Wednesday, December 30, 2009

French Canadian ancestry

I worked on our son-in-law's French Canadian ancestry yesterday and found more information on his paternal grandmother's line. I am producing a chart for his paternal grandmother as she asked for one at the wedding. I decided to try and find baptisms for her parents which I hadn't located before. I am somewhat confused by the paternal grandmother of her father. I am not sure if there were two individuals with the name Antoine Gregoire; one married to Delima Seguin and the other married to Delima Laderoute. I will continue to seek that information although the marriage that I found was for Antoine Gregoire and Rosa de Lima Seguin on 30 Aug 1869 at the Basilica de Notre Dame, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. I need to try to find a marriage with Delima Laderoute and Antoine Gregoire to solve that mystery.

Eventually I will get back to my genealogy as I am working on proving my 4x great grandparents. I hope to have that completed by the early summer. There are 64 great grandparents and I have now proven eight of them. I need more information on the Farmer/Lambden 4x great grandparents before I can prove those four individuals. I will probably start back on the Knight line (Maria Jane Knight (my grandfather's mother) (I was looking for her burial/death when I stopped working on my genealogy)) as I have quite a bit of information back to the 4x great grandparents (Knight (2x), Butt, Arnold, Durnford, Ellis, Vincent, and Malton). Proving the two Knights are brothers is one of my aims for our next visit to the Family History Library. Many researchers claim that they are. My grandfather said his Knight grandparents were cousins and they had 13 children. This has proven to be true. That will complete my grandfather's 2x great grandparents (my 4x great grandparents) and then I will work on my grandmother Blake's line. Since she was illegitimate (stepfather was William Taylor as he married her mother Elizabeth Rawlings) and given the second middle name of Cotterill there is a strong possibility that her father was George Cotterill who lived on the Manor House Farm (his father was an agricultural labourer) (son of William Cotterill and Jane Sherwood). I have traced this line back to her 2x great grandparents and will prove that line but will likely halt there. I have traced her mother's Rawlings' line back to the 4x great grandparents and will enter the proofs for this line.

Then I can move to my mother's line where I have started to prove her line and have completed four (Pincombe/Pearce). Proving her paternal line should be quite straightforward as I have all the proofs back to the 4x great grandparents on every line (and beyond). Proving her maternal line though requires me still to find a paper trail back to her maternal grandparents which I lack. I have only family lore to go on and will not prove beyond the 2x great grandparents until I have found that link.

The next trip to Salt Lake City will look at a few more angles to see if I can make that leap back. I know that her mother had an illegitimate child in 1879 at Birmingham and they are found on the 1881 census in the Aston workhouse. Her age at that time was listed as 19 but she is listed as 30 on the 1891 census. If I am correct in having her parents as Ellen Roberts and Thomas Taylor they had a daughter Elizabeth born 9 Oct 1859 at Birmingham. On the 1891 census this person would have been 31 years old. However on her death registration she is listed as 37 and the date 27 Feb 1897 which would give her a birth date between 28 Feb 1859 and 27 Feb 1860. There isn't another Ellen Taylor born at Birmingham in this time period that would fit into this criteria. However, I need to caution myself that an entry could be incorrect. Finding a descendant of this family would be helpful and I continue to try to discover what happened to the five siblings of Ellen Taylor that survived childhood (Thomas born 1858, Elizabeth born 1862, Frank born 1865 died 1875, Kate (Kathryn) born 1868, Marion (Marianne) born 1869 (Ashton under Lyne), and William born 1870. All children born at Birmingham except for Marion (Marianne). They are on the 1881 census at Ashton under Lyne (Lancashire) and the 1871 census at Birmingham. My grandmother visited Lancashire when she was in England although spent most of her time in Birmingham and Coventry (Buller descendants lived at Coventry). Unfortunately I have to go on memory for her trip to England as the contents of her suitcase which held all of her information were destroyed. One of my great regrets is not taking her suitcase at the time she wanted me to do so. I thought she would live for ever and never suspect she would die eight months after we married.

Back to Genealogy! Barry Blake has taken over the Blake DNA study and added it to his webpages which will be a forward movement I think for the study of the Blake family of the British Isles.

http://blakeheritage.synthasite.com/blake-family-dna-project.php

I am still curious if this name has one founder with the other lines being descended through daughtered out female lines with a sister's child taking the Blake uncle's surname (i.e. why did Richard Caddell take the Blake surname?). Time will tell on that actually. There are so many different haplogroups though that one is left to surmise that the name arose spontaneously in several different areas. Certainly at Norfolk there are two distinct lines which go back several hundred years at Wimbotsham. The Blake family is known to be in London from early times as well. The earliest recorded mention of Blake is the Subsidy Roll in 1286 for Blakelands (Blacklands) where a Robert de Blakeland is paying his taxes. Most books tracing the Blake line do trace back to this individual. My own line being at Andover from the 1400s on is traced back on paper to this Robert de Blakeland as well. However, I terminate my line at Andover until I can find actual proof that the father of Nicholas is indeed a great grandson of Robert Blake and Avis Wallop. Still working through the wills on that connection.

Today I shall continue to work on French Canadian ancestry.

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