How to Tell if Your French- Canadian Ancestors Include ...

1 5 Editor s note: George Findlen, Certi-fied Genealogical Records Specialist,is a retired college administrator. Inaddition to volunteering at the Wiscon-sin Historical Society Library, he re-searches and writes articles on aspectsof his blended Acadian and FrenchCanadian ancestry . The author thanksJoy Reisinger, Certified Genealogist, fortwenty years editor of the journal, Lostin Canada?, and Patricia Locke, Re-search Department Chairperson for theAmerican- french Genealogical Soci-ety. Both read drafts of the article andmade valuable suggestions for its tracking French- Ca-nadian Ancestors back into Canada of-ten make the assumption that all personshaving french surnames and Frenchnames living in Canada are French- Ca-nadians. For most descendants ofFrench-Canadians, that is true. MostQu becois immigrated there in the sev-enteenth century and remained thereuntil a descendant immigrated to the USto find work in the nineteenth New Yorkers and NewEnglanders of french - Canadian descentoften ask me, Why even ask if some ofmy Ancestors are Acadian?

2 Aren t allFrench-named people in upstate NewYork and in New England mill townsFrench-Canadians? They all came fromQu bec. Some even ask, What areAcadians doing in Qu bec and NewEngland? Didn t all the Acadians go toLouisiana? The answer to these questions isLe Grand D rangement, a systematiceffort by the British to remove all Frenchfrom Acadie, today s Canadian Mari-times Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Is-land, and New Brunswick. That ethniccleansing was part of a war betweenEngland and France. Started in 1755, itwas called the Seven Years War in Eu-rope, the french and Indian War in theAmerican Colonies, and the War of theConquest in Qu bec. It ended in 1763with the British conquest of deported Acadians werescattered among the Atlantic coast En-glish colonies, from Massachusetts toGeorgia, and some were sent to prisonsin England. However, not all Acadianswere deported during those war map of the Acadian deportation clearlyshows that some Acadians managed toreach Qu bec between 1755 and 1758.

3 (See Figure 1.) When the war was over,others made their way to Qu bec as Pierre-Maurice H bert s book,The Acadians of Qu bec, trans. MelvinSurette (Pawtucket: Quintin, 2002) de-tails where groups of Acadians to Tell if Your french - Canadian Ancestors Include Acadiansby: George L. FindlenAmerican- french Genealogical Society of Rhode IslandArticle from Je Me 1: Used by permission of the Centre for Canadian Studies at MountAllison University and McGill-Queen s University PressThe children of these Acadianrefugees intermarried with French- Cana-dian families already established inQu bec, and their descendants are inQu bec today. Over a century later, someof the descendants of these Acadians,with other Qu b cois, migrated to effort to trace a family with aFrench name back into Qu bec, then,may lead not only to French- Canadianancestors; for some, the effort may leadback to Acadian Ancestors as well. Thequestion for researchers who trace theirancestors from the US back into Canadabecomes, How can I tell if my ances-tors Include Acadians?

4 To find out,read follows is based on twoAmerican- french Genealogical Society of Rhode IslandArticle from Je Me assumptions because researchers track-ing french - Canadian families from theUpper Midwest back to Qu bec will haveto use different resources than thoseused by researchers tracking french - Canadian families from New England backto Qu , two definitions. An Acadianis a person of french ancestry born southof the Notre Dame Mountains which markthe southern edge of the eastern end ofthe Saint Lawrence River Valley. AnyFrench person who lived in what is to-day Nova Scotia (including Cape BretonIsland), Prince Edward Island, NewBrunswick, and eastern Maine between1636 and 1755 is an Acadian. A french - Canadian is a person of french ancestryborn in the Saint Lawrence Valley. (SeeFigure 2.)Now for the steps. Followed, theywill tell you whether your French- Cana-dian ancestor has Acadian One: trace your family backto the border.

5 That involves old-fash-ioned American genealogy. Get a copyof your parents marriage certificate, civilor religious. That will usually tell you thenames of your grandparents. Interviewyour parents brothers and sisters if theyare still alive to determine where yourgrandparents grew up. That will tell youwhat New England town office or parishchurch to go to for a copy of their mar-riage. For french - Canadian families inNew England mill towns, their grandpar-ents frequently grew up in the same townor in an adjacent town. Once you havean idea of where your grandparentsgrew up, go get a copy of their marriagecertificate, civil or religious. Repeat theprocess until you get to the last mar-riage celebrated in the US. Many NewEnglanders descended from French- Ca-nadians are the third generation born inthe US and the fourth generation to livein the US. Thus, the typical French- Ca-nadian researcher should have to ob-tain only three marriage certificates be-fore crossing the border.

6 If you are for-tunate, the last marriage certificate willidentify the immigrant s parents andbirth place in Qu Two: cross the border. Thisis the hardest task since it requires know-ing the names of the parents of the im-migrant. Sometimes, crossing the bor-der also requires knowing the im-migrant s birth date and village of ori-gin. Taken together, those three bits ofinformation are the Holy Grail for thosetrying to locate french - Canadian ances-tors in Canada. Without the names ofthe immigrant s parents, researcherscannot look up the next generation inthe ancestral line. Without a place oforigin, researchers do not know whereto look for original documentation of thenext link in an ancestral line. Withoutthe names of the parents of the immi-grant or a date, researchers cannot con-firm which person of many with the samename is the correct the next several paragraphs, Iwill mention two sets of books that arethe primary tools for helping us trackour Ancestors once we cross the borderIn this devoutly-to-be-wished circum-stance, the immigrant came to the USnot yet married, met a girl in one of theassumptions.

7 One, your family has livedin upstate New York or in one of the NewEngland states of the US for some , you are tracking your family backas through the US to Qu bec. I give theseAmerican- french Genealogical Society of Rhode IslandArticle from Je Me towns, and married. The civil mar-riage certificate does not provide theparents names and says only Canada as the place of origin; however, the en-try in the parish register of the church inwhich the marriage was celebrated pro-vides the names of the parents. You arenow across the border. In a variant ofthis scenario, the ancestor married inQu bec before immigrating to the lore has told you consistentlywhat the immigrant s wife s surname cross your fingers and turn to theblue and red Drouin books and findthem. You are across the border. In an-other variant of this scenario, the an-cestor married in Qu bec before immi-grating to the US. However, the surnameof his bride remains unknown.

8 The civildeath certificate of your immigrant an-cestor becomes your hope, but it saysonly Canada for the village of , a search for the civil death cer-tificates of that ancestor s known broth-ers and sisters is profitable: one of theOne set is called The Blue Drouin because of the blue binding of the proper reference is to the R pertoirealphab tique des mariages des Can-adiens-fran ais, 1760-1935, 61 vols.(Longueuil, QC : Services g n alogiqueClaude Pepin, 1989-1990). The set listsmarriages only by groom s name, so TheBlue Drouin is sometimes referred to as The Men Series. A 64 volume set, car-rying the same title is referred to com-monly as the Red Drouin because ofthe red binding of the set. This set listsmarriages only by bride s name, so TheRed Drouin is sometimes referred to as the Women Series. Back to the second us take the easiest death certificate identifies thefamily s village of origin. Again, you areacross the , let us take the frustratingscenario.

9 Your immigrant ancestor wassingle when he came to the US for work,his civil marriage entry names neitherhis parents nor his village of origin, andhis religious marriage entry is one of thefew which does not name his not yell, Brick Wall!! yet. Locatethat ancestor s known brothers and sis-ters. Look for their religious marriage cer-tificates. Canon law required naming aperson s parents, and the parish regis-ter marriage entry which does not in-clude the names of parents is rare. Oneof your ancestor s siblings marriageentries will name the parents. You can-not find an immigrant s brothers andsisters? Look at the baptismal entriesin the parish register for the immigrant schildren. Parents commonly asked theirbrothers and sisters to serve as god-parents. Once you have the names ofthe parents of your immigrant ancestor,you have crossed the that each major source of anevidentiary document has its pluses andminuses. Civil certificates of birth, mar-riage, and death are more universal.

10 It israre not to find a birth, marriage, or deathcertificate on file for a person who wasborn, married, and died in upstate NewYork or in a New England state between1880 and 1930. That is the plus of civilregistrations. They have a minus, how-ever, in that they are more likely thanparish register entries to have omittedinformation. Parish register entries alsohave their pluses and minuses. Theyusually record the parents names forbaptismal and marriage entries. That isAmerican- french Genealogical Society of Rhode IslandArticle from Je Me PRDH. The forty-seven volume R per-toire is often referred to as the RAB ofthe PRDH or just the RAB. Theprinted set covers the 1621 through 1765period of the french r gime. A CD of theRAB, which contains additions, takesthe database through 1799. Both theprinted set and the CD are available atthe same locations in New Englandwhere one can find r pertoires desmariages. In addition, the database,which now contains some events up to1850, can be searched on-line for a mod-est per-record-found fee.