Mystery Monday: Gaston Desgroseilliers’ Cause of Death

Gaston Desgroseilliers' death registration (1941)

Last year, I wrote about the short life of my mother’s younger brother Gaston and how he died following a car accident in May 1941 in Wednesday’s Child: Gaston Desgroseilliers, A Brief Life.

This past May, I went to the Archives of Ontario (AO), located in the provincial capital of Toronto, and viewed Gaston’s death registration on microfilm. [1]

You might ask yourself why bother seeing the registration when I had already knew the cause of death?

I wanted to see the death registration for two important reasons:

1. My mother and her sisters always maintained that their little brother died after falling out of a moving car, not from pneumonia, as reported by the Cemetery Records department of the Town of Parry Sound. [2]
2. I wanted my own copy of the (original) death registration.

Sitting at the microfilm reader in the Rotunda at AO, I was getting a bit anxious while scrolling through the film to locate the image I needed. (I was hoping that it would disclose the ‘right’ cause of death.) Finally, I got to the image I needed on roll 670. There was the cause of death: “Acute lung trouble or type of [pneunionea]”. [3]

Disappointed, I looked at the rest of the information and saw that “Jury’s Verdict” was written below the cause of death. I also noticed that the document was signed by S. B. Biehn, Coroner/M.D.

I was puzzled. What did “Jury’s Verdict” mean? Why would a jury be involved when someone dies in a hospital, like it said in the field “Place of Death”? And why would a coroner/M.D. sign the record?

While my husband made a digital copy of the registration on a USB memory stick, I went to the nearby reference desk. I wanted to know if the Archives had any coroners’ records. I was directed to their computer database, but I didn’t find any listings for the Parry Sound District, where Gaston’s death occurred.

When it was time to go, Michael and I signed ourselves out. (You have to sign in and sign out when you arrive and leave at AO.) As I wrote my name, the clerk asked if I had found everything I needed. I explained that I had, mostly, but that I didn’t find the coroners’ records I wanted. She asked for my name and contact number, and said that she would pass my concern on to an archivist.

Later that day, while my husband was negotiating rush hour traffic in Toronto, my cell phone rang. It was an AO archivist getting back to me. She explained that while the Archives did have some coroners’ records, it didn’t have them all (like Parry Sound District), because some records were lost or destroyed before a “records management program” was established in the 1960s. It wasn’t what I had hoped to hear, but thanked her for such a prompt reply.

So, at the end of the day, I’m still left with questions:

• Was Gaston’s accident and subsequent death reported in a local newspaper?
• What exactly is “acute lung trouble or type of [pneumonia]” and would it be caused after a fall from a moving vehicle?
• Was a physician present when Gaston died in the hospital, and if so, why did he not sign the death registration? (The coroner stated on the form that he “did not attend” the deceased.)
• It looks like there are four different handwritings on the registration form; why so many?*
• Do Gaston’s hospital records still exist, and if so, are they accessible to a family member?
• Why was a coroner’s jury involved? Who or what determines the need for an inquest?
• Why did the coroner sign and date the registration four days after Gaston’s death? Did he wait for the jury to return its verdict?
• If coroners’ records for Parry Sound District didn’t get transferred to the provincial archives, might they still exist at the municipal or district level?

* In the “Medical Certificate of Death” portion of the form (on the right side), it looks like the handwriting of the coroner, S. B. Biehn. I suspect that it’s my grandfather Eugène’s handwriting I see on the left side of the record, as well as at the top where it says “Place of Death” and “Residence”. Just below it, where it says “Name of Deceased”, the writing seems to be by another person. Finally, at the very right hand bottom, it looks like the Division Registrar signed his name and dated the form.

Sources:

1. Gaston Desgrosseiliers [sic] death registration no. 028984 (1941); Ontario Registrations of Death, 1869–; microfilm MS 935, roll 670, Archives of Ontario, Toronto.

2. Corporation of the Town of Parry Sound (Parry Sound, Ontario), Cemetery Records, to Yvonne Belair, letter, 25 February 1987, providing administrative record for Gaston Desgroseilliers, Single Grave S, in the South ½ [S ½] of Lot 14, Block L, Hillcrest Cemetery.

3. Gaston Desgrosseiliers [sic] death registration no. 028984 (1941); Ontario Registrations of Death, 1869–.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Mystery Monday: The Death in 1900 – or Not – of Mary Gertrude Vanasse

In the summer of 1891, a little girl was born to John and Dinasse (Ranger) Vanasse in Chapeau, Pontiac County, Quebec. She was the couple’s first of seven children; three sons and three more daughters were born between 1891 and 1912. She was also a first cousin of my paternal grandmother Julie (Vanasse) Belair.

At her baptism two days later, on 23 August 1891 in Chapeau’s church, she received the names Mary Gertrude. Her godparents were her maternal uncle Evangéliste Ranger and her paternal grandmother Elizabeth Frappier. They could not sign their names in the parish register, unlike the father, who wrote his name in a clear and legible hand. [1]

John and Dinasse suffered a tragedy on 11 April 1900 when one of their children died. According to St-Alphonse’s sacramental register, the child who died was “Mary Gertrude Vanasse”. The burial record adds that she was 8 years old and the daughter of John Vanasse and Dinna [sic] Ranger. (“Dinna” is a variation of Dinasse.) [2]

Burial record of Mary Gertrude Vanasse (cropped image) [3]

Based on this information, there’s no reason to doubt who died that April day – or is there?

I believe there is room for doubt, especially because a marriage record exists for Mary Gertrude. On 8 August 1911, Mary Gertrude, “daughter under age of John Venasse [sic] and Dinasse Ranger” married Hector Marchildon in Chapeau’s St-Alphonse church. [4]

The daughter who married was under age, according to her marriage record. Since matrimonial majority was 21 years at this time in the province of Quebec, Mary Gertrude would have been born after 8 August 1890. [5] All of John and Dinasse’s daughters were born after this date, but only one of them was named Mary Gertrude, the eldest. The other daughters were Anna (b. 1897), Mabel (b. 1899) and Clara (b. 1907). I don’t think it’s a case of mistaken identity, say, for example Anna who married instead of Gertrude. Even though Anna was old enough to marry at 14 years old, it’s not her, since she married for the first time in July 1917. [6] As for Mabel and Clara, they were only 12 and 3 ½ years old, respectively.

So, if Mary Gertrude didn’t die in 1900, who did?

I have a theory that the child who died in 1900 was Mary Gertrude’s younger brother Michael John, who was born on 10 December 1895. [7]

Although I haven’t found a burial record for him in St-Alphonse’s registers, at least not one that explicitly states his name, it seems more likely that it was Michael John and not Mary Gertrude who died on 11 April 1900. I've located the death or burial dates for the other siblings (Isaac, Anna and Mabel) who were born before 1900, so it isn't one of them. Also, Michael John, who would have been 5 ½ years old, does not appear in his parents’ household on the 1901 census [8], suggesting he is not alive.

The fact that Michael John wasn’t enumerated with his parents on the 1901 census schedule doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s the child who died in 1900, but the fact that his sister Mary Gertrude married in 1911 means that she couldn’t be the one who died in 1900 and whose name appears in that burial record.

It's difficult to image that St-Alphonse's parish priest would get a child's name, age and gender wrong in its burial record, but it seems to be the case in this situation.

Sources:

1. St-Alphonse (Chapeau, Quebec), parish register, 1890-1893, p. 57 (stamped), entry no. B.50 (1891), Mary Gertrude Vanasse baptism, 23 August 1891; St-Alphonse parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 16 July 2010).

2. St-Alphonse (Chapeau, Quebec), parish register, 1900, p. 10 recto, entry no. S.17, Mary Gertrude Vanasse burial, 12 April 1900; St-Alphonse parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 17 July 2010).

3. St-Alphonse, parish register, 1900, p. 10 recto, Mary Gertrude Vanasse burial, 12 April 1900.

4. St-Alphonse (Chapeau, Quebec), parish register, 1911, p. 13 recto, entry no. M.10, Hector Marchildon – Mary Gertrude Venasse [sic] marriage, 8 August 1911; St-Alphonse parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 17 July 2010).

5. Hélène Lamarche and Guy Desjardins, “Majorité matrimoniale et majorité civile”, Mémoires de la Société généalogique canadienne-française, 56 (printemps 2005): 31; DVD edition (Montreal, QC: SGCF, 2013). The “Code civil du Bas-Canada 1866 (art. 115)” fixed the age of majority, that is, the legal age at which parental consent was no longer required for marriage, at 21 for boys and girls.

6. St-Alphonse (Chapeau, Quebec), parish register, 1917, p. 11 verso, entry no. M.13, Adolphe Chassé – Anna Vanasse marriage, 28 July 1917; St-Alphonse parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 17 July 2010). Anna is described as “daughter under age” of her parents, which indicates a first marriage. Had she been a widow and married subsequently to a previous marriage, custom dictates that the name of her late husband is stated in the record instead of the names of her parents.

7. St-Alphonse (Chapeau, Quebec), parish register, 1895, p. 26 recto, entry no. B.86, Michael John Vanasse baptism, 10 December 1895; St-Alphonse parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 16 July 2010).

8. 1901 census of Canada, Chichester, Pontiac, Quebec, population schedule, sub-district I-1, p. 6, dwelling 50, family 50, John Venance [sic] household; digital image, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 1 May 2011). Only four children are listed in this family: Gerty (10), Isaac (7), Annie (4) and Mabel (2).

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Mystery Monday: The Real Wife of Joseph Danis

Marriage record of Joseph Danis and Catherine Plante, 1749

In the summer of 1749, twenty-eight year old Joseph Danis married Catherine Plante in St-Michel church in Yamaska, New France (later the province of Quebec). [1] Published sources, like Tanguay's famous Dictionnaire, repeat this information. [2]

Joseph's marriage contract (dated 10 August 1749) and marriage parish record (of 11 August 1749) confirm Catherine’s name and those of her parents, Louis Plante and Angélique Patenaude, and their place of residence.[3]

However, according to a 1957 article in Mémoires, the quarterly publication of the Société Généalogique Canadienne-Française, Joseph's wife was more likely Marie-Catherine Turcot, daughter of Louis Turcot and Angélique Plante. [4]

The article, written by renowned francophone genealogist Archange Godbout, explains that while Joseph’s parents and children are found in the parish registers of New France, Catherine’s parents are not. Although two Louis Turcot existed during the time frame in question, one died probably as an infant, while the other resided in a different location. Additionally, no Angélique Patenaude can be found in the parish registers. [5]

These complications support Godbout’s belief that Louis Plante and Angélique Patenaude are not Catherine’s parents. Godbout concludes by writing that, after much research, the only possibility for Joseph Danis’ wife is Marie-Catherine Turcot, daughter of Louis Turcot and Marie Angélique Plante, who married in 1721.

Joseph and Catherine are my 6x great-grandparents. I have two lines of descent from them through my paternal grandmother Julie Vanasse. I was fortunate to come across Godbout’s article in the Mémoires a few years ago; it’s the only place I’ve seen so far that discusses the presumed real identity of Joseph Danis’ wife.

Sources:

1. St-Michel (Yamaska, Quebec), parish register, 1734-1750, no p. no., no entry no. (1749), Danis – Plante marriage, 11 August 1749; St-Michel parish; digital image, “Quebec, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 5 January 2014).

2. Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes, 7 vols (1871–1890, reprint, Montréal: Editions Elysée, 1991), III: 238.

3. A. Godbout, “Joseph Danis et Catherine Plante, 1749”, Mémoires de la Société Généalogique Canadienne-Française 8 (Janvier 1957): 60.

4. Godbout, “Joseph Danis et Catherine Plante, 1749”, 60. The author states that he came to this conclusion after "actives recherches".

5. Godbout, “Joseph Danis et Catherine Plante, 1749”, 60.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Mystery Monday: Guérard – Laronde Marriage

The marriage record for my paternal ancestors Jean-Baptiste Guérard (ca 1814-after 10 Oct 1870) and Euphrosine Laronde (ca 1820-before 1861 census) does not seem to exist.

I started looking for this couple’s marriage over twenty years ago. I used published resources like Tanguay’s Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes and microfilmed ones like Loiselle Marriage Index.

Later, I searched a number of online resources when they became available on the Internet, including:

• “Drouin Collection” at Ancestry.ca
• BMS2000 [baptism, marriage, burial] database
• Généalogie du Québec et française d'Amérique 
• Le Centre de généalogie francophone d'Amérique [Gedcom files]
• Mes aieux

I also turned to a firm of Montreal-based professional genealogists for help. Unfortunately, they didn’t succeed in locating a marriage record, but they sent me a report of the types of sources they consulted without success; for example, Fichier Fabien, the Archives nationales du Québec à Montréal, and various Répertoires des mariages.¹

Lake Allumette on the Ottawa River in Ontario (ca 1870)

I might not know exactly when and where Jean-Baptiste and Euphrosine married, but I have it estimated to presumably before December 1840. That’s when their daughter Marie was born, according to her baptism, which took place in February 1841 on Ile des Allumettes.²

Thinking they might have married where their daughter was baptized, I searched the 1841-1851 mission register of St-Paul’s church in Aylmer, Quebec, which is available in the "Drouin Collection" at Ancestry.ca. (St-Paul’s was established in 1841 and started keeping records that year.) I didn’t find a marriage entry for them.

I looked at the register of nearby parish of St-Grégoire-de-Naziance in Buckingham, searching page-by-page from January 1839 through to March 1841. I didn’t find the marriage record.

I extended my search to parishes further afield, like the Pembroke, Ontario missions register for 1839-1842, but was unsuccessful. (Pembroke, which lies across the Ottawa River on the Ontario side, faces Ile des Allumettes.)

I was also not successful when I looked at Ottawa’s Notre-Dame Basilica for January 1835 to July 1841. (I didn’t search earlier than 1835, because Euphrosine, who was born about 1820, probably wouldn’t be younger than 15 years old at her wedding.)

I can think of three reasons why Jean-Baptiste and Euphrosine’s marriage is impossible to find.

#1 – The family lived on Ile des Allumettes in Pontiac County, a sparsely populated and more or less wilderness area in the 1850s. The island didn’t have a resident priest at this time and was served instead by missionary priests. Jean-Baptiste and Euphrosine's marriage record may never have made it into the sacramental register in the travelling priest’s home parish. If it did, it’s in a parish that I haven’t searched or considered.

#2 – Since Euphrosine was born in the Lake Nipissing region of present-day Ontario, she might have married there.³ If she was married by a missionary priest, he might have lost or mislaid the record before he reached his usual parish.

#3 – Euphrosine and Jean-Baptiste might have wed in a Native Indian ceremony with the event going unrecorded.⁴

So, after 20 years of looking, this is where I’m at – the same place as I was at the beginning of my quest.

Could it be that I’ve overlooked a particular parish? Could it be that my Guérard – Laronde ancestors’ marriage record doesn’t exist?

What about you, dear readers? How would you proceed?

Sources:

1. Institut généalogique J.L. & associés inc., “Rapport de recherche en généalogie concernant le couple Guérard-Laronde”, prepared by Micheline Lécuyer, prés., Montreal, Quebec, for Yvonne Demoskoff, 10 September 1991; copy privately held by Yvonne Demoskoff, Hope, British Columbia, 2013.

2. St-Paul (Aylmer, Quebec), parish register, 1841-1851, p. 14 verso, no entry no. (1841), Marie Guéra[r]d baptism, 4 February 1841; St-Paul parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : 11 March 2008). Marie’s date of birth “dans le mois de décembre dernier” (in the month of December last) is stated in her baptism record. The baptism took place in the mission of St-Alphonse de Liguori on Ile des Allumettes, but recorded in St-Paul’s sacramental register.

3. Ste-Anne (Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue (aka Ste-Anne-du-Bout-de-l’Isle), Quebec), parish register, 1796-1846, p. 54 verso, no entry no. (1824), Euphroisine [sic] Laronde baptism, 28 July 1824; Ste-Anne parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : 4 March 2011). Euphrosine was 3 years old. Her baptism entry states she was born “au Lac Népiscingue” [Lake Nipissing].

4. Euphrosine’s father Toussaint Laronde appears to be the son of a French-Canadian father and an Aboriginal mother. Her mother Marie Kekijicoköe [Kekijicakoe], described as “une sau[va]gesse” in her daughter’s baptism record, was probably Ojibwa (Chippewa, Algonquin).

Image credit: 

“Lake Allumette on the Ottawa River in Ontario” (ca 1870), by Alfred Worsley Holdstock (1820-1901), W.H. Coverdale Collection of Canadiana, Library and Archives Canada.

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Mystery Monday: The Missing Birth Registration

Albert Desgroseilliers, about 1955

Albert Desgroseilliers

My maternal great-grandfather Albert Desgroseilliers was baptized on 13 February 1879 in Embrun, Russell County, Ontario.¹ According to his baptism record, he was born the previous day, presumably in Embrun, where his parents resided and where his father Pierre was a cultivateur (farmer).²

Civil Registration

I knew that registration of births, marriages and deaths began in 1869 in the province of Ontario, and so assumed I’d find Albert’s birth registration in the “Ontario, Canada Births, 1869-1913” database at Ancestry.ca. Knowing that Desgroseilliers is often misspelled in indexes, I kept my search simple and filled in only three fields: Year: 1879; Gender: Male; and County or District: Russell. There were 236 results, but Albert wasn’t among them.³

I wasn’t worried that I hadn’t found Albert on my first try. I decided to look at the images for Russell County for 1879; since there were only 54 images, it would be an easy task. The section for Embrun begins on image 20 of 54, with entry No. 3 on stamped page 553. I knew this spot was the right place among the images, because the informant was “C. Guillaume / PP [parish priest] / Embrun Russell”. (Father Guillaume served as St-Jacques’ curé from 1875 to 1885.)⁴

Missing birth registration

I looked through the January births and then the February ones, but couldn’t find my great-grandfather. He should have been between entry No. 18 (Hormidas Gagnon) and No. 19 (Joseph St Amour), based on how he appears in St-Jacques’ parish register. I continued to look through the rest of the February and March entries, but Albert was nowhere to be seen.

Next, I checked all the 1879 entries (on images 20 through 30 of 54 images) in the Division of Russell (where Embrun is located) of the Registration District of Russell [County] and made a list of all the individuals whose births were registered by Father Guillaume.

Once the list was complete, I noticed that Father Guillaume submitted three batches of names to the division registrar for 1879: on March 25, on June 30 and on December 31. The first batch (March 25) was of baptisms that took place between January 1 and March 23. (Although Father Guillaume recorded a child’s date of baptism with a mention of when he or she was born in the sacramental register, it’s the child’s date of birth that is required in the (civil) registration book.)

St-Jacques’ sacramental register

I then made a list of the baptismal entries in St-Jacques’ sacramental register for the same time frame as the district registration entries.⁵ That’s when I realized there were 39 baptismal entries, but only 35 birth registration entries. The following four names were missing:

• Norbert [aka Albert] Degroseillier (B.16),
• Mary Ann O’Burns (B.21),
• Gédéon Moïse (B.29) and
• Edmond Isaïe Brien dit Durocher (B.32).

What happened?

Why didn’t these four individuals make it into the 1879 registration book for Russell County? These names were located within other pages that had names entered in the sacramental register, so it’s not a case of a skipped page. Both the church register’s and the district registration book’s pages are consecutively numbered. Did Father Guillaume neglect to submit these names or did the division registrar William Loux fail to enter them in the registration books?⁶ Could it be that a missed step resulted in a disconnect between the priest and the division registrar, or between the division registrar and the next level of government?

Wanting to know more about the early history of the Vital Statistics Act (1869), I downloaded (for a fee) an interesting journal article titled “Ontario’s Civil Registration of Vital Statistics, 1869-1926: The Evolution of an Administrative System” by George Emery.⁷ I learned that division registrars “recorded vital events on forms provided by the Registrar-General”, and that after 1875, “municipal registrars [communicated directly with] the Registrar-General”.⁸

However, I’m still curious about what procedures were in place in 1879 for getting birth information from a parish church priest to a division registrar, and from that registrar to the Registrar General of Ontario and eventually to microfilmed holdings.

I also recently learned that original handwritten indexes exist for Ontario birth registrations.⁹ (I already knew that computer-generated index books existed.) I might have to plan a trip one day to Toronto to consult these originals at the Archives of Ontario.

Conclusion

My goal was to find my great-grandfather’s baptism record and his birth registration. I’m happy that I found at least one of these records. I’m also glad that I did a comparison of the religious and secular registers, because I saw that there was more than one birth entry missing from the county registration book and not just Albert’s.

For now, though, it’s a mystery why Albert is missing from the 1879 Ontario birth registration records.

Sources:

1. St-Jacques (Embrun, Ontario), parish register, 1877-1883, folio 97 (stamped), entry no. B.16, Norbert Degroseiller [sic] baptism, 13 February 1879; St-Jacques parish; digital image, “Ontario, Roman Catholic Church Records, 1760-1923”, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ : accessed 20 April 2013). To access these browsable-only images, follow this path from the FamilySearch homepage: Search > Records > Canada > Ontario, Roman Catholic Church Records, 1760-1923 > [Browse] > Russell > Embrun > St Jacques > Baptisms, marriages, burials 1877-1883.

2. St-Jacques, parish register, 1877-1883, folio 97 (stamped), Norbert Degroseiller [sic] baptism, 13 February 1879.

3. “Ontario, Canada Births, 1869-1913“, database, Ancestry.ca (www.ancestry.ca : accessed 20 April 2013).

4. J.-U. Forget and Elie-J. Auclair, Histoire de Saint-Jacques d’Embrun (Ottawa: La Cie d’Imprimerie d’Ottawa, 1910), 44; digital image, Our Roots (http://ourroots.ca : accessed 21 April 2013). French-born Jacques-Charles Guillaume was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in July 1859 in Ottawa. He was St-Jacques’ fifth parish priest.

5. St-Jacques (Embrun, Ontario), parish register, 1877-1883, folio 89 – folio 105 (stamped); St-Jacques parish; digital images, “Ontario, Roman Catholic Church Records, 1760-1923”, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ : accessed 20 April 2013).

6. Division Registrar William Loux signed his name (W^m Loux) in each entry and on the last page for Russell County, which he dated December 31st, 1879.

7. George Emery, “Ontario’s Civil Registration of Vital Statistics, 1869-1926: The Evolution of an Administrative System”, Canadian Historical Review 64 (No. 4, 1983); digital images, University of Toronto Press Journals (https://utpjournals.metapress.com : 21 April 2013).

8. Emery, “Ontario’s Civil Registration of Vital Statistics, 1869-1926”, 478-481.

9. “Finding a Birth Registration - A Pathfinder”, Archives of Ontario (http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/en/microfilm/v_bintro.aspx : accessed 21 April 2013).

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.