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.

Who's Victorine's mother? Using Siblings to Solve a Problem

Some of us research every person in a family tree. Some of us concentrate more on our direct line. Unless you're doing a One Name or One Place study, it really just comes down to personal preference.  But even if you're concentrating on your direct line, make sure you are making note of your ancestor's siblings as well. Having those names will eventually come in handy.

The first obvious reason to record sibling names is to help find the family in census records. This is especially helpful when your ancestor has a common name, but their sibling doesn't. It's much easier to search for records for "Beulah" than "Anne". But here is a more unusual problem where siblings came in handy.

Mt 2x great grandmother is Marie Victorine FERGUSON. On 24 November 1874 she marries Jean MALLAIS. In the Drouin Collection on Ancestry for the area of Tracadie, New Brunswick it has their marriage. The entry is written in French, but it states that "...Marie Victorine Ferguson, fille majeur de David Ferguson et de defunte Charlotte Savoie...". This translates to Victorine is the daughter of David FERGUSON and the deceased Charlotte SAVOIE, and that she is at least 18 years old (the age of majority to marry). So what's the problem you ask? Seems pretty straight forward.

Well, the only marriage I can find for David is to a Julienne GAUTRAULT. This marriage takes place in the register for Caraquet in 1836. There is only one David Ferguson in the area at the time, so I know I have at least the right man. I cannot find a death for Julienne. I find a transcription for David's headstone on the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick (PANB). It says that he is the husband of Julienne GAUTREAU. I find David's burial in the Drouin. It states that he is the widower of Julienne GOTREAU. I look at a death certificate for Victorine and it states that the informant did not know who her parents were:

source: http://archives.gnb.ca/Search/VISSE/141C5.aspx?culture=en-CA&guid=8bac2d80-eb08-4886-a5f5-010e1a885bb1

Next I take a look at census records for Victorine before she marries in 1874. In the 1871 census for Suamarez, Gloucester County, New Brunswick she is living with her widowed father and her younger brother Bernard. It states that she is born about 1851:

Source: http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/1871/jpg/4396659_00547.jpg

In 1861 she is living with father David and brother Bernard, as well as older siblings Esther, William, and Christina. It also says that her birth year is about 1847:

Source: http://data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/1861/jpg/4108514_00505.jpg

Unfortunately, the 1851 census records for Gloucester County have not survived, so that's the end of the trail by this route. But we now have the names of four siblings for Victorine. So I start to look at baptisms for the children in the Tracadie registers of the Drouin:

1. Esther: baptized 5 December 1842 "...of the lawful marriage (of) David Ferguson and Julienne Gotreau..."
2. William: "Guillaume" baptized 14 August 1843 "...de legitime marriage de David Ferguson, et de Julienne Gotreau..."
3. Christina: none found
4. Marie Victorine: none found
5. Bernard: baptized 15 December 1850 "...de legitime marriage de David Ferguson et de Julienne Gotreau..."  

In the process I also find baptisms for three more siblings that are older than Esther:

1. Anne: baptized 17 March 1838 "...fille legitime de David Ferguson et de Julienne Gaudrot..."
2. Charlotte: baptized 11 January 1840 "...ne le 24 novembre de David Fergusson et de Julienne Gautrault..."
3. Guillaume: baptized 7 March 1839 "...ne le 20 novembre de David Fergusson et de Julienne Gautrault..."

Ok. So all of Victorine's older siblings baptisms' that we could find say that Julienne is their mother. That doesn't really answer the question for us though, because Julienne we know has passed away. Charlotte Savoie could have entered the picture afterward, and very well be Victorine's mother. The one that we have to look at it is Bernard, Victorine's only younger sibling. According to his baptism, Julienne is his mother too. Add that to the information we also have about David, Victorine's father:

1. His burial in 1877 says that he is the widower of Julienne.
2. His headstone reads "husband of Julienne Gautreau".
3. David is listed as a widower in the 1861 and 1871 censuses.
4. We have found no corroborating marriage record between David and a Charlotte SAVOIE. 

So based on all these facts, I would say that the priest in Victorine's marriage put Charlotte Savoie down in error. Julienne is actually Victorine's mother. How could that happen? Any number of reasons. We don't know if the priest wrote the entry in his book the day it happened, or a month later. He could have easily mixed up the names. I do know that the priest who baptized Bernard in 1850 was not the same one who married Victorine and Jean MALLAIS in 1874. The one who performed the marriage in 1874 probably wouldn't have known Julienne at all, as we know Julienne died sometime between 1850 (Bernard's baptism) and the 1861 census. 

If I hadn't looked at the siblings of Victorine, I would not have realized what has likely happened with the mixing up of names. I would have spent countless hours trying to find a marriage between David and Charlotte that didn't exist. Now a baptism for Victorine may turn up. I hope it does, because this would either confirm or disprove my theory as it now stands.