 11 July 1925. The baby's parents were Joseph Abdalla Hanna and Salamia Shaar, of Sheba Syria. The best part? The godfather is, get this, Zaidan Hanna, of Montreal.

Yes. In following the paper trail for Annie, who is suspected to be the same person as a woman who, according to my Auntie Jean, is the "aunt of Zaidain", whom do I run into but a Zaidan Hanna, godfather of a baby for whom Annie is a grand-aunt. Supposing for a moment that this Zaidan Hanna is Joseph Hanna's brother (meaning that Annie is his aunt just as much as she is Joseph's), then Annie suddenly becomes the "aunt of Zaidain" not merely by oral history, but by documentable fact!

Could I find a paper trail to prove that relationship, though?

Oh, just watch me.

Firstly, I found the death index record for Joseph's son Geoffrey: Jeffrey Hannah; died Fitzroy, Victoria; age 60; registration year 1977 (so birth year of about 1917, which is perfect); parents Albert Joseph and Salemia Shaar. This tells us that Joseph may also have gone by the name Albert, which he may have chosen later in life as an anglicization of "Abdullah". 

Geoffrey's death record leads us to Joseph's death index record: Joseph Albert Hannah; died Brunswick, Victoria; age 85; registration year 1964 (so birth year of about 1879), father's name Albert, mother's name Rahme.

So Joseph's mother is Rahme. Remember that the godmother of Joseph's daughter Gladys was named Rahme Hanna. Maybe that was Joseph's mother. 

So, can I find any more information about Rahme Hanna living in Quebec? Yes - her burial record:

St. Nicholas Syrian Orthodox church, Montreal, Quebec
On the Fourteen day of June 1928, died in Montreal Que. Rahmey Hanna aged 73 years from Sheba Syria, wife of Abdalla Hanna and daughter of Joseph Habib and Tahla Habib from Sheba Syria, and she was buried by me in Mount Royal Cemetery Montreal Que on the Fifteen day of June 1928 in the presence of George Hanna and Assad Hanna of Montreal Que. This act was read to the parties who signed below.

Let that sink in for a bit.

1. Joseph Hannah's full name is Joseph Abdalla Hannah, but later he went by Joseph Albert Hanna.
2. Joseph Hannah's father's name was given in Joseph's death index record as Albert Hanna. So presumably, Joseph's father's real first name is Abdallah.
3. Joseph Hanna's mother's name was given in Joseph's death index record as Rahme.
4. And here we have a Rahmey Hanna dying in Quebec (where Joseph's children were born), and listed as the wife of Abdalla Hanna. And her birth year calculates out to about 1855, which is good timing to be Joseph's mother since Joseph was born around 1879 according to his death index record.

So I would say it's safe to conclude that this Rahmey Hanna who died in 1928 in Montreal is Joseph's mother.

And did you notice also the name of Rahme's father? Joseph Habib. Do you remember the name of Annie Nicholl's father from her naturalization file? Joseph Habeeb. It looks very much like Rahme and Annie were sisters, which would certainly explain how Annie is Joseph's aunt. 

And the absolute smoking gun for all these conclusions comes from Annie Nicholl's death index record: Annie Nicholls; died Carlton, Victoria; age 78; registration year 1930 (so birth year of about 1852), father's name Joseph Habeeb, mother's name Tahala. And Rahmey Hanna's burial record gave her mother's name as Tahla.

Thus, we have the nephew/aunt relationship between Joseph Hanna and Annie Nicholl all sewn up. Annie Nicholl is Joseph Hanna's aunt because Annie's sister Rahme is Joseph Hanna's mother.

But...I still haven't connected up this Zaidan Hanna.

Well, remember back in Felix Joseph Hanna's baptism record, his godfather was listed as his uncle, John Hanna? So, given the last name of Hanna, John must be Joseph's brother. Thus, John's parents would also presumably be Abdalla Hanna and Rahme Habib. 

Sure enough, in Montreal at St. Nicholas Syrian Orthodox church, we find a marriage record on 13 October 1924 between John Hanna, age 29, son of Abdalla Hanna and Rahmé Habib of Shebaa Syria; and Florence (Zaine) Chowairi. This tells us that John was born around 1895. 

And remember that Rahme was born around 1855? Well, I then found a Canadian passenger list from July 1910 for a widow, Abdullah Rahmeh Hanna, age 50 (1860); a boy, Abdulla Hanna, age 15 (1895); and a girl, Shahen Hamad, age 11 (1899); all of Orthodox religion, coming to Montreal, Quebec. This could be Rahme, her son John, and maybe a niece or something, arriving from Lebanon after Rahme's husband Abdalla died. This idea seems to be corroborated by a household in the 1911 Canadian census, in St. Michel des Saints, Quebec:

• Hanna, Georges, male, head, married, born July, age 29, born in Syria, arrived in Canada 1901, naturalized, Syrian race, Canadian nationality, Roman Catholic religion (this was often what orthodox Christian Syrians practiced in Canada if they couldn't worship at a Syrian Orthodox church), merchant
• Hanna, Marry, female, wife, married, born May, age 22, born in Syria, arrived in 1905, naturalized, Syrian race, Canadian nationality, Roman Catholic
• Hanna, Najeebé, female, daughter, single, born March, age 4, born in Quebec, Syrian race, Canadian nationality, Roman Catholic
• Hanna, Najeib, male, son, single, born November, age 2, born in Quebec, Syrian race, Canadian nationality, Roman Catholic
• Hanna, Adélard, male, son, single, born January, age 4 months, born in Quebec, Syrian race, Canadian nationality, Roman Catholic
• Hanna, Ruth, female, mother, widow, born February, age 54, born in Syria, arrived in 1910, naturalized, Syrian race, Canadian nationality, Roman Catholic
• Hanna, JeaneBaptiste, male, brother, single, born July, age 16, born in Syria, arrived in 1910, Syrian race, Roman Catholic, occupation "Commis"

There are a lot of things that match here, if you assume that Ruth = Rahme and JeaneBaptiste = John. Yes, I'm making assumptions, but if true, this would give us another brother of Joseph Abdalla Hanna: George, who married Marry and had Najeebé, Najeib, and Adélard. 

To support this theory, I tried to find out more, and found...

• Adélard's baptism record, in St. Michel des-Saints, County Berthier, Quebec. He was born and baptised 16 January 1911, son of George Hanna, merchant, and Marie Zencoull, of St. Michel des Saints.
• Baby Adélard's burial record (I hate coming across this sort of thing; hate it), also in St. Michel des-Saints. He was buried 18 September 1911, and is given again as the son of George Hanna and Marie Zencoull; age eight months. Present were George Hanna, Alexandre Hanna and others.
• What is likely to be Najeib's baptism record, in St. Nicholas Syrian Orthodox church, Montreal, Quebec. Given the information in the 1911 census and Adélard's baptism and burial records, we expect Najeib to have been born in November 1908 (1911 Canada census was taken in June) to parents George Hanna (whom I'm theorizing at this point is a son of Abdalla Hanna and Rahme Habib) and Marie Zencoull. What we get in this baptism record, though, is slightly different from expcted, but still really similar: Naguib Abdalla, born 10 November 1908, baptised 8 February 1909 in Trois-Rivières, parents Zedan Abdalla and Habouba Zankoul, from Chiba.

It's this last record which is both disheartening and exciting at the same time. On the one hand, the baby's first name is as expected, his birth date is as expected, his mother's maiden name is as expected, and his parents' native village is also as expected. On the other hand, the mother's first name is completely different - Habouba instead of Marie; the surname is completely different - Abdalla instead of Hanna; and the father's first name is not George. BUT! The father's name is Zedan! 

There are a lot of coincidences among the 1911 census record for the family of Georges Hanna and the baptism and burial records for Adélard; compared to the baptism record for Naguib Abdalla: Najeib's first name (spelling variations notwithstanding), the month and year of his birth, and the mother's maiden name of Zankoul. This seems pretty likely to be all for the same family, especially when you take into account that the surname in Naguib's baptism record, Abdalla, is the same as George's father's first name (which we have because the 1911 census tells us that George's mother is Ruth, who seems to be the same person as Rahme, wife of Abdulla). I've seen this happen a lot in this culture; for example, my great-grandfather Markus' oldest daughter Mary's arrival record in Canada has her surname as Marcos instead of Hanna; but it's definitely her because she lists her mother Zahra Marcos in Shebaa as her nearest relative in her country of origin. 

If true, then:

• George = Zedan. (And also, Marie = Habouba.) 
• George/Zedan is a son of Abdalla Hanna and Rahme Habib, and a brother of Joseph and John Hanna
• It's already been established that Joseph Hanna is the nephew of Annie Nicholl
• Therefore, Annie Nicholl is an "aunt of Zedan"
• Since Annie Nicholl is an aunt of Zedan, and she had a husband named Nicholl, and she had an only son named Faris, and she ended up in Australia, she must be the same person as the woman who, according to my Auntie Jean, was an aunt of Zaidain, the wife of Nicola Hanna, the mother of one son named Ferris, and ended up in Australia.

One final document makes the George = Zedan theory more solid: it's the baptism record of John Hanna's son Abdalla. You remember that I had found the record for John Hanna's marriage to Florence (Zaine) Chowairi in 1924; well, here's the baptism record of someone who is definitely the child of that marriage, only the surname is given as Abdalla, not Hanna:

St. Nicholas Syrian Orthodox church, Montreal, Quebec
On the first day of August one thousand nine hundred and twenty five was born in Montreal, Que. Abdalla, son of John Abdalla and Zainé Chouairi, both of Shaba Syria, residents of Montreal Que. and he was baptized and registered by me in Montreal, Que. on the twenty second day of November one thousand nine hundred and twenty five in the presence of Salim Shoffey, godfather, of Montreal, Que. and Gazalé Dirmianos, godmother of Montreal, Que.

This is proof that a son of Abdullah Hanna (specifically John) did at least once go by the surname of Abdalla in documentation, rather than going by the surname Hanna. And if John did it, it's not a stretch that his brother George could do it too.

TL;DR: After a long and winding paper trail, we find good evidence for my Auntie Jean's throwaway statement that my great-granduncle Nicola's wife was the "aunt of Zaidain".

Future task: Were the Abdalla Hannas related to my Hannas? I have no clue...yet! But you can bet that I'll try to find out!