Bénoit dit Vaillancourt and Vaillancour families

I discovered that I had two rather interesting coincidental same names. Josette Bénoit dite Vaillancourt married Louis Piché 3 Sep 1839 at Ste Scholastique and Marie Josephte Bénoit dite Vaillancourt married Joseph Louis Matte 5 Feb 1839 at St Jerome. They are both born around 1820.

Parents for Marie Josephte were Joseph Bénoit dit Vaillancourt and Josephte Chauret (Chaurette) who themselves were married 25 Nov 1811 at St Eustache with parents Barthélemy Vaillancour and Marie Louise Labelle/Charles Chauret and Marguerite Roy.

Parents for Josette were Alexis Bénoit dit Vaillancourt and Charlotte Beauchamp who themselves were married 26 Jun 1815 at St Eustache with parents Alexis Vaillancour/Agathe Langlois dite Traversis and Joseph Beauchamp/Marie Euphrosine Villeneuve.

Alexis Vaillancour is the son of Barthélemy Vaillancour and his first wife Marie Madeleine Bouchard.

Working through the marriages of the parents/grandparents etc of Josette Bénoit dite Vaillancourt solved the mystery of the other Marie Josephte Bénoit dite Vaillancourt married to Joseph Louis Matte which had become my new brick wall once the wall collapsed for the parents of Joseph Louis Matte.

Tanguay refers to these families (Bénoit and Vaillancour) as two separate lines. It would appear that the priest added Bénoit to the Vaillancour line in the 1800s with the resultant surname Bénoit dit Vaillancourt. This tree also has the Bénoit line including Bénoit dit Livernois.

Must return now to my own family lines for a bit. I still have a number of items to solve and will try to prove four members a day across the 3x great grandparents for this tree. The generated book for this family is now up to 603 pages as I have inserted some of the documents. Eventually I will insert all the census that I am now using for proof and other interesting documents found online. Probably I will have to produce four files to keep the size of the electronic file under 2000 pages for each or perhaps I will have to go to the great grandparents producing eight files and then one linking file.

Louis Matte and Josette Benoit families

Another one of my brick walls may have actually fallen with a review of the Prescott Russell County Marriage Book. I would still like to see the original records but the marriage of Léon Matte and Marie Louise Gagnon 15 Oct 1865 in Prescott County lists parents of Léon as Louis Matte and Josette Benoit and Louise as Olivier Gagnon and Lorette Doutre.

Marriage of Olivier Gagnon and Josephte Doutre I did find in the published transcription of Saint Luc at Curran (Prescott County) as 26 Jun 1844 and that has let me trace these lines back.

The marriage of Louis Matte and Josette de la Tour as she is named in the census of 1861 I had not yet located. I also found two other marriages in Prescott County in the same time interval. Louis Matte (parents Louis and Josette Benoit) married to Angélique Monette 26 Nov 1865 and François Benoit(son of André and Marie Reine Decaire) married to P Clement 25 Sep 1866 also at Prescott County.

A quick search of Tanguay did not reveal any connection (not far enough back). I searched Drouin online and found a marriage for Louis Matte and Marie Josephte Benoit dit Vaillancourt 5 Feb 1839. Parents were listed for Louis Matte and Marie Josephte. The marriage was at St Jerome. The birth of Louis Matte (son of this couple) is listed as Ste Scholastique and the birth of Léon Matte is listed as Vaudreuil. An interesting path through these villages does lead one towards Prescott County. The census of 1861 at St André lists Louis Matt and his wife Josepte De Latour with children Louis (b 1840), Nazare (b 1841), Léon (b 1844), Joseph (b 1845), Célina (b 1848), Sarrah Ann (b 1850), Noa (b 1852), Arsinne (b 1855), Julia (b 1857), and Marceline (b 1860). Noé's marriage in 1877 lists his place of birth as Carillon, Québec and his age of 26 years fits with the census (parents Louis and Josephte Matte). Marceline Matte married in 1879 and her age of 19 years fits with parents Louis Matte and Josephine Benoit (parents listed on marriage registration).

The parents of Louis Matte and Marie Josephte Benoit dit Vaillancourt married 5 Feb 1839 at St Jerome were listed as mentioned above. This couple fit well into the description of the family on the 1861 census at St André and the resulting marriages that then occur in Prescott County for their children.

Parents of Louis Matte were Augustin Matte and Angélique Daragon. They married 11 Jan 1808 at St Eustache (Augustin Mathes and Marie Judith Daragon). Their parents were listed in the marriage lines.

Parents of Josephte Benoit dit Vaillancourt were Joseph Benoit dit Vaillancourt and Josephte Charette. Still looking for their marriage.

Parents of Augustin Matte were Pierre Mathes and Marie Anne Maisonneuve. They were married 5 Jan 1773 at St Francois de Sales.

Parents of Marie Judith Daragon were Louis Darragon and Marie Jeanne Lauzon. They were married 8 Feb 1779 at Ste Genevieve (Pierrefonds).

I will post these two lines back later but they are readily found in Tanguay when the last marriage registrations are transcribed.

I appear to now be brickwalled at Joseph Benoit dit Vailancourt and Josephte Charette.

Immersed in research

My husband mentioned to me that I haven't written to my blog since the 3rd of April. I decided to work with the Tanguay CD that he had given me and have been completely immersed ever since. It is amazing to use it really. All the female lines that I couldn't work out because I couldn't locate marriages have now settled into place. I worked through A,B,C and into D names and then decided this is not the most practical way for me to proceed with the family tree. I am back to proving backwards once again. I am working my way back in each line to the 3x great grandparent and have just five to go on the male side and then have to do all the work on the female side. Then I will work on the 4x great grandparents straight across the table and move back to 5 when I complete 4. I can see that is a practical step with French Canadian research. I have very very few lines that came after the mid 1600s. As I go I am pulling any records that I have not yet pulled and I am working my way back in Tanguay for each surname (obviously this will always be half since I would have done the male line back as soon as it appeared). I think this will be a more practical approach but working for the last 1.5 weeks has certainly give me a lot of respect for the work that went into the Tanguay Collection. Although I have found a few items that I would query and I will now make a list of them, I find very very few.

Now that we are out biking, hiking and soon gardening my energy is depleting and I accomplish considerably less in a day than I was doing in the wintertime when the nights are long and I can read my fiche reader or my computer screen readily without sunlight popping into my eyes.

We have planned a whole lot of trips as well this year. We are going to do a tour of the Maritimes, a trial run of our fall trip to the Mohawk Valley where my husband and his friend lead the united empire loyalist group, a family reunion where my husband is President this year, and a trip to Europe with some extra time in London with one day at Kew. I am restricting it to one day because there isn't that much that I want to look up. Mostly I can just buy all the documents on line but it would be nice to look at the census for 1911 and my close family since my great grandparents were all still alive as were my great aunts and uncles. It is the time before the war that killed so many of my ancestors it would appear.

I have also ordered the Family Finder test from FT DNA. I am curious if it will bring out any of my great grandmother Taylor's relatives as I know all my close relatives on my father's side and my mother's father's side. Just the one line that is curious and it is now becoming quite selectively small as more information flows in on the Buller line which was my grandmother's maiden name. A Buller married a Taylor at Birmingham or thereabouts (marriage is still missing) in 1885/1886. The interesting part is finding that Edwin's brother Clemence Charles Buller was in South Africa working (he was a jeweller's assistant on the 1871 census) and my grandmother used to say that her father was injured in Africa so that would lead one to suspect that he was in South Africa with him. Could he have married Ellen Taylor there? Such mysteries. It is probably a simple matter but I haven't found the answer yet but it has become a much smaller line than when I first approached it and knew only my great grandparent's Buller and Taylor names.

I am starting to feel the pull between our daughters and where we will live in the future. They live about 2500 kilometres apart and eventually we will live near to one of them I would suspect. I am still very ambivalent about grandchildren and do not mind if we never have any. Somehow the thought of my descendants going far into the future is unappealing to me which is perhaps weird but as I watch the world decaying around us I really wonder about the world in a hundred years time. The actions that need to be taken seem to take such a very long time. However, I leave such things up to our daughters - it is their life to live.

Tanguay

My husband gave me his disc La Collection Tanguay a while ago but I hadn't really done anything with it yet. On Thursday past I decided to work through the index beginning with A and look up each name in Tanguay that pertained to French Canadian research. It was an excellent idea on my part and I have managed to work my way through the As and the Bs sorting out families and pulling yet more records from the registers. I think that Tanguay is considered to be one of the definitive sources for French Canadian research but I have found a few discrepancies where the Parish Registers give a different parent. I have gone with the parish registers since he used them as well. With all the similar names it would not be surprising to have a discrepancy. But on the whole I have been able to sort out many hanging lines where I can not find the marriage to locate names of a parent for the wife. I have been marking any that I can not work through with a tag of 9 in legacy so that I can easily collect them up and look again at a later date. Many of the lines will need to be looked up in French Parish Registers and I may not take this project that far but rather leave it for our son in law and daughter to do one day or one of their families. It would be a real inducement to spend some time in France. Since they speak French as their maternal tongue it would be easier for them as well although my reading of French has always been quite good. It is my spoken French that leaves a lot to be desired.

I might start to make note of areas where I have found a discrepancy but will have to begin with the Cs as I did not make particular note of any discrepancies as I worked my way through. I only found a couple in actual fact.

I also need to get back to my transcriptions of Andover and Timberscombe. They are starting to call to me to return.