Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Grégoire and Séguin dit Ladéroute families

Antoine Grégoire married Rosa de Lima Ségin dit Ladéroute 30 Aug 1869 at the Basilica de Notre Dame in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. I wish it had been that simple to discover the full name of the bride as Rosa was listed as Rosa de Lima Séguin. Parents of Antoine were Nicholas Joseph Grégoire and Marie Potvin and for Rosa her parents were Antoine Séguin and Marie Groux. The witnesses at this marriage were Nicholas Grégoire and Toussaint Groux. Trying to find the parents of this couple proved to be a formidable task which I related earlier in my blog. My reason for coming back to these two family lines is organization and tidying up details and to ensure that indeed I did find the correct line.

Working on the Grégoire family proved to be an interesting tour through early New France families and eventually failing to connect to them discovering the answer to my search lay in the census and reading the early records of a particular village. Although the Grégoire family were not 1600s arrivals they were indeed here before the 1750s but, as I was to discover, at Montréal. Their son Homère would marry Rosalie Tremblay 6 Apr 1902 at Embrun and it was this relationship that helped me in the long run. The Tremblay family being so thoroughly researched I was able to locate the marriage of Homère and Rosalie and from there the parents full names which then assisted me greatly with the Séguin family. French Canadian genealogy is marvelous and fits together so neatly that as soon as you go astray you will often get warning signs that something is wrong because it just doesn't match the available files. It usually happens quite quickly which is excellent.

What I was trying to find was the location of the Grégoire family before they moved to Russell Twp in Ontario. The usual route was often up from Montréal via the south shore, across the St Lawrence and into the Québec townships which ran along with the Ontario townships in Eastern Ontario but on the west side of the Ottawa River.  I had found Nicholas Grégoire on the 1852 census quite early on but the name of the wife was Marguerite Emare. Antoine was there, right age and fitted perfectly. Nicholas was born at Chateauguay and Antoine at Ste-Martine (Marguerite was born at  [St] Constant.) I was looking for Marie Potvin however as the wife of Nicholas. I then trekked through the Grégoire records but discovered that they just didn't fit this family. Returning to the census I decided to look at the parish registers for the baptism of Antoine (I was working primarily with marriages as I was trying to quickly prepare a chart for the wedding - since I couldn't really prove the Grégoire line it basically ended at Nicholas at the time). However, looking at the baptisms I discovered that Antoine was baptized at Ste Martine and his parents were listed as Nicholas Grégoire and Marguerite Emard. The census had been perfectly accurate. I was still new to searching at the time and dit names were still a mystery to me. I moved now to find the marriage of Nicholas and Marguerite and it was at St Constant 6 Feb 1837.

Le six Fevrier, mil huit cent
trente sept après la publication des
trois bans de mariage faité ici et a Saint
Remi, entre Nicolas Grégoire Jour
nalier fils majeur de feu Nicolas
Grégoire et de Geneviève Patenaude,
de Saint Remi, d'une parte et Margue
rite Hémar, fille majeure de feu Pierre
Hémar et de Catherine Payant de cette
paroisse, d'autre part; Nous sousigné
avec l'agréement de leurs parents; avons
reçu leur mutuel consentement de mar
iage et leur avons donné le bénédiction nup
tiale au présence de Bédard Payant; de Jean
Baptiste Beaudin, d'Amable Doulean, de Luc
Hamar, d'Antoine Hémar et d'Augustin
Lamoreux, qui ont avec les époux déclaré ne
savoir signer.
La Marth Mieu P[re]tre

I shall work on the transcription but amazingly I had discovered that I did have the correct census for Antoine and back to his parents Nicholas Grégoire and Marguerite Emard. I now had several spelling of Marguerite's surnames which I will discuss later.

Continuing looking at the Grégoire family I now needed the marriage of Nicolas Grégoire and Geneviève Patenaude and they had married at St Constant 12 Jan 1807. The priest recorded in the register

Le deux janvier mil huit cent sept nous pretre soussigné aprés
la publication de trois Bans de mariage a nos messes
paroissialles suivant l'usage, entre nicolas grégoire
majeur laboureur veuf de Thèrèse decoste, de la paroisse
de Cateauguay d'une part; et geneviève patenaude mineure
fille de michel patenaude laboureur et de defunte
charlotte gervais ses pere et mere de cette paroisse d'autre
part sans quel se soit trouvé aucun empechement
au dit mariage leur avons donné la Bénédiction
nuptialle avec les cérémonies presentes après avoir
reçu leur mutuel consentement au mariage ____
que lelui de leurs parents A le en présente de laurent
denise beaupere de l'epoux, de nicholas moyer oncle
maternel de pierre saint pierre aussi oncle maternel de l'epoux
de michel patenaude pere de l'epouse, de joseph patenaude frere
de l'epouse, et de plusieurs autres parents s'amis , qui n'ont
su signer de meme que les epoux
___ Consigney P[re]tre

I was then able to locate the marriage of Nicolas Grégoire and Thérèse Decoste at St Constant 20 Aug 1796. The parents of Nicolas Grégoire were listed as Nicolas Grégoire and Catherine Guerin. Locating their marriage readily at Notre Dame de la Prairie de la Madeleine and they were married 20 Jul 1772. Finding this marriage then showed me that Nicolas was the emigrant as his parents were still living in France. His parents were Nicolas Grégoire and Marie-Anne Martin. The register lists him as a resident of the parish. This family is not listed in Tanguay.

When I was researching this family earlier I had tried to discover if Nicolas was a soldier coming out from France before 1759 but was unable to ascertain that. I had discovered a new set of webpages which lists 214 articles from "Le journal citoyen du Québec pour la francophonie. " Nicolas (his son) was part of a group of voyageurs who traveled down the Mississippi in pursuit of trading opportunities. He is only mentioned the one time in the story so any further part by him is unknown. But what of Nicolas, the father, why is he listed just as a resident? Was he an ex-soldier? He would have been older when he married if he had been a soldier in the 1750s. He died in 1789 at Chateauguay (17 years of marriage). The burial lines state his age as 50 years giving him a possible date of birth in 1739 so that he would have been old enough to have served as a soldier. Perhaps the answer lies in looking at Emigration which I have not yet done. That will be one of my projects for the next time that I look at the Grégoire family

The Séguin family will also have to wait until the next time as I have managed to use up all my allotted time today for these families.

Separating the file for the Grégoire family then Nicolas (b c 1739) is Generation 1, Nicolas (b 1773) is Generation 2, Nicolas Joseph (b 1809) is Generation 3, Antoine is Generation 4 and Homère is Generation 5 and two more generations completes this line to the present. Folders created and images sorted.

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