Blake Family One Name Study and Bédard

With my membership in the Guild of One Name Studies comes the perk of Marriage Challenges. These are very handy especially with the price of a marriage registration certificate being now nine pounds sterling. The marriages help to establish the family lines in the 1800s and are an absolute must in any family study. I am slowly working away on the 30,000 Blake marriages in England matching up couples where possible but individual marriage challenges do this for me automatically as the data is pulled from the original parish registers and civil registers. I searched out my marriages for two today and I had already prepared my excel file for both of them so it was an easy transfer. I hadn't matched up all the marriages using the census so I proceeded to do that and it is a lengthy task to do 35 marriages working through FreeBMD and the census.

I am also working on the The Blake Newsletter and it was written by Barrie Blake this time. I am just adding or revising a couple of items - we do each others and that works very well as it is really difficult to proofread your own work.

It is certainly nice to be settling back into regular research. I need to now plan my research time for the French Canadian lines of our son in law. I have allotted one hour per day (it can easily run to two hours because of the placement) to work on each of his 32 3x great grandparents. This may seem like a lot but indeed I could just as easily of gone back to the 6x great grandparents and worked on all of them as well. It is a consideration on my part as I have assigned 28 to their own individual day and then I have placed two on the weekends where it works otherwise I have three in one day on a weekday because the calendar doesn't have an exact number of days per month. My own lines I have rotating on an eight week basis - five to a week but I do not have nearly as many of my 4x great grandparents covered in my research!

I will be working on Bédard, Whélan, Matte, Gagnon, Mourier, Bertrand, Nepveu, Audet dit Lapointe, Grégoire, Séguin dit Ladéroute, Tremblay, Labelle, Lauzon, Brunet, Lanoie, Rhéaume, Dumoulin, Renaud, Larente dit Vinet, Cadieux, Clément, Charlebois, Pomainville, Pilon, Prévost, Desjardins, Deschatelets, Quesnel, St-Jean, Lavigne, Chénier and Racine. I am considering doing a second month which would include Patry, Fournier dit Larose, Bénoit dit Vaillacourt, Doutre, Monestier, Piché, Richer, Hémard dit Poitvin, Groux, Bernard dit Blondin, Lacroix, Thibaut, Constantineau, Boileau, Payette dit St-Amour, Sarrazin, Demers, Blais, Racicot, Lamarque dit Matthieu, Chantal, Desloges dit Poirier, Monette dit Boiseux, Creujeur (Kruger), St-Denis, Legault, D'Amour, Campeau, and Douras (Douvas). This would then take me back to the 4x great grandparents and mostly  in the early 1800s/late 1700s. I have already taken his lines back to early New France and to the parents in France but I have not yet collected all the registrations. I would also like to now seek out the notary records and other records that might be at Library and Archives Canada which would give a fuller picture of these families.

I shall follow approximately the same process each day. First I will check to make sure I have all the registrations from Ancestry or the LDS website as an image in the family folder. Then within each folder I shall arrange them by generation from the emigrant. If I eventually find the registrations for these families in France then I shall simply alter the arabic to a roman numeral with the roman numerals marking the generations back from the emigrant and the parents being the I generation. I shall then check Tanguay to see if what I have also blends in with what he has (I started to use Tanguay about a year after I started). In the cases where I am still in the late 1700s, Tanguay is great to help you look at the lines going back to the emigrant. I shall also have a look at Ancestry family trees and World Connect. I will also search the Library and Archives Canada website to note items that I wish to check on my next visit.

Process:

1. Label generations within the family folder
2. Pull missing registrations from Ancestry and LDS website
3. Check Tanguay
4. Check Ancestry family trees
5. Check World Connect family trees
6. Search LAC for incidences of family name

Bédard is the family name that I wish to work on today but my time is somewhat limited as I am also getting ready for Easter. I am curious what brought Charles Alexandre  and Marie Emelie Whélan from Quebec City to Ottawa  following the birth of their first child (baptized 1 Jun 1864 at St Jean Baptiste, Quebec, Quebec. It was an interesting time for a carpenter to come to this area. I want to search at the archives to see if I am able to discover where he worked. Ten children were born to this family - seven boys and three girls. I suspect that many of the Bédard families in this area are descended from Charles Alexandre. Charles can trace his lineage all the way back to Jacques who was the son of the emigrant Isaac and Marie Girard and they had married 20 Mar 1644 at La Rochelle, France.The first process of sorting may well take me all of my time for this first session. It is one of the reasons why I am not going to set up the second month of names yet. Once I have organized the first 32 folders (I have 387 family folders already and I am only going to look at 32 of these to start) then I can start to move back and organize folders as I go working then on the entire family but my starting point will then be 64 families and their ancestors. We will see how it works out. I suspect this too will be a lifetime vocation which I shall hope to pass on to one of our son-in-law's family members in the future.

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.

Siderfin Family and continuing French Canadian Ancestry

My new correspondent and I have been sharing information. She found a new will (new to me!) at The National Archives (London UK) which has illuminated another error in James Sanders book. Definitely John Siderfin married to Joan Adams was John the son of John Siderfin and Joan Greenslade and not the son of Robert Siderfin and Grace Kent. This makes James Sanders chart completely incorrect as he shows his great grandfather as John Siderfin married to Sarah Clark being the son of John Siderfin and Joan Greenslade. This means that my Elizabeth (Betty) Siderfin (sister to John Siderfin married to Sarah Clark) was aunt to his grandfather Robert Siderfin. That means that Elizabeth Rew (Elizabeth Siderfin's daughter) was first cousin to Robert the father of Elizabeth Siderfin (mother to James Sanders). Mind you Robert was born in 1788 and Elizabeth in 1801. Then Elizabeth (daughter of Robert was born in 1817) and William Robert (my great grandfather) wasn't born until 1837. It could be the generational differences that resulted in this loss of knowledge. Plus my family emigrated to Canada in 1850. But it is still surprising that he incorrectly selected his great great grandparents. Mind you he wrote the book in the early 1900s and his mother died in 1882 and his grandfather Robert Siderfin died in 1859. James grew up at South Molton which is quite aways from the Watchett/Selworthy homes of his Siderfin ancestor. Surprisingly my Elizabeth Rew married John Pincombe at Bishops Nympton just five miles from South Molton but the discrepancy in ages may well have resulted in the mistake. In my family, the name Siderfin was never recorded on this side of the Atlantic so that family line was completely lost.

I continued working on my son-in-law's family. I am proving the 3x great grandparents now on his grandfather's side. I have managed to pull out quite a bit of information - census, CMBs and BMDs but a few still elude me. I spent part of the morning reading the 1851 census at St-Polycarpe, Vaudreuil County but did not find the Matte (Mathieu/Matts), Gagnon (Gagné), D'Outre or De La Tour families that I had hoped to find there. There were LaTour families but not the one I needed. I still need to check the marriage registration for Léon Matte and Marie Louise Gagnon at Prescott in 1865. The Geneaogical Society has transcribed the register and listed parents as Olivier Gagnon/Josephte Beruit (census shows de LaTour) and Joseph Matte/Josephte D'Outre (census shows Louis Matte/Josette Doutre). Reading the original at the Archives of Ontario will be helpful for this marriage I suspect. Because all four families were from the Vaudreuil area originally I had hoped to discover some information on the 1851 census but they may have already been moving to the Prescott area of Ontario by then. I do not find them at Prescott so possibly somewhere in between.

Today I will enter the proofs for the 3x great grandparents of the one line and then begin to work on the maternal line back to the 3x great grandparents. Putting the trees on ancestry was very very helpful with all the searching ability of this site. I had some really good hints that were most helpful.