“The past lives within the present and our ancestors breathe through
our children”
Elif Safak
All of our ancestors are important and a part of us as well
as our history. However, some stand out more than others and tend to come to
mind when something related to them or the times they lived in are mentioned.
I have two family trees on Ancestry - one is my paternal and
maternal roots the other that of the same for my husband. Yes two trees and about 3,000 names plus; loads
of errors and unproven facts. Being a visual person far too many ancestors to
remember each as they are hidden in
records but as I mentioned some stand out for a part of their life, the time
they lived through or just for who they were.
In an earlier blog post Who
was George Drewie ? I introduced you to the man that was later known as Hugh Drury.
He was Richard’s 9th Great Grandfather and an exciting
find especially when I realized he came to the New World around the time the
Mayflower pilgrims did. Research found
down the line of his descendants, John
Drury married Ann Elizabeth Mitchell
Richard’s 2nd Great Grandparents.
Elizabeth’s roots have yet to be proven but seem to lead back to Experience Mitchell who did come on the
Mayflower, his wife Jane Cooke came
not long after that but her father Francis
Cooke and one of her brothers did come on the Mayflower too. So my husband
may have more than one Mayflower ancestor.
Back to John Drury
and Ann Elizabeth Mitchell - their son Miles
Huff Drury came from Wilton, Franklin Maine, where he was born, to Montreal Quebec Canada somewhere around
1870 - Montreal is where this Canadian Drury line began and is now five
generations later and growing.
http://www.cooganresearchgroup.com/familytree/coogan/migrations/griffintown/griftown.htm
Miles was a shoemaker and lived in what is known as
Griffintown his shop was there also. My
father-in-law told me his family disowned his grandfather for marrying a Catholic. Miles died after falling and hitting his head
on the the stove my father-in-law also
told me - he was a young boy at the time
and his grandfather was living with them, assume because his other sons were
overseas fighting in WW I.
Griffintown is where many of the Irish settled too and that
brings in another interesting piece of Richard’s history.
The woman Miles married, Catherine Callen, was the
daughter of Irish immigrant’s, Michael Callen and Isabella
Kennedy. They arrived in Montreal in 1849 towards the end of the Great Potato Famine and it said they were from
the Letterkenny area of Ireland, both families
came over on the same ship, the
Londonderry, which I found in a book at
our local historical society.
- both families were on the list to be shipped to Canada although it took
some detective work to figure out the Callen family. It gave me a better
insight into them though. Michael Callen
was 18 and a tailor so had a trade when he arrived. Isabella was only 14 it
said.
Meanwhile in Nouveau France, then Lower Canada and now
Quebec, in the early 1600’s a quarter of my parental lines began and before my 8th Great Grandfather, Christophe Gerbeault dit Bellegarde, a
soldier arrived around 1661 (date seems
to be confused).
He married Marie
Marguerite Lemaitre daughter of Francois Lemaitre and Judith Rigaud, my 8th Great Grandparents.
Francois Lemaitre arrived in Nouveau
France in 1651, he too was a soldier. Judith Rigaud is a very interesting
ancestor, will share more about her later.
Going down through the years the Gerbeault dit Bellegarde line had some name changes and by the time
my maternal grandmother was born it was Jarvo
and they were living in Ontario, which was Upper Canada when my 3rd
Great Grandfather Pierre Gerbeau
settled in the eastern part of Upper Canada However, the name became, is found
as Jarveau, Jervo and Jarvo for some of the spellings found and different
branches of the tree can be found as any one or all of them, a challenge to
research for sure.
Pierre married Marguerite Riviere, possibly there is
native blood in her history and their second son Alexandre married Margaret
McMillan another very interesting woman in my roots and where my Scottish
roots were found. It is also in a round
about way the name Jarvo surfaced.
Their daughter Christine Jarvo married
Frederick Ross they were the parents
of my maternal grandmother Viola Ida Ross. My Nanny as we called her,
brought a lot of history to our tree yet she was not proud of it and most was
buried for years until a descendant dug
it up.
Back to Judith Rigaud
my 9th Great Grandmother. Her
given name stood out like a sore thumb in a sea of French names and soon found,
so did she :D
Many have heard of the King’s Daughters, (Le Filler de Roy),
King Loiuse XIV of France sent to Nouveau
France between 1666-73 to marry soldiers.
Yet few have heard of the filles à marier
(marriageable woman) who
arrive before that - Judith was a filles à marier.
She arrived around 1651 married Francois Lemaitre and two other men. Life was very difficult back
then and they had many children so when
a spouse died or was killed another spouse was often found quickly not only for
support but also for a man, a mother for
his young children.
Francois and his brother were not only soldiers but fur
traders or rather voyagers it seems Judith got involved too and when François
was killed she continued the business and possibly that is how Christophe
Gerbeault dit Bellegarde who was also involved in the business , came
to marry the daughter of François and
Judith , Marie Marguerite Lemaitre.
There is an interesting book on-line the ‘Duhaime Family History’ that has much
more detail http://www.duhaime.org/DuhaimeFamilyHistory/Chapter3Iroquois.aspx
There is also a Pelican Girl in our roots via my maternal
grandmother. Also known as Casquette
Girls.
A casquette girl, originally known as a fille à la cassette
(girl with a cassette) but also known historically as a casket girl or a
pelican girl, was one of the women brought from France to the French colonies
of Louisiana to marry. The name derives from the small chests, known as
casquettes, in which they carried their clothes.
Marie Gabrielle Savery married my 9th Great-Uncle Jean Baptiste Saucier. They lived in
Mobile and if there were any children have yet to find records. The parents of Jean Baptist were Claude Saucier and Charlotte Clairet they are my 9th grandparents.
The Sauicer name came into the family via 5th
Great grandparents Basile Gerbault Bellegarde and Marie
Genevieve Saucier - Marie’s great grandparents were Claude
Saucier and Charlotte Clairet (mentioned
above)
Once again to understand the history of Nouveau Quebec and
ancestors one must read about it, which I suggest for anyone that have British,
French, Irish, Native roots or any others that developed early Canada.
A perfect example of this, is the next family, one of the first 35 families to come to
Nouveau France, stay and settle - Marin Bouchard and Périnne
Mallet my 10th
great-grandparents.
“The Bouchers were stonemasons and carpenters, skills which
were valuable in the early colony. Because of some work done for Samuel de
Champlain, the Founder of the colony, Marin Boucher was deeded Champlain's
clothes in his will when he died. He was also a witness in a dispute over
stolen property in which his relation Gaspard Boucher was the plaintiff.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marin_Boucher
There is a plaque in Montmorency Park in Quebec City on the
Louis
Hébert monument with the names of the 35 families, (didn’t see it when we
were there for of fiftieth but then again I didn’t know about these roots then).
The Bouchard names came into my roots in a round about way
with other names such a Houle and Riviere along the route and surfaces as the
mother-in law
to a woman mentioned much earlier, Margaret McMillan my
mother’s great grandmother - she by herself I found fascinating
but the McMillans in general and the area they settled in, is a whole book on it’s own.
Will share her with
you though.
By the photo I have
she looks like a very petite woman yet had ten children - a couple of them died
when they were young. She lived a hard
life as the fourth eldest of 20 children that I have found. Her father married at least three times,
possibly four. She is the daughter of the second wife. The census for the area they lived in are
very confusing as they all had large families, with the same given and surnames
, sometimes Gaelic was used or nicknames. What I did learn from the census
though was her father seemed to have some money by their house and livestock.
Peggy as the family called her, spoke Gaelic, French and English, although both
she and her father were born in Canada her nationality is down as
Scottish. Before she married it seems
she was the head of six living in the family
home, her father had passed away. She and Alexandre were married for 62 years
when he died - Peggy passed away 2 years later at the age of 85., a couple of
days after my parents were married.
Alexandre Jalbeau, (yet another version of the surname), and Margaret (Peggy) McMillan my Great-great Grandparent’s 60 anniversary.
Do not know who the children are.
Seven of their surviving children, my Great grandmother Ross
is on left in front.
Some of the names that I found intriguing and know very
little about are Mary Jane Payment my husband’s 4th cousin 3 X
removed and her husband Moses Jasmin. It stood out for me
because of where she was born in Charlotteburg County Stormont in Upper Canada around the same time
as Alexander McMillan father of Peggy
McMillan, was born in the same area, thus my husband and my ancestors possibly knew
each other – that is the closest I’ve come to our roots mingling.
http://www.glengarrycounty.com/mapct.html
A sad part of my roots, my Aunt Elsie Ivy Abbott, my mother’s sister died when she was
4 and a half. Apparently she was kicked in the tummy and died of peritonitis (inflammation
of the peritoneum, typically caused by bacterial infection either via the blood
or after rupture of an abdominal organ). She rests with her Abbott grandparents
in Ontario. My mother was 9 at the time, old enough to understand.
Then there were the Bridge brothers, James and Joseph,
my 5th great uncles from my father’s roots. They were accused of
passing a counterfeit 2 pound note – James was hung and Joseph shipped off the
Australia for a hard life of labour. He raised a family then was sent to prison
again, for crime he was acquitted of only days before his death, but too late
to bring him back from the poor state of health he was in.
Before I finish this blog, cannot forget the young men in
our roots that went off to WW I. There are other wars heroes too but they will
have to wait for now. In Richard’s tree
two of his grand uncles, brothers, William James and Miles Henry Drury signed on and came home.
There has been little found about them afterward. My Grand Uncle John
Gould Harrison, brother of my paternal grandfather is the only one I
know of in my father’s roots - have a photo of him in uniform. He came back worked in the family nursery and
inherited it with one his older brother. There are also my maternal grandfather’s two
brothers his eldest brother Walter Austin, he came home but I
have not been able to trace him after the 50’s. Granddad’s youngest brother Laurence
Edgar Abbott or Lorry as his
family called him, was killed August 15 1917 at Hill 70 near Lens France, he
was only 20. His name is on the Vimy Memorial with many others, that have no
grave site – Lorry’s body was never found in the quagmire of the battleground
his temporary grave was. Vimy Ridge happened
shortly before the battle for Hill 70. There
is a page dedicated to him thanks to the 21sters (descendants, friends and
family of the 21st Battalion, Kingston, Ontario)
http://21stbattalion.ca/tributeac/abbott_le.html
and at this page other places he can be found. Honour
Them http://honourthem.ca/masterDetail.cfm?ID=55206.
That is what I plan to do on the anniversary of his death in 2017. Also have
his photo hanging in our front hall with information about him so others can
get to know him. 
Greats uncles Laurence Edgar Abbott and John Gould Harrison
– Can definitely see ‘Harrison- in John.
“Each time we plant a seed we become ancestors for the generations to
come.”
Kenny Ausubel
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