52 Ancestors: #6 Pierre Belair – Spellings and Misspellings of His Name

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 6th week of this challenge, I chose my paternal great-grandfather Pierre Belair (1851-1941).

Pierre Janvry dit Belair (1851-1941)

Pierre was the fourth child and third son of Paul Janvry dit Belair and his wife Angélique Lalonde. Born on 1 December 1851 in Ste-Cécile-de-Masham, Gatineau County, Quebec, Pierre had five brothers and three sisters. He died on 6 May 1941 in Masham.

When I first started looking for him in documents and records, it was challenging to find him. Indexes, in particular, were tricky. Being new and inexperienced at genealogy research, I tended to search for him using only one spelling of his name – Janvry. (I figured since I was told it was spelled that way, that’s what I would look for.) It took me awhile to figure out I had to be creative in order to locate my great-grandfather.

As I gradually found him, I saw that other people (clerks, priests, and index compilers, for example) were also creative in how they spelled Pierre’s name.

Here’s a selection of the names under which my great-grandfather appears in various databases at Ancestry.ca.

Date: 1851 (The official enumeration date was 11 January 1852.)
Event: census
Name:
- Piter Gnory (census index)
- Peter Gnvry (image)

Date: 24 January 1852
Event: his baptism
Name:
- Peter Gemores (baptism index)
- Peter Geanvrier (image)

Date: 1861 (The official enumeration date was 14 January 1861.)
Event: census
Name:
- Pierre Janovis (census index)
- Pierre Janvris (image)

Date: 1871 (The official enumeration date was 2 April 1871.)
Event: census
Name:
- Pierre Bellaire (census index & image)

Date: 9 September 1879
Event: his 1st marriage
Name:
- Pierre Janvier Beland (marriage index)
- Pierre Janvrise dit Belaire (image)

Date: 1881 (The official enumeration date was 4 April 1881.)
Event: census
Name:
- Jérèmie Piere (census index)
- Jienvril Pière (image)

Date: 1891 (The official enumeration date was 5 April 1891.)
Event: census
Name:
- Pierre Jeansey (census index)
- Pierre Jeanvry (image)

Date: 19 July 1897
Event: his 2nd marriage
Name:
- Pierre Belair (marriage index)
- Pierre Bélair (image)

Date: 1901 (The official enumeration date was 31 March 1901.)
Event: census
Name:
- Pierre Janvrie (census index & image)

Date: 1911 (The official enumeration date was 1 June 1901.)
Event: census
Name:
- Pierre Ganner (census index)
- Pierre Janvrie (image)

Date: 1921 (The official enumeration date was 1 June 1921.)
Event: census
Name:
- Pierre Bélair (census index & image)

Date: 19 January 1926
Event: his 3rd marriage
Name:
- Pierre Belair (marriage index)
- Pierre Bélair (image)

Date: 1935
Event: voters’ list
Name:
- Pierre Belair (voters’ list index & image)

Date: 1940
Event: voters’ list
Name:
- Pierre Bélair (image) (Note: The index is quirky and doesn’t always return individuals’ names in the search results.)

Date: 8 May 1941
Event: his burial
Name:
- Pierre Belair (burial index)
- Pierre Bélair (image)

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.