Spotlight ~ Zephirin Madore

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.  

Spotlight ~ Henry III, King of England

Documentarian Weblog ~ Stardate 14090.7

I came across an interesting document showing a connection between my line of ancestry and King Henry the III of England who died in 1272. I have not confirmed any of the connections. I thought of it as almost being related to the King of England because my ancestor was married to a woman who is connected to the King Henry III of England. Her name was Rose Stoughton, shown at the bottom of the list shown below with her husband, Richard Otis, who is my 7th great-grandfather.

The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the American Colonies or the United States Who Were Themselves Notable or Left Descendants Notable in American History

by Gary Boyd Roberts  

Spotlight ~ Gaspard Boucher

Documentarian Weblog ~ Stardate 14165.7
I found the coolest statue today. It is a monument to Louis Hébert, the first settler to colonize in Québec City in 1617. The statue is located in the Montmorency Park National Historic Site. The park is situated at the edge of Upper Town, just above Lower Town, where our hotel for this summer's ancestry visit is located. It's just minutes away. On this statue, is a plaque commemorating the early colonists. One of them is Gaspard Boucher who arrived in Québec in 1635. He is my 8th great-grandfather. 

 

Statue to Louis Hébert, apothicaire de Paris - Photo by Jean Gagnon

Plaque des premiers colons de Quebec - Photo by Jean Gagnon

 Photo by Jean Gagnon

There he is - Gaspard Boucher ~ my 8th great-grandfather. Can't wait to see it in person. 

Spotlight ~ Tracking Down Marguerite DeChaine

Documentarian Weblog ~ Stardate 14163.7
So I'm trying to track down if I have two Michel's in the Otis family of my grandmother. I had one Michel Otis born in 1883 and another Joseph "Michel" Otis born in 1886. Michel Otis had a baptismal record showing as 30 Oct 1883. What confused me at this point was that his father is listed correctly as Michel Otis, but his mother is listed as Emma Lauzier. I suppose at the time I picked up this record, I just figured I'd take a look at it later. I got to thinking that maybe Lauzier was a dit name, so I did an Ancestry search with her name listed that way. I ended up on a google search and figured out that it is indeed a dit name for Roy. I knew I was on the right track when I found a census with the name Lassier and a first name Dulgence. I looked at the record and it looked more like Fulgence to me, which is Emma's father's name. I thought that was quite a coincidence. So I decided to do some searching for her father because he had a less common name, Fulgence. I found a Fulgence Roy on Généalogie du Québec et d'Amérique française and on Royandboucher.com, a site of the Roy and Boucher families. He was born in 1804 and I thought that would make him too old to be my Fulgence Roy. I then noticed he died in 1855 which was before my Emma was born in 1861. It showed his father as Clément Roy and his wife as Marie Anne Gagnon. I poked them in as Fulgence's parents just to see what would happen and Ancestry immediately found them and gave me multiple hints. I knew it wasn't quite right though by the years and then I found that Fulgence Roy had a son, Fulgence. I am thinking, seriously, how many Fulgence Roy's can there be in the world. This son's wife's name is Marie Miville. Now you have to understand that just about every french baby born during this time was named Marie. I have in one family (Cureux's-which my St. Germain is a dit name for) Marie-Louise, Marie-Anne, Marie-Marguerite, Marie-Françoise, Marie-Jeanne, Marie-Madeleine, and Marie-Charlotte. I have many families like this so I wasn't too concerned that his wife's name was listed as Marie. I had his wife's name as Marguerite DeChaine. Well, clearly Marguerite DeChaine and Marie Miville are not the same. So next, I decided to go back to the horse's mouth. Maybe my Marguerite DeChaine is wrong. I went back to my original genealogy book that I started back in the 1980's. I have very little in there, but I had written down exactly what my dad had told me. I did find Fulgence Roy and Marguerite Dechaine in my handwriting. Ancestry had given me very little with these names in there, so I wondered if I might have her name wrong. As I was perusing the records I had found on Google I saw that the wife of the second Fulgence was listed as Marie Miville dit Deschêsnes. Holy crap, Marie Miville is my Marguerite DeChaine. It's another dit name. So in all of my searching, I finally found Fulgence Roy (1904 - the first one) on the Tanguay Collection. It doesn't mention his wife or children, but it does, in the fine print say Desjardins dit Lauzier. So Roy has two dit names Fulgence Roy Desjardins dit Lauzier. Wow, that's a mouthful. I will now put Marie Maguerite Miville dit Deschênes in my Ancestry tree and see if we can track down some records for her. 

Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival

 Documentarian Weblog ~ Stardate 11128.6

This shoot is from May ‎3, ‎2014

A Few Photos from Thanksgiving Point's Tulip Festival

 This was my first paid photo shoot. I took family pictures of my "other" son and his family. It was a beautiful day and the flowers were amazing. I'll post some of their pics after I get permission.

Of course, I couldn't resist taking flower photos, but they were all on the fly. I haven't learned to read my metadata yet and it was so bright that I couldn't preview any of them. I am pleased with how well they turned out. I could have spent hours and hours there taking pictures.

Spotlight ~ Malachi Grantham

Documentarian Weblog ~ Stardate 14139.8

I followed a line of in a weird direction today that took me back from my husband's Uncle Rex Curtis. Before I knew it I was back to a Malachi Grantham born in 1817. When I looked at his relationship to me, it said 

Malachi Grantham (1817 - )
great-grandfather of wife of 1st cousin of husband of sister-in-law of aunt of husband of aunt of husband

I was trying to figure out exactly what this meant, so I printed out the connections. I added the information in red when I finally figured it out.

      Relationship between Malachi Grantham & Theresa SG-Mitchell

Malachi Grantham (1817 - ) great-grandfather of ➤

George Robbin Grantham (1844 - 1921)
son of Malachi Grantham

Harriet "Hattie" Alma Grantham (1876 - 1917)
daughter of George Robbin Grantham

➤Elizabeth A Pierce (1905 - 1984) wife of ➤
daughter of Harriet "Hattie" Alma Grantham

➤Earl Fred Tomlinson (1908 - 1985) 1st Cousin of ➤
husband of Elizabeth A Pierce

Boston Tomlinson (1857 - 1943)
father of Earl Fred Tomlinson

Andrew H Tomlinson (1813 - )
father of Boston Tomlinson

Izora Tomlinson (1870 - )
daughter of Andrew H Tomlinson

➤William Marcus Hartman Tomlinson (1894 - 1985) husband of ➤
son of Izora Tomlinson

➤Darlene E Salmans (1899 - 1989) sister-in-law of ➤
wife of William Marcus Hartman Tomlinson

Oscar Randolph Salmans (1867 - 1951)
father of Darlene E Salmans

Maynard Stover Salmans (1898 - 1969)
son of Oscar Randolph Salmans

➤Edna Margaret Curtis (1893 - 1951) aunt of ➤
wife of Maynard Stover Salmans

Garrett Bran Curtis (1864 - 1948)
father of Edna Margaret Curtis

Jett Plummer Curtis (1896 - 1939)
son of Garrett Bran Curtis

➤Donald "Rex" Curtis (1926 - 2012) husband of ➤
son of Jett Plummer Curtis

➤Marjorie Mae Lebsack (1928 - 2012) aunt of ➤
wife of Donald "Rex" Curtis

Bertha Mae Stroh (1896 - 1995)
mother of Marjorie Mae Lebsack

Evaleen Lebsack (1920 - 1993)
daughter of Bertha Mae Stroh

➤James Bryan Mitchell (1957 - ) husband ➤
son of Evaleen Lebsack

➤Theresa Aurore SG-Mitchell
You are the wife of James Bryan Mitchell

 
Still, this was quite confusing to me. So this is what I did. 

Working backwards, from bottom to top...

1. husband - James B. Mitchell
2. aunt of husband - Marjorie Lebsack Curtis
3. husband of aunt of husband - Donald Rex Curtis

4. aunt of husband of aunt of husband - Edna Margaret Curtis

5. sister-in-law of aunt of husband of aunt of husband - Darlene E Salmans

6. husband of sister-in-law of aunt of husband of aunt of husband - 

William Marcus Hartman Tomlinson 

7. 1st cousin of husband of sister-in-law of aunt of husband of aunt of husband -

Earl Fred Tomlinson

8. wife of 1st cousin of husband of sister-in-law of aunt of husband of aunt of husband -

Elizabeth A Pierce

9. great-grandfather of wife of 1st cousin of husband of sister-in-law of aunt of husband of aunt of husband - Malachi Grantham 

Now and interesting tidbit to this story. The two first cousins that I have highlighted actually lived together as brothers. William was taken in by his uncle Boston Tomlinson when Willie's mother died and given their name. William's "cousin" Earl Tomlinson was born when William was about 15.

Ah, the wonders of ancestry -- and the wonders of Ancestry. It is amazing what computers and the internet have done for genealogy.  

  

Spotlight ~ Jean-Baptiste Otisse Interment

Documentarian Weblog ~ Stardate 14064.8
Today I'm going to blog about using the Drouin Collection, U.S. and French Catholic Church Record from 1695-1954. All of the examples I am using are from Ancestry.com. I've used these records a lot in the search of my French-Canadian ancestors. These records were written by the parish priests and are hand-written in french. Sometimes this makes it quite difficult to decipher these records. Most of the time I have to use my sleuthing skills by looking at the records previous to and after the record I am trying to decipher. If I get really stuck, I sometimes use Google Translate to help me figure out what words I don't understand. And this can be hard when you have to guess what the letters of some words are.

Here is an example of a decent record. It's fairly easy to read with good handwriting and clear wording:

Ancestry.com                                     

This is the record of the marriage of Michel Otisse and Emma Roy. They are my great-grandparents. I like that this record is signed by both Emma and Michel.

Here is a closeup of the first part of the record:

Their names are on the left ~ Michel Otisse and Emma Roy.

The date is next <Le vingt-six Novembre mil huit cent soixante-dix-huit> the 26th of November 1878. Most records are worded in pretty much the same way. This record states some of that legalese and then continues with his name and <cultivateur> farmer, that he is the oldest son of Adophe Otisse and Marguerite Chassé. Then it continues with Emma and her parents. It's all pretty straight forward. If I was having trouble with the date, I might check the previous record to see the year and month, knowing that the day for this record would be later.

So today I would like to share with you the hardest record to read I have ever come across in the Drouin Collection. It is the record for the death and burial of Jean-Baptiste Otisse. (My previous blog spotlighted his first wife, Cécile Poulin.) He is my sixth great-grandfather. He was born in Dover, New Hampshire and was taken by the Abenaki Indians to Canada and sold into slavery in 1689, when he was just nine years old. 

Here is the record of his death and burial in 1760.

Now, at first glance, I figured that I would not be able to glean any information from this record, but as I began working with it and using other records to confirm, it began to come together. The transcription gives the year as 1760 (at the top) in Baie-St-Paul. Let's take each record on the page individually. I'm covering the four records on the left page only.  My ancestors record is the third one down on that page.

With the first record, we have the <enterrement> burial of Constance Tremblay on <le 10 Septembre 1760>. Now, this parish priest gives us a special treat of listing the date with the names in the margin. Most priests did not do this. And the year in the record is written out in words, not with numbers, as it was with the first example I gave with Michel Otisse. With this record, having those dates, especially with numbers in the margin really helped with deciphering. This priest also makes his esses with a swooping letter that looks something like a cursive f to me. I have seen this before so when I came across them, I knew them to be esses and not f's. 

The next record is a <baptême> baptism dated <14 Sbre 1760>  14 Sep 1760. This can be seen in the margin. 

 

The last record on the page is also a <baptême> baptism for Marie-Rose Fortin dated <le 18 Sbre 1760> 18 Sep 1760. At first, I only saw Fortin in small letters, but thought the first name might be Rose. Then I saw the Marie above it and looked in the text and it looked more like Marie Rose Fortin in the text to me. 

Now we come to the record of my ancestor Jean-Baptiste Otisse. He was born to British parents as John Otis. When he came to Québec he was baptized in the Catholic Church as Jean-Baptiste. Otis when pronounced by the french became Otisse or O-teese with the s pronounced softly, not a hard s that sounds like a z. This caused lots of spelling problems and it was sometimes spelled Otice, Otise, Otisse, and Othys. This parish priest spelled his name Otice and you can see it in the margin. <enterrement> Burial of Jean Otice. The date is not super clear, <16 Sbre 1760> the six wasn't clear, but other records (Tanguay, see below) do show his death date as 16 Sep 1760, and since the previous record on this page is 14 Sep and the record after is 18 Sep, I think we can assume that 16 Sep is correct. I was able to decipher the words <l'an> year and then the date written out <mil sept cent soixante seize de Septembre> 1760 16 September. There's not much else here that I could read, but I did find <mort aujourd'hui> died this day, which means his death and burial dates are the same.

 

Edit: 9.24.24  A comment from a user shows that I am incorrect with <mort Aujourd'ui>. The text actually reads: 

Sur la 4ième ligne, il est incrit ´´mort le jour d’auparavant’´ donc le 15 septembre.

Submitted by: Danielle Vézina on 3/17/2023

So the date of death is actually 15 Sep 1760.

 

 

b in the Tanguay Collection means christening date, m means marriage date, and s means the burial date. 

So there you have it, a successful deciphering of an incredibly illegible record from the Drouin Collection. (And sometimes we still don't get it right.) You can see why I love the Tanguay Collection so much, it's so much easier to read. 😌