François Desgroseilliers’ 1783 Baptism Record

Today – 15 July – is the 232nd anniversary of the birth of my 4x maternal great-grandfather, François Desgroseilliers.

Louis François Desgroseilliers's baptism record (Ancestry.ca)

He was born on 15 July 1783 and received the names "Louis François" at his baptism that day in Montreal’s Notre-Dame church. [1] The officiating priest, Ch. Ecuier, noted that the infant was born vers midi [about noon] and that his godparents Pierre Migneron and Marie Celeste Caillé, who were present, declared they could not write their names.

François, as he was known as an adult, was the eighth of thirteen children of Joseph Prosper and Charlotte (Lunegand) Desgroseilliers, who married in 1772 in Châteauguay, now a suburb of Montreal.

When I first researched my mother’s ancestors, I found François’ date of birth of 6 March 1782. I didn't make a note of where I got it, but believed it was the correct date. (It never occurred to me to think it might be incorrect.) Years later, I came across a family tree (either on a personal website or in a public tree at Ancestry) that said François was born on 15 July 1783.

I decided to check Joseph Prosper and Charlotte’s family file in an online database. I was surprised to find two sons similarly named: François and Louis François. [2] The François born in 1782 died when he was six months old in August 1782. [3] He was therefore not my ancestor.

I made a beginner genealogist’s mistake: I assumed that the François I had originally found was the only one by this name in his family. I didn’t take the time to compare the information against other documentation, such as his baptism record. I also didn’t look for a death or burial record in case he had died young.

Sources:

1. Notre-Dame (Montreal, Quebec), parish register, 1781-1785, p. 185 recto, no entry no. (1783), Louis François Desgroselliers [sic] baptism 17 July 1783; Notre-Dame parish; digital image, “Quebec, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 11 January 2012).

2. “Dictionnaire”, database, Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) (http://www.genealogie.umontreal.ca : accessed 211 January 2012), Joseph Prosper Bouchard Dorval Desgroseilliers – Marie Charlotte Lunegent Beaurosier, Famille no. 48279).

3. Notre-Dame (Montreal, Quebec), parish register, 1781-1785, p. 86 verso, no entry no. (1782), Francois Dégroselier [sic] burial 31 August 1782; Notre-Dame parish; digital image, “Quebec, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 11 January 2012). The priest recorded that François was interred in the cimétière des pauvres [in the paupers’ cemetery] in the presence of his parents.

Copyright © 2015, Yvonne Demoskoff.