Wedding Wednesday: Laronde – Kekijicakoe

One of the more interesting weddings among my ancestors is that of Toussaint Laronde, a voyageur, and his Native American (possibly Algonquin) wife Marie Kekijicakoe, from whom I descend patrilineally. [1]

Toussaint and Marie seem to have been a couple from about 1812 or 1813 when their first child (daughter Angélique) was born. There were thirteen more children born to them until about 1839. [2] I’ve written about two of those children in Sibling Saturday: Euphrosine and Elisabeth Laronde.

In 1837, Toussaint and Marie married in a Roman Catholic ceremony officiated by Father Pascal Brunet, a missionary priest from Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, now Montebello, Papineau County, Quebec. [3] Toussaint and Marie were granted a dispensation to marry because of their relationship of second degree of consanguinity (they were first cousins). [4]

I searched digitized images of the parish registers of Petite Nation and Buckingham (both in the province of Quebec) and Notre-Dame Cathedral in Ottawa, Ontario for 1836-1837, where some of Father Brunet’s sacramental records are conserved, but didn’t find an entry showing this Laronde marriage. [5]

Before they married, Toussaint baptised (specifically, “ondoyé”) Marie. [6] A spiritual affinity or relationship thus formed between the one who baptised (Toussaint) and the one who was baptised (Marie). [7] Father Brunet was not aware of this baptism and the resulting affinity, an impediment to the marriage.

It wasn’t until a year later that another missionary, Father Louis-Charles Lefebvre de Bellefeuille, a Sulpician priest from Montreal, discovered the impediment. [8] He accordingly granted two dispensations (spiritual affinity and consanguinity) and rehabilitated or ‘ratified’ Toussaint and Marie’s 1837 marriage, making their union canonically valid. [9] The rehabilitation took place on 28 August 1838 at Poste des Allumettes on Ile des Allumettes in Pontiac County, Quebec. [10]

Note that no mention is made in Toussaint and Marie’s 1838 marriage record that they were previously wed in a Native American ceremony or that they received an annulment for such a ceremony. [11]

Finally, here are images from the FHL microfilm showing the marriage rehabilitation record, followed by my English translation of the French text. I originally prepared the translation (Appendix C, further below) on 20 March 2011 when I put together my Laronde research in a 23-page document (“The Family of Toussaint Laronde and Marie Kekijicakoe”); it appears on my blog for the first time.

Marriage rehabilitation record of Toussaint and Marie Laronde (page 77 verso and page 78 recto)

Marriage rehabilitation record of Toussaint and Marie Laronde (page 78 verso)

English translation of the marriage rehabilitation record

Sources:

1. Marie’s surname is “Kekijicakoe” in her son François’ baptismal entry. (Her name appears to be spelled Kekiji[cakoe], although it is somewhat difficult to decipher.) To date, this is the only record I have found in which Marie’s Aboriginal surname is explicitly stated. St-Grégoire-de-Nazianze (Buckingham, Quebec), parish register, 1839-1854, p. 35 verso, entry no. B136 (1840), Francis Laronde baptism, 15 September 1840; St-Grégoire-de-Nazianze parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 28 February 2011).

2. “Registres paroissiaux” [Régistres des missions de 19 juillet 1836 au 27 may [sic] 1839], p. 77 verso, no entry no. (1838), Laronde – Laronde marriage rehabilitation, 28 August 1838; Family History Library (FHL) microfilm 1703968. Toussaint and Marie had fourteen children, according to their marriage rehabilitation record. By 1838, thirteen survived and they were all legitimated by Father de Bellefeuille when their parents married that year in August. (The deceased child is not identified in the record.) The children and their ages appear in the record in the following order: Denis (23), Angélique (25), Marie (22), Toussaint (19), Euphrosine (17), Anne (15), François (13½), Elizabeth (11), Charles (9½), Eustache (8), Louis (7), Paul (3) and Susanne (4 months). According to some online family trees, Toussaint and Marie were the parents of an elder son named Alexander. The marriage rehabilitation record does not mention Alexander, suggesting that he is not Toussaint and Marie’s son.

3. The marriage rehabilitation record of 1838 states that Father Brunet married the couple “l’année dernière” [last year]. “Registres paroissiaux”, p. 77 verso, Laronde – Laronde marriage rehabilitation, 28 August 1838.

4. “Registres paroissiaux”, p. 77 verso, Laronde – Laronde marriage rehabilitation, 28 August 1838.

5. Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours (Montebello, Quebec), parish register, 1815-1900, pages 118-130 (1837); Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 28 February 2011). Also, St-Grégoire-de-Nazianze (Buckingham, Quebec), parish register, 1836-1860, pages 1-22 (1836-1837); St-Grégoire-de-Nazianze parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 20 March 2011). Also, Notre Dame (Ottawa, Ontario), parish register, 1829[-1948], unpaginated, entries no. 19–24 (1836); Notre-Dame parish; digital image, “Ontario, Canada, Catholic Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1747-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 12 March 2011).

6. “Registres paroissiaux”, p. 77 verso, Laronde – Laronde marriage rehabilitation, 28 August 1838.

7. “The Catholic Encyclopedia”, New Advent (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/ : accessed 18 June 2015), “B: Baptism: Minister of the sacrament: Extraordinary minister”. See also Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, “ASK FATHER: Can a godparent marry a godchild? Confirmation sponsor a confirmand?”, Fr. Z's Blog, 28 October 2014 (http://wdtprs.com/blog/2014/10/ask-father-can-a-godparent-marry-a-godchild-confirmation-sponsor-a-confirmand/ : accessed 18 June 2015).

8. Father de Bellefeuille led three missions from 1836 to 1838 to minister to the Christians and Native Americans who lived at Poste des Allumettes and the nearby region of Lake Timiskaming. It was during his last mission in August 1838 that he rehabilitated Toussaint and Marie’s marriage, before his death that October in Montreal. Dictionary of Canadian Biography/Dictionnaire biographique du Canada (http://www.biographi.ca/en/index.php : accessed 18 June 2015), “Louis-Charles Lefebvre de Bellefeuille”.

9. A rehabilitated marriage is a non-canonically valid marriage that receives official church recognition. “The Catholic Encyclopedia”, New Advent (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/ : accessed 18 June 2015), “V: Validation of Marriage”.

10. “Registres paroissiaux”, p. 77 verso, Laronde – Laronde marriage rehabilitation, 28 August 1838. Poste des Allumettes, also known as Fort William, was a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post situated on the Ottawa River near Sheenboro in Pontiac County, Quebec.

11. “Registres paroissiaux”, p. 77 verso, Laronde – Laronde marriage rehabilitation, 28 August 1838.

Copyright © 2015, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Euphrosine Laronde, My Metis Ancestor

A few years ago, I discovered I had Métis and Aboriginal heritage through my father’s maternal Vanasse ancestors. It's a little known part of my ancestry that I’m still researching.

Metis

According to The Métis Nation of Ontario website, Métis are a “distinct Aboriginal people” whose “initial offspring of these unions were of mixed ancestry” – that is, a child born to a European (Canadian) father and an Indian woman. [1]

I used to think that if I had Aboriginal ancestors I would find them in the 1600s or 1700s when Canada (New France at that time) was still young. But it was really interesting to find them in my more recent ancestry with my great-great-great-grandmother Euphrosine Laronde.*

* Euphrosine is my father’s matrilineal ancestor; see Matrilineal Monday: My Father’s Matrilineal Line.

Euphrosine’s birth

Although a birth record probably doesn’t exist for Euphrosine, a record of her baptism does. According to the sacramental registers of Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, a town located about 35 kilometres (about 22 miles) west of Montreal, Euphrosine was agée de trois ans [aged three years] at her baptism on 28 July 1824. [2] She and her siblings Toussaint and Marie were baptised on the same day. Each of their baptismal records states that these Laronde children were born au Lac Népiscingue [at Lake Nipissing], now in the province of Ontario.

Her parents

Euphrosine’s parents, Toussaint Laronde and Marie Kekijicakoe, were first cousins. [3] They had lived as a couple since about 1813, when the first of their 14 children were born. [4] Originally married in a Roman Catholic ceremony in 1837, their union was rehabilitated in August 1838 after an impediment was discovered. [5]

Toussaint was the son of a French-Canadian (possibly Métis) father and an Aboriginal mother. Marie was also Aboriginal, presumably Ojibwa (Chippewa, Algonquin). She is described as sauvagesse [savage, that is Indian] in her children’s baptismal records. Marie became a Christian when she was baptised in 1838. [6]

Toussaint worked in the fur trade as an interpreter for the North West Company in 1804, and later managed the joint operations of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company at Lake Nipissing from 1821 to 1824. [7]

Marriage and children

In about 1839, Euphrosine married Jean-Baptiste Guérard, almost certainly on Ile des Allumettes in Pontiac County. [8] The couple had at least three children: my ancestor Marie (1840-1917), Célina (born in 1851), and Euphémie (born in 1852). Nothing else is known of their married life.

Her death

Euphrosine died young, when about 31 to 40 years old. Her exact date and location of death and burial are a mystery to me, but she died probably on Ile des Allumettes between October 1852 (when her daughter Euphémie was baptised) and January 1861 (when her husband appears as a widower on that year's census). [9]

My line of descent from Euphrosine and her parents:

Toussaint Laronde (ca 1783-?)

m. 1837 Marie Kekijicakoe

Euphrosine Laronde (ca 1821-1852/1861)

m. ca 1839 Jean-Baptiste Guérard

Marie Guérard (1840-1917)

m. 1859 Joseph Vanasse

Elisabeth Vanasse (1862-1947)

m. 1889 (her first cousin) Olivier Vanasse

Julie Vanasse (1896-1967)

m. 1926 Fred Belair

Maurice Belair (1927-1996)

m. 1954 Jacqueline Desgroseilliers

Yvonne Belair

Sources:

1. “Culture and Heritage: Who are the Métis”, The Métis Nation of Ontario (http://www.metisnation.org/culture--heritage/who-are-the-metis : accessed 17 January 2013).

2. 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 : accessed 4 March 2011).

3. “Registres paroissiaux” [Régistres des missions de 19 juillet 1836 au 27 may [sic] 1839], p. 77 verso, no entry no., Laronde-Laronde marriage rehabilitation, 28 August 1838; Family History Library (FHL) microfilm 1703968. The text states that the couple received a dispensation of consanguinité au 2e dégré [consanguinity to the 2nd degree].

4. “Registres paroissiaux”, p. 77 verso, Laronde-Laronde marriage rehabilitation, 28 August 1838. Toussaint and Marie’s marriage rehabilitation states they had 14 children before their present marriage, 13 of which were living. Their eldest mentioned child was daughter Angélique, who at 25 years old, would have been born about 1813.

5. A spiritual affinity existed between the couple, because Toussaint provisionally baptised (specifically, ondoyé) Marie before their (original, 1837) marriage. This undeclared impediment rendered their union null, hence the need to have their marriage rehabilitated or ratified in 1838 in order for it to be canonically valid. “Registres paroissiaux”, p. 77 verso, Laronde-Laronde marriage rehabilitation, 28 August 1838.

6. Marie was described as ondoyée in August 1836, when her younger sons Eustache, Paul and Louis were baptised. She was later baptised sous condition [conditionally] by a priest in August 1838. (A baptism sous condition is when the officiating priest baptises a child (or an adult) on condition that he or she has not been previously baptised.) “Registres paroissiaux” [Régistres des missions de 19 juillet 1836 au 27 may [sic] 1839], p. 21 recto, entry no. B125, B126, B127, Eustache, Paul, and Louis Laronde baptism, 5 August 1836; FHL microfilm 1703968. Also, “Registres paroissiaux” [Régistres des missions de 19 juillet 1836 au 27 may [sic] 1839], p. 77 verso, entry no. B117 and B118, Marie and Elizabeth Laronde baptism, 28 August 1838; FHL microfilm 1703968.

7. “North West Company Men’s Names at the Athabasca River Dept. 1805”, database and images, Bouvette Family Website (http://www.bouvette.com/family/DAVID_Basile_1780/Athabasca.html : accessed 25 June 2011), entry for Toussaint Laronde. Also, David A. Robertson, Eva M. MacDonald, and Martin S. Cooper, “Among Marshes and Gneiss Mounds: The Archaeology of La Vase Island”, Ontario Archaeology, No. 64 (1997); online archives, The Ontario Archaeological Society (http://www.ontarioarchaeology.on.ca/publications/search.php : accessed 7 March 2011), pages 11-12.

8. Euphrosine and Jean-Baptiste’s marriage date is deduced from when their presumed eldest daughter Marie was born: dans le mois de décembre dernier [in the month of last December]. St-Paul (Aylmer, Quebec), parish register, 1841-1851, p. 14 verso, no entry no. (1841), Marie Guérard baptism, 4 February 1841; St-Paul parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 11 March 2008). Marie’s baptism took place in the “mission de St Alphonse de Liguori des Allumettes”, but the missionary priest recorded the event in St-Paul’s sacramental register.

9. St-Alphonse (Chapeau, Quebec), parish register, 1846-1856, p. 164 verso, entry no. B95 (1852), [Euphemie] Guérard baptism, 24 October 1852; St-Alphonse parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 11 March 2008). Also, 1861 census of Canada, [Township of Chichester,] Pontiac, Canada East [Quebec], population schedule, p. 132, line 11, Bte Gerard [sic]; digital image, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 8 June 2010); citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-1305.

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Follow Friday: Voyageurs Contracts Database

While doing background research for a post I’m preparing about my Métis ancestry, I came across a very interesting website. It’s the Voyageurs Contracts Database, which is part of the Centre du patrimoine [Heritage Centre] located in Saint-Boniface, Manitoba, Canada.

If you have Métis or French-Canadian ancestors who were involved in the fur trade (for example, a voyageur*), you’ll find this database really useful. The main page of the Voyageurs Contracts Database explains that its database “includes data from approximately 35,900 fur trade contracts signed in front of Montreal notaries between 1714 and 1830. […] The information collected from the contracts includes: family names, parishes of origin, hiring company, length of contract, destination(s) […]” and more.

* A “voyageur” is a French term that means ‘traveler’. “Voyageurs were the canoe transportation workers in organized, licensed long distance transportation of furs and trade goods in the interior of the continent. [They] were highly valued employees of trading companies, such as the North West Company […] and the Hudson's Bay Company […]”. (Source: Wikipedia contributors, "Voyageurs," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Voyageurs&oldid=418895640 : accessed March 16, 2011).)



Shooting the Rapids (1879)

 (Image source: Frances Anne Hopkins, Library and Archives Canada, acc. no. 1989-401-2, c002774.)

I searched for my ancestor “Toussaint Laronde” using the Database’s Quick Search page. I put “toussaint” in the keywords field and “laronde” in the names field. There were two results; both were my Toussaint. I then clicked ‘Details’ for the results and found items like date, place and length of his contracts, his functions, his wages, and his destinations. (The contracts are dated 13 April 1803 and 28 July 1821.) Next, I clicked ‘Select’, and then ‘View Selections’, where I requested copies of Toussaint’s contracts. In my email, I also asked for the total cost and how I could pay. The archivist promptly answered my questions and said I could pay with PayPal, cheque or money order.

I’m now waiting anxiously for the mail to arrive with paper copies of the microfilmed version of Toussaint’s voyageur contracts!

Copyright © 2012, Yvonne Demoskoff.