Wedding Wednesday: Hotte – Lacasse

Today marks the 155th wedding anniversary of my maternal great-great-grandparents Louis Hotte and Marguerite Lacasse.

Louis was born on 17 April 1844 in Grenville, a village in Argenteuil seigneurie (later Argenteuil County) on the banks of the Outaouais (Ottawa) River, in present-day Quebec. He was the second child and younger son of Jean-Baptiste and Archange (Sigouin) Hotte.

Marguerite was one of ten children of Pierre and Thérèse (Doyer) Lacasse. She was born on 23 April 1839 in Montebello, a village in the Petite-Nation seigneurie, now in Papineau County, Quebec.

Louis and Marguerite, who were fifth cousins, married on 27 March 1864 in nearby St-André-Avellin, a village in Papineau County, Quebec. [1]

Hotte - Lacasse marriage record (Ancestry)

My transcription of Louis and Marguerite’s marriage record (original lineation indicated by / ):

Le vingt sept mars mil huit cent soixante / quatre, nous curé soussigné après la publica- / tion de trois bans de mariage faite au prône / de nos messes paroissiales entre Louis Hotte cult. domi / cilié à Harwell fils majeur de J. Bte Hotte cult. / et de Archange Sigouin, d’une part; et Marguerite / Lacasse domiciliée au même lieu, fille majeure de / Pierre Lacasse cult. et de Thérèse Doyer d’autre part / ne s’étant découvert aucun empechement à leur / mariage nous avons reçu le mutuel consentement / de mariage des époux et leur avons donné la bénédi- / tion nuptial en présence de Emery Villeneuve et / de Amédé Goyer qui, ainsi que les époux ont déclaré / ne savoir signer. / [signed] C. Guillaume

My English translation (original lineation indicated by / ):

The twenty seven March one thousand eight hundred sixty / four, we undersigned parish priest after the publica- / tion of three banns of marriage done at the sermons / of our parish masses between Louis Hotte [farmer] domi / ciled in Hartwell son of age of J. Bte Hotte [farmer] / and of Archange Sigouin, on the one part; and Marguerite / Lacasse domiciled at the same place, daughter of age of / Pierre Lacasse [farmer] and of Thérèse Doyer on the other part / not having discovered any impediment to their / marriage we have received the mutual consent / of marriage of the spouses and have given them the nuptial benedi- / cation in the presence of Emery Villeneuve and / of Amédé Goyer who, along with the spouses have declared / not knowing how to write [their names]. / [signed] C. Guillaume

Louis and Marguerite resided in Hartwell (now Chénéville), located a little to the north of St-André-Avellin. Hartwell did not have a resident priest at this time, but I don’t know if Father Guillaume travelled to Hartwell to perform the service or if Louis and Marguerite went to his church that March day in 1864.

Source:

1. St-André-Avellin (St-André-Avellin, Quebec), parish register, 1864, p. 95 stamped, entry no. M.6, Louis Hotte – Marguerite Lacasse (written as Louis Hotte – Marguerite Lacasse, indexed as Louis Hotte - Mgtr Lacasse) marriage, 27 March 1864; St-André-Avellin parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 27 March 2008).

Copyright © 2019, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Sibling Saturday: Juliette and Agathe Beauvais

Juliette and Agathe were my maternal grandmother and great-aunt, respectively. Their parents Joseph and Olivine (Hotte) Beauvais married in August 1897 in Hartwell (now Chénéville), Papineau County, Quebec.

Juliette, born on 30 June 1901 in Chénéville, was the third child and eldest daughter. Agathe, who was born on 3 March 1918 in nearby Montpellier, was the thirteenth child and second youngest daughter. They had twelve brothers and two sisters. Twenty-three years separated the oldest child Ovide from the youngest, fraternal twins Jean-Marie and Jean-Paul.

The Beauvais children were raised mostly in Montpellier, a village in the Laurentian Hills in Papineau County, in southwestern Quebec. Their father Joseph was a farmer and woodcutter. About 1922, the family moved to the quaintly named village of Moonbeam, in northern Ontario. Four years later, mother Olivine died in June 1926 of ‘cardiac asthenia’ (Da Costa’s syndrome).

A few months before her mother’s death, Juliette married Eugène Desgroseilliers on 18 August 1925 in Moonbeam. They were blessed with nine children: Noël (who died at birth), Mariette, Madeleine, Simone, Marianne (who died young), Jacqueline (my Mom), Gaston (he died when he was six years old), Normande, and Jeanne d’arc. After living in northern Ontario and northwestern Quebec for a few years, Eugène and Juliette settled in Blue Water, near Sarnia, Ontario in 1942.

Juliette (left) and Agathe (right) pose on a staircase in the above photo. The handwriting on the back of the picture says “à Hearst vers 1930” [in Hearst about 1930]. I doubt that the year is correct, because Agathe would have been only 12 years old. If the location is correct, though, the photo dates more likely to the mid-1930s, because Juliette, her husband and their children lived in Hearst, west of Moonbeam, until about 1936, when they moved to Rouyn, Quebec.

On 25 March 1940, Agathe married Lucien Larouche in Val d’Or, Abitibi District, Quebec. Their marriage registration gives their occupation as bonne (maid) for Agathe and mineur (miner) for Lucien. The couple had eight children: Renée, Gaston, Blandine, Gérard, Laurier, a son (who died soon after birth), Elisabeth, and Christian.

In 1948, Juliette became ill. She had advanced cancer of the pancreas. Within a few months of the diagnosis, she died in hospital in Sarnia on 14 August 1948, four days before her 23rd wedding anniversary.

Agathe survived her sister by eight years. She died suddenly from a blood clot after giving birth to a son on 30 December 1956. My Mom and Dad were visiting her sister Madeleine in Kirkland Lake at the time. Mom recalls that she was sleeping in an upstairs bedroom at Aunt Madeleine’s house when Dad woke her to break the news. Mom cried because Agathe, her godmother, was her favorite aunt.

Copyright © 2016, Yvonne Demoskoff.

52 Ancestors: #39 Marguerite Lacasse

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 39th week of this challenge, I chose Marguerite Lacasse (1839-1907).

Marguerite is my maternal great-great-grandmother and is number 31 in my ancestor list.

With this article, I’ve now written a blog post about all my ancestors from my parents through my great-great-grandparents for the "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge. For the remaining weeks, I’ll write about other ancestors that I'll choose at random.

Born on a spring day, Marguerite was baptized when she was five days old on 28 April 1839 in Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours church in Montebello, located in the Petite-Nation seigneurie on the banks of the Outaouais (Ottawa) River. [1] Her parents Pierre and Thérèse (Doyer) Lacasse already had four children and would have five more after Marguerite.

Location of Petite-Nation seigneurie (in purple in top left corner) [2]

The Lacasse family appeared on the 1842 census of Canada East (now the province of Quebec) enumerated in Petite-Nation, the seigneurie owned by Louis-Joseph Papineau. [3]

Louis-Joseph Papineau*

* Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1986-36-1, MIKAN no. 2834250.

The 1842 census is partly nominal and records only the names of heads of households, which means that Marguerite (who was not yet three years old) was recorded as one of three unnamed females five years of age and under in her father’s household. The family lived on a 120 acre property.

At the age of twenty-five, Marguerite married Louis Hotte, a farmer, on 27 March 1864 in St-André-Avellin. [4] Not only were they distantly related (fifth cousins), but Marguerite was five years older than Louis. [5]

Over the course of the next twenty years, Marguerite gave birth to eleven children – six sons and five daughters. Eight survived childhood and married, but three sons, Napoléon, Joseph Adélard and Gédéon, died young.

By 1877, Marguerite and Louis had relocated to Chénéville, where my great-grandmother Olivine was born that January. This small rural community, a little to the north of St-André-Avellin, would now be the family’s home, where all the (surviving) Hotte children married.

Marguerite was twenty days short of her sixty-eighth birthday when she passed away on 3 April 1907 in Chénéville. [6] She was buried there two days later in the parish cemetery in the presence of “un grand nombre de parents et [d’amis]” [a large number of family and of friends], including her younger son Adrien. [7]

Sources:

1. Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours (Montebello, Quebec), parish register, 1815-1900, p. 145 verso, entry no. B.31 (1839), Marguerite Lacoste [sic] baptism, 28 April 1839; Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 1 May 2008). Montebello is now in Papineau County, Quebec.

2.“Manoir-Papineau National Historic Site of Canada”, Parks Canada (http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/lhn-nhs/qc/manoirpapineau/index.aspx : accessed 13 September 2014), “A Bit of History: The Seigneury of La Petite-Nation”.

3. 1842 census of Canada East, Ottawa District, Petite-Nation (seigniory), p. 1262 (stamped), line 29, Pierre Lacoste [sic] household; Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-729. Louis-Joseph Papineau (1786-1871) acquired Petite-Nation from his father in 1817.

4.St-André-Avellin (St-André-Avellin, Quebec), parish register, 1864, p. 49 recto, entry no. M.6, Louis Hotte – Marguerite Lacasse marriage, 27 March 1864; St-André-Avellin parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 27 March 2008).

5. Marguerite and Louis are fifth cousins through their common ancestors Guillaume Labelle (ca 1649-1710) by his wife Anne Charbonneau (1657-1729).

6. St-Félix-de-Valois (Chénéville, Quebec), parish register, 1905-1913, p. 183 verso, entry no. S.6, Marguerite Lacasse burial, 5 April 1907; St-Félix-de-Valois parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 18 February 2008).

7. St-Félix-de-Valois, parish register, 1905-1913, p. 183 verso, Marguerite Lacasse burial, 5 April 1907. Although Marguerite’s husband Louis survived her, his name is not mentioned as one of the witnesses who were present at her burial.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

52 Ancestors: #37 Louis Hotte, landowner

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 37th week of this challenge, I chose Louis Hotte (1844-1923).

Louis is my maternal great-great-grandfather and is number 30 in my ancestor list. (I’m skipping ancestor no. 29 and saving her for next week.)

Born on 17 April 1844 in Grenville, Argenteuil County, Quebec, Louis was the second child of Jean-Baptiste and Archange (Sigouin) Hotte. [1] He had an older brother and six younger brothers and sisters.

Louis was the first of his parents’ children to marry when he wed Marguerite Lacasse on 27 March 1864 in St-André-Avellin, Papineau County. [2] He and Marguerite had eleven children – six sons and five daughters, including Olivine, my great-grandmother – born in Ripon and Chénéville in Papineau County.

While searching for records about Louis at Ancestry.ca, I found one in the “Canadian Genealogy Index, 1600s-1900s”. [3] His entry shows that he received some land in Chénéville (then called Hartwell) in 1885. I haven’t looked into this grant, but when I do, I might have to look elsewhere than what the source says, because first, the “Archives of Ontario” are in Toronto (Library and Archives Canada are in Ottawa), and second, I’m not sure why the province of Ontario has records from the province of Quebec. I’ll hopefully untangle this mystery one day. Here’s a screenshot of Louis’ entry in this database:

Louis died on 20 December 1923 in Chénéville. [4] He was predeceased by his wife Marguerite in 1907 and some of their children.

Sources:

1. Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs (Grenville, Quebec), parish register, 1839-1854, p. 7 verso, entry no. B26 (1844), Louis Hottes [sic] baptism (written as Hottes, but indexed as Hottin), 28 April 1844; Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 27 March 2008).

2. St-André-Avellin (St-André-Avellin, Quebec), parish register, 1864, p. 49 recto, entry no. M6, Louis Hotte – Marguerite Lacasse marriage, 27 March 1864; St-André-Avellin parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 27 March 2008).

3. “Canadian Genealogy Index, 1600s-1900s”, database, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 11 September 2014), entry for Louis Hotte. This screenshot has changed from when I first viewed it on 11 July 2009. At that time, the fields “Place, “County” and “Province” were in a different order, and there was a “Comments” field (now not present) before “Source”.

4. St-Felix-de-Valois (Chénéville, Quebec), parish register, 1914-1933, p. 171 verso, entry no. S32 (1923), Louis Hotte burial, 22 December 1923; St-Felix-de-Valois parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 26 March 2008).

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

52 Ancestors: #36 Pierre Beauvais

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 36th week of this challenge, I chose Pierre Beauvais (1838-1895/1897).

Pierre is my maternal great-great-grandfather and is number 28 in my ancestor list.

Younger son of Charles Beauvais by his first wife Olive Huot, Pierre was born in the morning of 24 February 1838 in Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, Terrebonne County, Quebec, and baptized that day. [1] He had an older brother Charles and a younger sister Céline (Délima).

Pierre lost his mother when he was very young. Olive’s date and place of death are a mystery to me, but it was before the 1842 census of Canada East (present-day province of Quebec), because she does not appear in her husband’s household that year. [2] After his father remarried in about 1843 or 1844, Pierre had a further eleven siblings, seven half-brothers and four half-sisters.

The Beauvais family seems to have moved rather frequently, usually to parts that were just opening up to colonization, such as the Petite-Nation seigneurie in southwestern Quebec.

Pierre still lived at home when he was enumerated on the 1871 census, when he was a cultivateur (farmer) like his father. [3]

When he was thirty-six years old, Pierre married Arline Deschatelets on 13 July 1874 in St-Casimir church in Ripon, Papineau County, Quebec. [4] Pierre and Arline were second cousins (they shared the same Beauvais – Gibouleau great-grandparents), but their marriage record doesn’t mention a dispensation to marry.

Pierre and Arline had seven children, born in Ripon or nearby Chénéville between 1875 and 1889. The eldest son Joseph was my great-grandfather. Daughter Orméline and son Ferdinand died young, in 1885 and 1882, respectively.

Like with his mother’s death, I haven’t found the exact date or location of Pierre’s death. I know that he died after 19 August 1895, because he was present at his daughter Odile (Auxile)’s wedding, but before 16 August 1897, because he’s described as “feu [the late] Pierre Beauvais” in his son Joseph’s marriage record. [5]

Sources:

1. 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).

2. "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.

3. 1871 census of Canada, Hartwell, Ottawa East, Quebec, population schedule, subdistrict h, p. 11 (penned), dwelling 42, family 42, Charles Bouvais [sic] household (written as Bouvais, indexed as Boudrais); digital image, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 16 July 2009).

4. St-Casimir (Ripon, Quebec), parish register, 1866-1898, p. [219?] verso, entry no. M.7 (1874), Pierre Bauvais [sic] – Oralie Deschatelais [sic] marriage, 13 July 1874; St-Casimir parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 29 March 2008).

5. St-Felix-de-Valois (Chénéville, Quebec), parish register, 1887-1899, p. 195 recto, entry no. M.11 (1895), Théodule Pilon – Auxile Beauvais marriage, 19 August 1895; St-Felix-de-Valois parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 4 September 2014). Also, St-Felix-de-Valois (Chénéville, Quebec), parish register, 1887-1899, p. 240 recto, entry no. M.11 (1897), Joseph Beauvais – Olivine Hott [sic] marriage, 16 August 1897; St-Felix-de-Valois parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 13 August 2013).

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Matrilineal Monday: Remembering Juliette

Juliette (Beauvais) Desgroseilliers, 1930s

Today – June 30th – is the 113th anniversary of my maternal grandmother Juliette’s birth.

Juliette, baptised “Julie Marie”, was born on 30 June 1901 in the village of Chénéville, Papineau County, Quebec. She was the third child and eldest daughter of Joseph Beauvais and his wife Olivine Hotte.

My aunt Madeleine (Mom’s sister) gave me this photo, which I saw for the first time when I visited her during my recent trip to Ontario.

The first thing I notice about this picture is how casual my grandmother Juliette is. I’m also struck by her youth and beauty. I see a strong resemblance between her and her youngest daughter Jeanne d’arc.

Juliette appears confident as she looks straight at the camera. She is young, probably in her 30s. She is dressed stylishly and wears white pumps. There’s a large floral decoration at her right shoulder. I think I see a barrette (hair clip) in her hair, as well as a necklace, and a ring (her wedding ring?) on her left hand.

If I’m right about her age, the photo was probably taken in Hearst, Ontario, between 1927 and 1936, but more likely 1931 to 1935. The house number “205” is seen above the door. Is this her home, where she lived with her husband Eugène and their children?

I wonder why this picture was taken – could it be her birthday?

So many questions, so few answers.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

52 Ancestors: #12 Olivine Hotte – Timeline of Her Life

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 12th week of this challenge (already 3 months!), I chose my maternal great-grandmother Olivine Hotte (1877-1926).

Olivine seems to have had a fairly typical French-Canadian, Roman Catholic life for one who was born in the 19th century. She lived at home until she married, had a large brood of children, followed her husband when he moved briefly to the U.S.A. and then back to Canada. (I wrote about this move in her husband’s story last week, which can be read here.) Olivine gave birth to her last children (twin boys) in 1921 and died, sadly, when they were only five years old, in 1926.

Timeline of Olivine Hotte

Childhood Years

10 Jan 1877 – Olivine Hotte is born in Hartwell (now Chénéville), Papineau County, Quebec. She is the eighth of eleven children of Louis Hotte and his wife Marguerite Lacasse.

15 Jan 1877 – Olivine is baptised in St-Félix-de-Valois R.C. church in Chénéville.

4 Apr 1881 – Olivine, her parents and her siblings appear on the 1881 census, residing in Chénéville.

23 Jun 1891 – Olivine, her parents and her siblings appear on the 1891 census, residing in Chénéville.

Married Years

16 Aug 1897 – Olivine marries Joseph Beauvais in Chénéville.

8 Jun 1898 – Olivine’s first child, son Ovide, is born in Chénéville.

Between 8 Jun 1898 and 25 Nov 1899 – Olivine, her husband and their young son move to Tupper Lake, Franklin County, New York, USA.

25 Nov 1899 – Olivine’s second child, son Oscar, is born in Tupper Lake.

1 Jun 1900 – I haven’t located Olivine and her family in Franklin County, New York on the 1900 U.S. census. It’s possible that they have already returned to Canada by this date.

Between 25 Nov 1899 and 31 Mar 1901 – Olivine and her family return to live in Chénéville.

31 Mar 1901 – Olivine, Joseph, and their two young sons appear on the 1901 census, residing in Chénéville.

30 Jun 1901 – Olivine’s third child, daughter Juliette, is born in Chénéville. (Juliette is my grandmother.)

Between 1 Jul 1901 and 30 Jan 1903 – Olivine, Joseph and their family move to Montpellier, near Chénéville.

30 Jan 1903 – Olivine’s, fourth child, daughter Marie-Louise, is born in Montpellier.

16 Aug 1905 – Olivine’s fifth child, son Aldège, is born in Montpellier.

4 Jan 1907 – Olivine’s sixth child, son Léger, is born in Montpellier.

3 Apr 1907 – Olivine’s mother Marguerite dies in Chénéville.

31 Jul 1907 – Olivine and Joseph are godparents to Oscar Pilon, his sister Odile (Beauvais) Pilon’s two-day old son, in Chénéville.

16 Mar 1908 – Olivine’s seventh child, son Romuald, is born in Montpellier.

7 Apr 1910 – Olivine’s eighth child, son Emile, is born in Montpellier.

17 June 1911 – Olivine, Joseph and their family appear on the 1911 census, residing in Chénéville.

17 Sep 1911 – Olivine’s ninth child, son Martial, is born in Montpellier.

26 Jan 1913 – Olivine’s tenth child, son Réal, is born in Montpellier. (Réal would later be my mother’s godfather.)

About Jun 1914 – Olivine’s, eleventh child, son Aurèle, is born in Montpellier. He was baptised between 28 May and 14 July 1914. (The record omits his date of baptism, but states that he was born the previous day.)

22 Aug 1916 – Olivine’s twelfth child, son Joseph, is born, in Montpellier.

3 Mar 1918 – Olivine’s thirteenth child, daughter Agathe, is born in Montpellier.

9 Aug 1919 – Olivine’s fourteenth child, daughter Laurette, is born in Montpellier.

7 Jun 1920 – Olivine’s eldest child Ovide marries Lucienne Duchesne in Sturgeon Falls, Nipissing District, Ontario. He is the first of her children to marry.

1 May 1921 – Olivine’s fifteenth and sixteenth children, fraternal twin sons Jean-Marie and Jean-Paul, are born in Montpellier. They are the last of Olivine’s children.

1 Jun 1921 – Olivine, Joseph and their family appear on the 1921 census, residing in Chénéville.

Later Years and Death

13 Aug 1921 – Olivine becomes a grandmother for the first time when her son Ovide’s wife gives birth to their first child, son Conrad.

5 Oct 1922 – Olivine’s second child, son Oscar, marries Rosa Robillard in Montpellier. Her husband Joseph is present at the ceremony.

Between Oct 1922 and Aug 1925 – Olivine, Joseph and their younger children move to Moonbeam, Cochrane District, Ontario.

20 Dec 1923 – Olivine’s father Louis dies in Chénéville. It’s possible that Olivine, Joseph and their family have already moved to northern Ontario, because Joseph does not appear among the list of men who were present two days later at his father-in-law’s funeral.

18 Aug 1925 – Olivine’s eldest daughter Juliette marries Eugène Desgroseilliers in Moonbeam. After the ceremony, she and Joseph are photographed with the newlyweds and their in-laws.

4 Jun 1926 – Olivine dies in Moonbeam. Cause of death: cardiac asthenia.

27 Jun 1926 – Olivine’s funeral takes place in Moonbeam. (Three weeks is a long interval between one’s death and burial. Olivine's death registration does not indicate that an autopsy took place. I wonder if that length of time was to allow family members to gather for her funeral?)

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

52 Ancestors: #11 Joseph Beauvais – Resident of Canada and of USA

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 11th week of this challenge, I chose my maternal great-grandfather Joseph Beauvais (1877-1937).

Joseph and Olivine (Hotte) Beauvais

Biographical Info

Joseph was born on 11 April 1877 in Ripon, Papineau County, Quebec. He was the second of seven children of Pierre Beauvais and his wife Arline Deschatelets. On 16 August 1897, Joseph married Olivine Hotte in Hartwell (later Chénéville), near Ripon. Between the birth of the couple’s first child, son Ovide, in June 1898 and autumn 1899, Joseph and his young family moved to Tupper Lake, Franklin County, New York. Since Joseph was a bûcheron (woodcutter, timberman or faller) on the 1901 census of Canada, I suspect that he was in search of work in a part of New York that was known for its lumber production. After son Oscar was born there in November 1899, Joseph was back in Hartwell by March 1901, where he is enumerated on that year’s census with his wife and two sons.

Places of Residence

After his return to Canada, Joseph lived in other communities, so to help me visualize these localities, I created an “ancestral migration” map and added his places of residences on it. I got the idea for this activity a few years ago when I came across a genealogy book or website that suggested creating a map showing where an ancestor lived. Now that I think about it, it might have been The Unpuzzling Your Past Workbook, by Emily Anne Croom (1996). Since that time, I’ve done a few of these maps for myself, which I title “Ancestral Migration of [name of ancestor]”. I’m not sure if author Croom coined the term, or if I came up with it on my own.

Image 1: Map of Quebec, including part of New York State

Image 1 shows where Joseph lived in the province of Quebec and in New York State. Note: Tupper Lake appears on this map of Quebec, but is, of course, in the USA. (Combining Canada and USA on one map was an easy way to show the location of Tupper Lake in relation to where Joseph lived in Canada.)

Image 2: Map of Ontario

Image 2 shows where Joseph lived in the province of Ontario. It was here, in Moonbeam, that he died on 17 September 1937. Joseph was survived by all of his sixteen children, his wife Olivine having predeceased him in 1926.

Make Your Own

If you’d like to make your own “ancestral migration” maps, print an outline map of your desired province or state, determine when and where your ancestor lived, locate those places of residence on your map, make a legend showing the date range of those locations, add some sticky dots (my favorite are the Avery brand ¼” round assorted colour-coding labels), and then write letters inside the dots to correspond with the legend. If you want, include capital cities or other important locations to give you an idea of how close or far your ancestor lived from those places. Be sure to give your map a title and the date you created it, and you’re done!

Source for map outlines (without the addition of yellow stickers and handwritten text added by me):

“The Atlas of Canada”, database, Natural Resources Canada (http://atlas.gc.ca/site/english/index.html : accessed 23 September 2009), “Reference Maps: Provincial and Territorial Outline – Quebec Map” and “Reference Maps: Provincial and Territorial Outline – Ontario Map”. The "reproduction is a copy of an official work that is published by Natural Resources Canada and [...] the reproduction has not been produced in affiliation with, or with the endorsement of, Natural Resources Canada”.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Wedding Wednesday: Beauvais – Hotte

Joseph and Olivine Beauvais, about 1897

This rather grainy picture is actually a recently scanned image of an approximately 25-year-old photocopy of a photograph.¹

It shows my maternal great-grandparents Joseph Beauvais (1877-1937) and Olivine Hotte (1877-1926). I think it was taken on their wedding day, because they look so young compared to other photos I have of them as adults.

Joseph and Olivine married on 16 August 1897 in St-Félix-de-Valois R.C. church in the rural community of Hartwell (now Chénéville), Papineau County, Quebec, Canada.² The newlyweds were distantly related: they were sixth cousins through their 5x great-grandparents Guillaume Labelle (d. 1710) and his wife Anne Charbonneau (d. 1729).

Beauvais - Hotte marriage record (partial image) [3]

Joseph was the second child and eldest son of Pierre and Arline (Deschatelets) Beauvais of Chénéville and nearby Ripon. Olivine was the seventh child and younger daughter of Louis and Marguerite (Lacasse) Hotte of St-André-Avellin (just south of Ripon) and Chénéville.

My great-grandparents had a large family of twelve sons and four daughters (including my grandmother Juliette), all of whom reached adulthood.

Joseph and Olivine’s marriage lasted until her death in June 1926, two months short of their 29th wedding anniversary.⁴

Sources:

1. Joseph and Olivine (Hotte) Beauvais photograph, ca 1897; digital image ca 1988, privately held by Madeleine (Desgroseilliers) Legault, London, Ontario, 2013. Madeleine allowed her niece Yvonne to photocopy the photograph during one of her visits to her aunt. (Madeleine and Jacqueline (Yvonne’s mother) are maternal granddaughters of Joseph and Olivine.)

2. St-Félix-de-Valois (Chénéville, Quebec), parish register, 1887-1899, p. 240 recto, entry no. M.11, Joseph Beauvais – Olivine Hott [sic] marriage, 16 August 1897; St-Félix-de-Valois parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 13 August 2013).

3. St-Félix-de-Valois, parish register, 1887-1899, p. 240 recto, Joseph Beauvais – Olivine Hott [sic] marriage, 16 August 1897.

4. “Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1936 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1947”, digital image, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 6 December 2008); entry for Olivine Hotte, 4 June 1926.

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.