52 Ancestors: Week 38 - French Canadian and Acadian Research on migrations.fr

The 52 Ancestors prompt for week 38 is "cousins". My French Canadian/Acadian roots have given me a ridiculously large amount of cousins. So what better group to focus on when I'm trying to appeal to a wide audience.

http://www.migrations.fr/page%20d'accueil.htm

A few years ago, I stumbled upon a website called Migrations. This website has some great information on the early settlers of New France and Acadie. The website is in French but Chrome will translate it for you if your French isn't that great. Now there are lots of different sites out there for early research. The problem with most French Canadian and Acadian research is that once you hit that immigrant ancestor back in the 1600's and 1700's, you're at a bit of a dead end. Unless you're lucky enough to make a trip to France to do some research, the trail tends to end there.What makes this site stand out is that thanks to the France connections of the owners, you can get information that goes back to France.

Here's a sampling of some of their sections:

Soldiers of the Carignan Saliere Regiment

http://www.migrations.fr/regimentcarignancomplet.htm

• History of the regiment
• Biographies
• Index of soldiers
• Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials relating to the soldiers. 
• Details of the soldiers' lives and battles

The church records are accompanied by images of the original record.

Filles de roi and Filles des marier

• History of the girls and women sent to France for the specific purpose of marrying and growing the population of New France
• Baptism, Marriage and Death records. 
• Indexes of names

Original images of the church records are also included.

Acadians

http://www.migrations.fr/acadiens.htm

This section focuses on those Acadians that ended up back in France after the Deportation. Here you can find:

• Ship's lists
• Pension records
• Marriage and Death Records

Fishermen and Sailors
This section focuses on the genealogies of several families of the Gaspesie region. You can also find:

• contracts
• an index of names of  Navigators and Fishermen in New France and Mont-Louis 1753 to 1756 by Mario Mimeault
• a dictionary of French Naval terms
• photographs

I don't usually highlight websites that show non Canadian based records, but I was very excited to find information on the Maillet family. In fact there is a whole page devoted to some fascinating research done in France. It was a Google search result that this page came up and then I found all the other information available.

My maternal grandmother was Marie Anne Mallais from the Shippegan area of New Brunswick.  Through her is my 5x great grandfather Jean Baptiste Mallet. Here is my connection to him:

• Me
• Mary Jane Govereau
• Marie Ann Mallais
• Patrice Mallais
• Jean Julian Mallais
• Joseph Jules Mallais
• Joseph Julian Mallais
• Jean Baptiste Maillet

Jean, along with his wife Marie Josephet Dugay and her two brothers, were the first settlers of Shippegan. Jean was born in 1742 in the Gaspesie region, and was the son of Francois Mallet and Madeleine Larocque. Francois was born about 1700 in Normandy,France. For many years not much was known about him except an approximate birth year and the fact that he was born in France. The only reason why even this was known was because by some miracle his burial record is one of the few church records that survive from the Gaspesie region. But thanks to the diligent research of several people in France, those of us descended from Francois Maillet have been able to find out more about Francois. We know know he was from Bouillon France, and was a member of the French Navy.

A baptism was found for Francois. Not only have they provided an image of the record itself, but a transcription as well.

http://www.migrations.fr/francoismallet.htm

Using the baptism researchers were then able to go a further 3 generations back using church records,dispensations and notarial acts:

• Francois Mallet
• Jean Maillet and Jeanne LeGros
• Gilles Maillet and Michelle Hamelin/ Nicolas LeGros and Catherine Linois
• Jean Mallet, father of Giles, and Pancrasse Hamelin, father of Michelle Hamelin

The site also details Francois and his father Jean's career in the Navy. Through research they were also able to find siblings and half siblings of Francois. Each record regarding bsptism, marriage and death has images of the original record, as well as a transcription. If your grasp of French is shaky, the Chrome browser translation to English is quite good, as you can see from the screen shot above. The documents provided take the Maillet line back to a land transaction in 1671.

If your family is from the Gaspesie region, you'll definitely want to look at the other biographies listed.

52 Ancestors: Week 28 - Acadian Research

This week's 52 Ancestors prompt is "Reunion". If you have Acadian Ancestry, then you probably know that this year is the Congres Mondial Acadien (CMA). Held every four years, it is a huge celebration for those with Acadian roots. Each one is hosted by a different region of the original Acadian settlers. This year's celebration runs from August 10 to 24, and the host communities are spread across Prince Edward Island and southeastern New Brunswick. I'm a little disappointed not to be able to go, as my maternal side settled in Shippegan and Memramcook. Along with other special events, there are family reunions scheduled across the host areas. These reunions are held for any descendants of a particular Acadian surname. So far the list of reunions scheduled are:

• Arsenault
• Babin
• Babineau(x)-Granger
• Barrieau/Barriault
• Belliveu/Beliveau
• Boudreau/Boudrot/Boudreault/Boudreaux/Budrow
• Bourgeois/Bourjeois/Bushway/Bushwa/Blaise/Burgess
• Breau/Breault/Breaud/Breaux/Bau/Braux/Breault/Braud/Bro/Brod/Brot/Brough/Brow/Browe
• Broussard
• Caisse/Caissey/Quessy/Roger
• Chevarie/Chavarie/Cheverie/Chevary/Etcheverie/D'Etcheverie
• Cormier
• Cyr
• Daigle/D'Aigre/Desgre/Deagle
• Damour/D'Amour/D'Amours
• Duguay/Dugue/Dugay/Dougay
• Forest/Foret/Forrest
• Gaudet
• Gauvin/Gauvain/Govan/Govang/Gavin/Govin
• Girouard/Giroir/Gerrior and the Acadians of Tor Bay
• Goguen/Bristol dit Williams
• Granger
• Guedry/Guidry/Gaidry/Geddry/Jeddry/Labine/Labean/Petipas/Pettipas/Pitts
• Hache/Hachey/Hachez/Hashi/Hashie/Ache/Achee/Gallant/Galland/Gallan/Galan
• Hebert
• Landry/Londere/Landre/Laundry/Londre/Londry
• LeBlanc
• Leger/Legere/Trahan
• Mallet/Mallais/Malley
• Maillet
• Martin
• Melanson
• Morin
• Richard
• Robichaud/Robicheau/Robichaux/Robicheaux/Robichon/Robichung/Robshaw/Robertshaw/Robinson
• Roy
• Thibodeau/Thibodeaux/Thibaudault/Thibault/Thibaut/Thibeault

If your tree is like mine, you would have a hard time deciding which ones to go to! I have most of these surnames in my tree.

There's still time to plan your trip. You can visit the CMA's website to get all the details. Even if going isn't in the cards for you, it doesn't mean you can't spend some time researching your Acadian ancestors instead. So I decided to list some great websites to further your Acadian research.

Nova Scotia Archives

This is a great resource if your researching your earliest Acadian ancestors. New Brunswick used to be part of Nova Scotia, so a lot of the Acadian research you want will be part of the Nova Scotia Archives. While not everything they have is online, they have some great online collections. I wrote a blog post back in 2017 on their online Acadian collections. You can see my post here. mt particular favourite in the digitization and indexing of The Registers of St. Jean-Baptiste, Annapolis Royal, 1702-1755 in the collection called An Acadian Parish Remembered.

Acadian & French-Canadian Ancestral Home

This website is run by Lucie LeBlanc Consentino. Lucie is a well respected Acadian speaker and researcher, and her website has fully sourced information on Acadians both pre and post deportation. She has compiled information on:

• Cemeteries
• DNA
• Census records
• History
• First Nations and Metis
• Deportation Records
• Book Lists
• Newspapers
• The Jesuits
• Research Aids
• Births, Marriages, and Deaths

If you descend from the LeBlanc family, Lucie has also compiled information on them as well. 

Acadian-Cajun Genealogy & History

Run by Tim Hebert, this is another amazing website to help further your research. Tim gives detailed information on the history and life of Acadians and Cajuns. Among his gems are:

• Census transcriptions
• Links and microfilm numbers at provincial archives for church records
• Information on obtaining notarial records
• Genealogies
• How-to's
• Links to other websites

This website does not appear to have been updated in quite awhile, so some information is out of date. However, it is a fantastic starting point for your research.

Les Amis de Grand-Pre

This society promotes Acadian culture and history in the Grand-Pre area. On their website you can access information such as articles, maps and transcriptions of records from the region. In particular, you should look at their transcriptions of the only 3 surviving registers of St-Charles-des-Mines. There are both English and French versions, so don't worry if your French isn't very good. To help you out, here are the links to the PDFs of the English versions:

• Baptisms of St-Charles-des-Mines
• Marriages of St-Charles-des-Mines
• Burials of St-Charles-des-Mines

You'll also want to look at the births, marriages, and deaths for St-Joseph-de-la-Rivière-aux-Canards. There is some dispute as to whether the people here were part of the St-Charles-des-Mines parish, or were a parish of their own. These entries are a compilation of other sources.

These are just a few sites to help your research. Check out my tab of Acadian Research Links for more sites. If you have any to add, feel free to provide links in the comment section.

Acadian Ancestors: Using the Nova Scotia Archives

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Acadia

Acadian Day was this week here in Canada. I'm not going to get into the long and complicated history of the Acadians in Canada. Long story short, the Acadians were some of the earliest settlers of Canada, settling in what is now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. They would become victims of the war between the French and British for control of Canada. The deportation of the Acadian people by the British is one of the darker periods of our history. For a more complete history of the Acadians you can look at the entries in the Canadian Encyclopedia.

Acadian research has definite advantages and disadvantages. The fact that they were French Catholic means excellent religious records can take you very far back. One of the disadvantages is that due to the conflict that led to their expulsion, the records can be far flung and scattered.

Nova Scotia takes great pride in being the original home of the Acadian people. The Nova Scotia Archives (NSA) has a great collection of Acadian resources both online and on site. Go to the main page of the Archive's website, scroll to the bottom to "Some of Our Topics" and click on "Acadians".

There are 8 collections at the Nova Scotia Archives related to the Acadians:

• Isaac Deschamps Collection

This collection does not deal exclusively with Acadians. Mr. Deschamps was traded with the Acadians and local First Nations. Later he was connected to Fort Edward. Among this collection is correspondence of his relating to the Acadians, as well as reports listing French prisoners at Fort Edward. It is available on microfilm onsite. Please note that the NSA does not participate in inter library loan. Also in the collection is a virtual exhibit that has 42 images of some of his correspondence. It also has lists of French prisoners at Fort Edward. One image has the names of the heads of family, along with the number of people in each family. Yes, you read that right. Entire families were imprisoned in some cases.

• An Acadian Parish Reborn

If your Acadian ancestors settled in Argyle, Yarmouth County in the post deportation years, then this collection is for you. Covering the years 1799 to 1849, this searchable database has all the Roman Catholic church entries for this area. This section is subdivided through links on the right side of the page. You can learn about the history of the area, the Acadian familes who settled there, and the churches in the area. At the bottom of the list of links is a name index. Just click on a surname and it will give you all the entries under that particular surname. By clicking on a particular entry, you will get both a transcription and a visual image of the entry. Please note that there is no way to download the image, but you can download a transcript of the whole page.

• The Port Royal Habitation

This is a virtual exhibit outlining the history of Port Royal. As well, it provides details and insights into the rebuilding of the original settlement.

• Acadian Heartland: Records of the Deportation

This is a digitized and searchable collection relating to the deportation of the Acadians by the British. The collections is a series of papers documenting the timeline of the Expulsion. It is almost exclusively drawn from British sources, due to the fact that no records from an Acadian point of view has survived. While you probably will not find your ancestor's name in the collection, it is still a good resource. Reading through this collection will help you get a feel for the confusion, mistrust, and semi chaos surrounding this time period.

• Acadian Heartland: The Records of the British Government

This a sister collection to the one above. This particular collection covers the years from 1713 to the Expulsion. It gives great insight into everyday life in this time period. As well, if you managed to find an ancestor who was part of the British military in this place and time period, you might find mention of them here.

• This is Our Home: Acadians of Nova Scotia

This virtual exhibit of photographs showcases 150 years of the original Acadians' descendants in Nova Scotia.

• Acadian Genealogical Sources

This section gives a complete listing of the NSA's Acadian holdings. If you're planning a research trip to the Archives, then this section will help you plan your time there.

• An Acadian Parish Remembered

This last section is my favourite, and I've used it a lot. This indexed and searchable database contains the registers of St. Jean-Baptiste in Annapolis Royal. It covers the years 1702 to 1755. You use it in the same way as you would the " An Acadian Parish Reborn Collection". Unlike the collection above though, you cannot download either the image itself or the transcription. It is still a great resource though. Just look at the information I got for the baptism of Michel Bastarache, my 6x great grandfather, and one of my favourite ancestors. As an adult he caused a lot of trouble for the British military. You can read about him in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography here

Source: https://novascotia.ca/archives/acadian/archives.asp?ID=1728 

Not in the screenshot is an image of the register itself below. This is handy to confirm the information transcribed. As you know, errors can be made. Please note that the original entries are in French. This particular entry is one of 44 entries that pertain to the Bastarache surname. In all, there are over 3500 entries in these registers.

Not listed in the general Acadian search topic is the digitized issues of Le Courier de la Nouvelle Ecosse in the newspapers section. A French language newspaper that is still published today, it is the newspaper of the Acadian culture. The NSA has issues digitized from 1937 to 2002. You will need to have a fairly good grasp of French to read them, but you never know if your more recent ancestor of Acadian descent is going to show up in there. What is neat about this paper is that along with all the usual news items you would normally find, they also have articles discussing Acadian culture and heritage. You can access all the issues available here.

Of course there are many other sources for Acadian research online. But the Nova Scotia Archives is a great place to start delving into your Acadian heritage.