52 Ancestors: #3 Eugène Desgroseilliers and His Baptism Record

Amy Johnson Crow at No Story Too Small has issued herself and her readers a challenge for 2014. It’s called “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks”, and as Amy explains, the challenge is to “have one blog post each week devoted to a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, an outline of a research problem — anything that focuses on one ancestor”.

For the 3rd week of this challenge, I’m focusing on my maternal grandfather Eugène Desgroseilliers and his baptism record. [1]

Background info:

Eugène was the eldest child of Albert and Clémentine (Léveillé) Desgroseilliers. He was born on 30 August 1900 in the rural community of St-Charles, Sudbury District, Ontario. My grandfather’s baptism record states that his parents were domiciled at that time in Jennings, which I believe is a little to the southwest of St-Charles. Although a chapel was established in St-Charles, it burned in May 1900. [2] A new chapel wasn’t built until 1903, so baptisms, marriages and burials took place locally, but were recorded by priests from nearby churches, which in my grandfather’s case happened to be the parish of St-Jean-Baptiste in Verner. [3]

Eugène’s baptism record, shown in two parts:

Left side of sacramental register

Right side of sacramental register

The text reads in French and Latin:

94 / Emmanuel Eugène / Desgroseilliers / 30 / Augusti / Albert Desgroseilliers et Clémentine Leveillé / Jennings / 11a Septembris / Chs Langlois ptre / Ovide Desgroseilliers et Amanda Leveillé

The English translation of the text with comments in square brackets:

[entry no.] 94 / [baptism name] Emmanuel / [surname] Desgroseilliers / [date of birth] 30 / [month of birth] August / [parents’ names] Albert Desgroseilliers [and] Clémentine Leveillé / [parents’ place of residence] Jennings / [date of baptism] 11 / [month of baptism] September / [officiating priest] Chs Langlois [priest] / [godparents] Ovide Desgroseilliers [and] Amanda Leveillé

Sources:

1. St-Jean-Baptiste (Verner, Ontario), parish register, 1895-1910, p. 29, entry no. 94 (1900), Emmanuel Eugene Desgroseilliers baptism, 11 September 1900; St-Jean-Baptiste parish; digital image, “Ontario, Roman Catholic Church Records, 1760-1923”, FamilySearch.org (https://familysearch.org/ : accessed 6 January 2014). This database is search-only; to reach Eugène’s baptism record, follow this path from the homepage at FamilySearch.org: Search > Canada > Historical Record Collections > Ontario, Roman Catholic Church Records, 1760-1923 > Nipissing > Verner > St John the Baptist > Baptisms 1895-1910 > Image 45 of 108.

2. Lionel Séguin, Historique de la paroisse Saint-Charles (Saint-Charles, Ont., 1945: 42); digital images, Our Roots (http://www.ourroots.ca/ : accessed 18 June 2013).

3. Séguin, Historique de la paroisse Saint-Charles, 43.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.