Scholefield Family Tree
As I push back, I am attempting to discover information about Arnold’s reported father — Sir William Scholefield. Unfortunately, there are no conclusive matches when using a Google search for his name as an exact phrase. Searches for Scholefields in Nova Scotia or in England also don’t turn up any matches.
Additionally, census searches for likely William Scholefields, Schofields, or Scofields don’t pan out. There are no matches in areas where Arnold lived. I could spend time to access each and create a full spreadsheet which indicates which possible men had a son of the correct age. I may do that, but I will work on Arnold’s wife Abigail’s family which may point in some additional directions.
Therefore, I am at a dead end right now on the direct line Scholefields.
However, this is a good time to mention the importance of knowing the name of a place as well as the name of a person. The information that Arnold was born in Nova Scotia doesn’t help anymore than a report that a he was born in England. To work effectively on an immigrant from England who was born before 1837* a researcher needs to know the name of a parish before the subject can be located. The same is true of other countries because many records were held by local jurisdictions instead of state juristictions. In Nova Scotia, according to the Nova Scotia GenWeb Project, there are eighteen counties, any one of which might be the place where the Scholefields lived. The same need for the name of a specific place applies to older American records. The fact that the US Federal Census images (with indexes) are available online mean that it is easier for a person to trace family members back to 1850. With a bit of skill one can sometimes find family back to 1790
* Countrywide civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths began this year. These records are therefore available at the national level and are indexed.