Matté and Gagnon families

Léon Matté married Marie Louise Gagnon 15 October 1865 at or near Plantagenet, Ontario in Prescott County. Léon stated that he was born at Vaudreuil Quebec, he was 22 years of age (est 1843) and he was the son of Louis Matte and Josette Bénoit. Louise stated that she was born at St Polycarpe Quebec, she was 19 years of age (est 1846) and that she was the daughter of Olivier Gagnon and Josephte Doutre.

For quite a while this couple was a brick wall for me. Léon Matte died 22 Mar 1917 and was buried 25 Mar 1917 at Notre Dame Cemetery, Ottawa. His burial lines stated that he was 73 years old (est 1844) and that Joseph Blais and Edward Gauthier were present (at some point in the future I shall determine if these were (as I suspect) sons in law). His death registration was somewhat more helpful. It stated that he was born at St. André Quebec. That he was a carriage maker by profession and that his father was Joseph Matte. The Informant was his wife Mrs. Léon Matte according to the document and they resided at 281 Guigues Avenue, Ottawa.

I placed all of my downloaded images for the Matté family  once again into the generational files with Generation 8 being the daughter Florence  baptized 13 Sep 1883 at St Jean Baptiste Parish, Ottawa, ON who married Joseph Valmore Bédard 30 Jan 1905 at Notre Dame Basilica, Ottawa. Using Tanquay I was able to work down to the fifth generation and then with the marriages I was able to prove the line down to Florence. The line back to the emigrant Nicolas Matté still needs to have the baptismal and burial records pulled. There are two lines of descent from Nicolas - his son Nicolas and his daughter Marie Louise.


I placed all of my downloaded images for the Gagnon family once again into the generational files with Generation 8 being Marie Louise Gagnon daughter of Olivier Gagnon and Josephte Doutre and they married 26 Jun 1844 at Curran, Saint Luc, Prescott ON. This information I obtained from the published descent of the Gagnon family. I am using it as a tool to work backwards and pull out all the documents for this family line. I have actually pulled all the records at this point for the marriages and now need to pull out the baptisms and burials. The parents of Olivier Gagnon were listed to be Louis Gagnon and Marie Elisabeth Caron who married 22 Sep 1800 at St Cuthbert Québec. The published transcription does verify this record. Mariages, sépultures et annotations marginales, paroisse St-Luc de Curran (Ontario), 1839-1994 compilé par Lucille Lalonde-Groulx, 1997 and located at Library and Archives Canada. Tanquay does not have this marriage but I was able to locate the marriage of Louis Gagnon and Marie Elisabeth Caron and the parents of Louis Gagnon were Louis Gagnon and Angélique Pelletier. Once again this marriage is not in Tanguay but once again I did find their marriage of 29 Aug 1768 at Ste Geneviève, Pierrefonds, Isle de Montréal. In turn this marriage states that the parents of Louis Gagnon were Jean Baptiste Gagnon and Marie Madeleine Bouthilllet. This marriage can be found in Tanguay. I continued pulling marriage right back to the emigrant ancestor Captain Pierre Gagnon.

I now need to pull all the baptisms and burials for the Gagnon line and indeed there are three Gagnon lines in this family tree. Jean (some write that he was a brother of Captain Pierre) and married to Marguerite Drouin and the two sons (Jean and Pierre) of Captain Pierre Gagnon.

For my next study session I wish to continue pulling documents for the Matté and Gagnon families.

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.

Back to Genealogy

Today I want to work on the French Canadian ancestry of our son-in-law. I have already been working on the parents of his paternal grandmother seeking out their baptisms and I have been successful. I am hoping that if there is an error she will spot it as she looks over any papers she might have for her family. I want to complete as much of the chart as possible and at the moment I only go back to her 2x great grandparents and the chart has room back to her 5x great grandparents. But I shall work back by generation collecting baptism/birth, marriage and burial/death records from Drouin on Ancestry. I also want to go to Library and Archives Canada to check out the directories for the families (and any other information that might be helpful). I will look at all the published histories for any of these families. So far I am looking at Grégoire, Lauzon, Tremblay, Lanoie, Rheaume, Brunet, Labelle, Séguin, Potvin, Giroux, Blondin, Lacroix, Thibaut, Constantineau, Boileau, St Amour and that is just back to the 2x great grandparents.

A mystery for me is their path and it lead to questions in my mind. The families are in the western area of Québec opposite Ottawa ON and then a movement up to Sturgeon Falls and then back again to Ottawa for one line and the other line comes immediately to the Embrun area. Am I right with the Sturgeon Falls families? I continue to look for proof but it is not impossible for one young man to travel from Papineauville to Sturgeon Falls I do not think but I would like more proof than just the baptisms and marriages. The burials are past the date of record in Ancestry so I will need to try and find that information another way.

Today I shall move back another generation looking for information that I didn't find earlier. As I move back though I have already found baptisms/marriages and burials for a number of the ancestors. It will be a little quicker and then I can start working on the 3x, 4x and 5x great grandparents and see how much information I can find. Unfortunately a lot of these families have not been researched which makes it even more important to try and find information and especially pictures if they are obtainable.

I will also spend a little more time on my Siderfin family today and continue to send information to my new correspondent.

French Canadian

I have been researching French Canadian ancestors for our son in law to be's family. It has been a fascinating search through time as I am able to readily go back many many generations in his family lines. Many of the lines stretch back into the early days of Colonial New France and because so many are researching their lines a number of them have been brought back to their starting location in France. The Drouin Registers online at Ancestry are a must for French Canadian research. Again the indexing may now have the exact spelling that you would like but in general you can get the gist or even better you can sit and search the entire register which is my usual modus operandii anyway. For the most part we are now able to make up an eight generation chart which we wanted for the wedding but it will also be a nice gift for the newest baby of the family due next year. It is only half of their ancestry but a good start on the genealogy.

I also spent some time basting up my new dress. I shall begin to sew it today and so my time at the computer will be somewhat limited.

Our dancing lessons are going very well. Last night we learned the Cha-Cha. Our waltz is developing nicely and we are now dancing the Rhumba, Fox-Trot and Triple Swing with confidence. At the wedding we want to be able to dance a little and my husband wants to do his dance with his daughter.

A cloudy day today and it begins to look like winter is coming. Soon the snow will cover the ground and we will lose it once again buried under several metres of snow! It is nice if the snow does come early as it protects the rose bushes in this bitter climate. Winter can be cold in eastern Canada. It is also long. We really have a lot of winter, a very very short spring, a short summer and then into Fall and soon to be Winter once again. Winter lasts about six months here although some years closer to five months but once the snow comes we know it is with us for at least that length of time. On the other hand, it is long long dark evenings to work on microfiche. Reading microfiche is a challenge in the summer when our days are very long (light well past 2100 hours) and they begin early in the morning by 0400 hours.

French Canadian Research

A change from my daily routine of working on my English Research images that I acquired at Salt Lake City was working on French Canadian Research. A very interesting day spent extracting information from ancestry using the Ontario and Quebec Drouin Records. The Quebec Drouin Records are very nicely indexed but the Ontario records are partially indexed. However the major part of the Drouin Records are from Quebec so mostly finished. I also used the Ontario Death, Marriage and Birth Records. I managed to put together the entire line of a family back five generations in just the one day. French Canadian Research is very interesting as you can trace family lines back to the 1600s fairly readily.

I signed up to do Canadian 1916 census on my FamilySearch account and managed to do three pages last evening. The page I did today though will require a bit of tweaking as the handwriting was very poor. I hadn't done anything for a while with all of our traveling but will be able to do some daily now all winter unless we decide to take a trip which often happens quite spontaneously. My husband will find a reference he really wants to see and we are off! None of my research is that accessible on this side of the Atlantic other than the Salt Lake City library but for that I need a lot of preparation. I have already started my next excel file for our visit in September next year.