Tuesday’s Tip: When did Olive Huot die?

On a late summer’s day in 1835, my maternal great-great-great-grandparents Charles Beauvais and Olive Huot married in Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, located a little to the north of Montreal. [1] They had three children: Charles, Pierre (my great-great-grandfather) and Céline, born in 1836, 1838 and 1840, respectively. [2]

The family suffered its first loss when mother Olive died. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I know it was between 1840 and 1846.

When I first began looking for Olive’s death a few years ago, two events helped set the 1840 to 1846 time frame:

1. The baptism of Céline (Charles’ daughter by his first wife) on 26 July 1840. [3]
2. The baptism of Philomène (Charles’ daughter by his second wife) on 28 January 1846. [4]

Since Olive appears to have died in the early 1840s, I wondered if her burial record might be found in St-Jérôme where Céline was baptized. Unfortunately, the record does not appear in that parish’s sacramental registers.

I then turned to the records of Montebello’s church in the seigneurie of Petite-Nation, in present-day Papineau County in southwestern Quebec. I thought perhaps I might find Olive’s burial record in the community where Charles’ daughter by his second wife was baptized in 1846. I did not find it.

That’s where things stood until earlier this month, when I decided to look again at the 1842 census of Canada East. I didn’t think it would be of much use, though, because it’s partially nominal since only heads of households are enumerated by name.

I located Charles on the 1842 census living in the Petite-Nation seigneurie. As Charles Beauvais, farmer, he appears on line 20 of stamped page 1265. [5] His household consisted of the following individuals:

• 1 Male “30 and not 60”
• 1 Male “above five and under fourteen years of age”
• 1 Male “five years of age and under”
• 1 Female “five years of age and under 5”.

However, one person was absent from the household – an adult woman. I double-checked the columns for females “14 and not 45” and “45 and upwards” to see if I had missed an adult woman, but I hadn’t. Olive’s absence from her husband’s household suggested that she was deceased.

Thanks to a fresh look at the 1842 census I was able to establish a more specific range for my 3x great-grandmother’s death.

I now know that Olive died between 26 July 1840 (when her daughter Céline was baptized) and 1 February 1842 (the official date for that year’s census). [6]

So, my tip to my readers is don’t ignore documents that have seemingly limited information. Use them not only for what’s in them, but also for what’s missing from them.

Sources:

1. Ste-Anne (Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec), parish register, 1835, p. 28 recto, entry no. M.20, Charles Bouvet [sic] – Olive Huot marriage, 7 September 1835; Ste-Anne-des-Plaines parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 25 April 2008).

2. Ste-Anne (Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec), parish register, 1836, p. 17 recto, entry no. B.117, Charles Bouvet [sic] baptism, 1 July 1836; Ste-Anne parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 29 March 2008). Also, Ste-Anne (Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec), parish register, 1838, p. 4 recto, no entry no., Pierre Bouvet [sic] baptism, 24 February 1838; Ste-Anne parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 29 March 2008). Also, St-Jérôme (St-Jérôme, Quebec), parish register, 1840, p. 34 verso, entry no. B.137, Céline Bouvais [sic] baptism, 26 July 1840; St-Jérôme parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 28 February 2008).

3. St-Jérôme (St-Jérôme, Quebec), parish register, 1840, p. 34 verso, entry no. B.137, Céline Bouvais [sic] baptism, 26 July 1840. Although Céline’s mother was not present at her daughter’s baptism (only her godparents were, according to the then custom), if Olive had been deceased, it would have been noted in the baptism record.

4. Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours (Montebello, Quebec), parish register, 1815-1900, p. 104 recto, entry no. B.16 (1846), Philomène Beauvais baptism, 31 January 1846; Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 31 March 2010).

5. "Canada, recensement du Bas-Canada, 1842", index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1-11344-9231-72?cc=1834340 : accessed 4 September 2014), entry for Charles Beauvais, Ottawa > Petite-Nation (seigneurie) > image 29 of 40; citing Public Archives, Ottawa, Ontario.1842 census.

6. Dave Obee, Counting Canada: A Genealogical Guide to the Canadian Census (Victoria, BC: Dave Obee, 2012), 65. According to Obee, the 1842 census “was to be completed by February 1, 1842.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.