Documentarian Weblog ~ Stardate 15096.7
Zephirin Madore is the brother-in-law of my second great-aunt, Christine "Christie" Paradis. She is the sister of Sophie Paradis (spouse of Xavier "Hyacinthe" St. Germain). Finding his name has been a chore.
I first found three dissimilar names on three different censuses: 1860, 1870, and 1880. His name was listed as Fearah, Firmin, and Phinis. When I looked at the census with the name Phinis, I found it looked a bit like Phirin to me. When saying Phirin to myself, I realized that it sounded a bit like Fearah, especially if you use a french accent. So Fearah becomes Firin, and Firmin could be Firin, and with the spelling of Phiris as Phirin, I knew I was on to something. I then found another tree on Ancestry with the name Fismir listed, with the only other two showing as Firmin. Fismir seemed specific, so I looked at the tree to see if there were any sources for it. It directed me to FamilySearch, the LDS website. On FamilySearch, Fismir is listed as a sibling to Zephirin Madore. I believe it's probably supposed to be the same person. Their birth years are the same.
Zephirin was not where I thought this was going to take me, but as soon as I entered Zephirin into Ancestry, 7 hints popped up. When looking at the other Ancestry trees that showed there, the first one, which is always the one with the most sources, was the Bateman/Tracey Family Tree owned by Carolyn Bateman. This was the third time today I had connected with Carolyn Bateman's tree. It was even more unusual because I had a tab open to a person I found to be a DNA match to my sisters test, as a possible 4th cousin. You guessed it: Carolyn Bateman. My personal DNA test has to be started over because they couldn't get a viable sample from what I sent. I have to start over as soon as I get my new test kit. So, right now, I can only look at possible DNA matches and try to see if I recognize anyone in the person's tree because I can't directly connect it to my tree because it's my sister's test. I will definitely take a look at Carolyn Bateman when I get my test results.
The other Ancestry hints listed included more spellings for the name Zephirin. Clearly, this man had trouble with this his entire life. The other hints were federal censuses, Social Security applications, and Maine records. The other spellings were: Zefhrin, which was a transcription of what is clearly spelled Zephirin with some writing over the top of it, Zaphirir, Zepherin, and Zephirain.
Carolyn's tree only had later censuses for Zephirin, while my tree only had earlier censuses of Firmin, which I later changed to Firin, then Phirin. Now, as Zephirin, I believe I have the clear picture of his whole life. This is a distinct example of how difficult it is sometimes to figure out what the whole "truth" is when doing genealogy. What it really comes down to is, it's like playing golf, we only can try to get as close to the hole (truth) as possible. And that truth is very fluid and is always changing as we get more information.
