Church Record Sunday: Jeanne Petit’s 1733 Burial Record

Born about 1656, Jeanne Petit was originally from Ste-Marguerite parish in La Rochelle, France. [1] She came to New France as a fille du roi in 1672. [2] That September, Jeanne entered into a marriage contract with François Séguin dit Ladéroute, a soldier from Picardie, France. They married the following month in Boucherville, now a suburb of Montreal. [3] Jeanne and François were the parents of six sons and five daughters. [4] Interestingly, I descend from three of those children: Françoise (1674-1751), Pierre (1682-1760) and Simon (1684-1758).

Jeanne died on 29 March 1733. She was buried the next day in the cemetery of St-Antoine-de-Padoue church in Longueuil. For some reason, the attending priest recorded her name as Françoise in her burial record. [5] Many people were present at the funeral: her daughter Jeanne and Jeanne’s husband Charles Patenaude, her son-in-law François Achin (Marie Madeleine Séguin’s second husband), as well as Charles Varri, Charles Truto and others.

Jeanne Petit's burial record (FamilySearch.org)

My transcription of Jeanne’s burial record above (original lineation indicated by /):

L’an de nôtre seigneur mil sept cent trente et trois [...] / 30 mars a eté inhumé dans le cimetière de cette paroisse Le corps de / francoise petit, veufve de defunct Francois seguin Dit Laderoute envi / ron quatre vingt dix ans, decedée de hier, après avoir recu [la?] / penitence et extreme onction, en presence de jeanne seguin, pate / notre fille et fils de la defuncte, de francois achin son gendre [de] charles / varri de charles truto et de plusieurs autres qui [ne?] signent 
j. ysambart pr. cure De Longueuil 

My translation of the record (original lineation indicated by /):

The year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and thirty three [...] / 30 March was interred in the cemetery of this parish The body of / francoise petit, widow of late Francois seguin Dit Laderoute approximately / ninety years old, died yesterday, after having received [the?] / [sacrament of] reconciliation and extreme unction, in the presence of jeanne seguin, pate / notre daughter and son[-in-law] of the deceased, of francois achin her son-in-law [of] charles / varri of charles truto and of many others who did [not?] sign [their names] 
j. ysambart [priest of] Longueuil 

Father Ysambart noted that Jeanne was about 90 years old at her death, but she was more likely about 77 years old.

An epidemic raged in the St. Lawrence valley, including Longueuil, in 1733. [6] Many burial records in St-Antoine-de-Padoue’s sacramental register for that year indicate “picote”, aka “variole” (smallpox), as the cause of death for its parishioners, but Jeanne’s burial record does not mention this disease.

Sources:

1. René Jetté, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles du Québec (Montréal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1983), 1041. Jeanne’s age (25) on the 1681 census of New France gives her an approximate year of birth of 1656.

2. Peter J. Gagné, King’s Daughters and Founding Mothers: The Filles du Roi, 1663-1673, 2 vols. (Pawtucket, Rhode Island: Quintin Publications, 2001), 2: 451.

3. Jetté, Dictionnaire, 1041.

4. “Dictionnaire”, database, Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) (http://www.genealogie.umontreal.ca : accessed 7 December 2016), Francois Seguin Laderoute – Jeanne Petit, Famille, no. 4015.

5. St-Antoine-de-Padoue (Longueuil, Quebec), parish register, 1731-1767, page no., if any, illegible, recto, entry no. S.18 (1733), Françoise Petit (sic) burial, 30 March 1733; St-Antoine-de-Padoue parish; digital images, “Québec, registres paroissiaux catholiques, 1621-1979”, FamilySearch.org (https://familysearch.org/ : accessed 7 December 2016).

6. Rénald Lessard, Au temps de la petite vérole: La médecine au Canada aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Québec: Septentrion, 2012), 34.

Copyright © 2017, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Those Places Thursday: Our Maple Street Home

296 Maple Street North – the only home my parents owned.

When I was growing up, my parents lived in various rented apartments or duplexes in the town where I was born, Timmins, Ontario. Some of these places were small like the upstairs apartment on Lincoln Avenue when I was a few months old and where Mom had to share the clothes washer in the basement. Other places were spacious like the three-bedroom duplex on Main Street when I was a young teenager. This house had a main floor, an upstairs, and a nice, cool basement, where I used to listen to my collection of 45s during the summers.

One evening in late winter of 1972, my parents and I went to see a house they were thinking of buying. It was newly built, awaiting its first buyers. We walked in the front door into a large living room with a roomy kitchen beyond it. There were three bedrooms and a bathroom on the main floor and a small back entrance with stairs that led to an unfinished basement. From the back bedroom window, I saw a large yard. To my amazement, I realized that the snow in the yard was almost as high as the window!

My parents bought this house at 296 Maple Street North and we moved in March 1972, 45 years ago this month. Since it was winter, Dad asked one of his friends who had a front-end loader to ‘shovel’ our backyard. Mom and Dad got the front bedroom, I got the middle bedroom (but no view because my window faced the house next door) and my sister and baby brother shared the back bedroom.

Mom and Dad in our living room, New Year's Eve, 1973

It was exciting to move to a brand new house that was all ours, but there were some adjustments to make. For example, instead of belonging to our parish church on Commercial Avenue, we were now parishioners of the Cathedral in downtown. My sister Marianne changed elementary schools, but I opted to stay at my old school, St-Gérard. However, that decision meant I needed to take a city bus to get to the other side of town for school. There were only three months left in my Grade 8, so it was a small price to pay, and I got to be with my friends and teachers until the end of the school year.

Marianne and Raymond in our kitchen, ca 1974

In time, Dad made improvements to our house. He and friends built a one-car garage in the backyard (it was handy to the back lane) one summer. He also finished the basement with a family room (panelled in fake knotty pine, no less) and a workshop for himself.

Raymond in the front yard next to the evergreen Dad planted, 1974

Other improvements included putting up a white picket fence around the front yard and planting a small evergreen tree in the yard. (Mom used to say, “We planted that tree when Raymond was three.”) For her part, Mom, who loved wallpaper, papered the kitchen (her favorite patterns included ivy), parts of the living room and our bedrooms. She also put in green-patterned wall-to-wall carpeting in the kitchen, because Dad didn’t like the cold linoleum floor when he got up early in the mornings.

Cementing part of the backyard, summer of 1977

One winter, Dad decided he had enough of paying high costs in heating, so he got a back issue of Popular Mechanics (Dad was a big reader of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines) from the public library. From the instructions in the magazine article, Dad fabricated a wood-burning stove using sheet steel. Since he was a welder by trade, it was a do-able project for him. He ran a line through the stove that fed the water heater, which heated our home’s hot water. In fact, that wood stove heated our house so efficiently that Ontario Hydro came to our house one day to see if something was wrong, because our bills were so low. One look at that wood stove convinced the hydro fellow that we had a legitimate heat source for our home.

Front yard, winter 1978. Dad was a CB enthusiast and he
installed a tower in the backyard (seen above the roof). 

We lived on Maple Street from 1972 until the summer of 1979. That year, we moved to British Columbia when Dad decided to give up working as a welder and start a road-building business with his younger brother Ray.

In May 2014, my husband, our son and I visited Timmins. I wanted to see the places where I lived, so one day we drove to as many of the homes that I could remember. The first house we drove by was 296 Maple Street North. It looked about the same as it did when I lived there.

Our old house (front yard), 2014

The fence in the front yard was gone, though, and there was brick siding on the house and a new living room window. The backyard had a fence, but Dad’s garage was still there. By the way, that little evergreen sure grew, didn’t it?

Our old house (back yard), 2014

Copyright © 2017, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Famous Relatives: Justin Trudeau

Recently, I was looking for my 6x great-grandmother Barbe Cartier’s burial record. When I did a Google search for other details about her life, I came across Justin Trudeau and his family tree. I noticed the surnames Lalonde and Bray in his ancestry and decided to see if they tied in with my ancestors by those names. They did.

Here is a tree showing how Justin Trudeau, the 23rd and current Prime Minister of Canada, is my sixth cousin once removed through our common ancestor Marie Barbe Dazé, younger daughter of Barbe Cartier (1678-1705).

Copyright © 2017, 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.

Tombstone Tuesday: Murray Grozelle

Murray Grozelle is my maternal fourth cousin two times removed. Our common ancestors are Joseph Prosper Desgroseilliers (1743-1795/1800) and his wife Charlotte Nunegand dite Beaurosier (1754-1835).

The sixth child of Gilbert and Mary (O’Connor) Grozelle, Murray was born on 20 April 1923 in Esther, Alberta. [1] He had five older siblings: Ruth, Carmen, Thelma, Sylvia and Melvin.

Murray died on 30 August 1981 in Cottonwoods Extended Care at Kelowna General Hospital in Kelowna, British Columbia. [2] He was buried on 1 September 1981 in Kelowna Memorial Park Cemetery in Kelowna. [3]

His gravemarker reads:

In Memory Of

Murray R.J. Grozelle

1923 – 1981

Murray’s father and mother predeceased him in 1953 and in 1971, respectively. Murray shares his mother Mary’s plot.

Graves of Gilbert (left), Mary (right), and Murray (lower right)

My husband and I took these photographs during our recent visit to Kelowna, when we attended the Kelowna & District Genealogical Society’s conference in September 2016.

Sources:

1. “Genealogy – General Search”, digital images, BC Archives (http://search-collections.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/Genealogy : accessed 6 July 2016), entry for Murray Randolph Joseph Grozelle (written as Murray Randolph Joseph Grozelle, indexed as Murray R J Grozelle), 30 August 1981, death registration no. 1981-09-014247.

2. “Genealogy – General Search”, digital images, BC Archives (http://search-collections.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/Genealogy : accessed 6 July 2016), entry for Murray Randolph Joseph Grozelle, 30 August 1981.

3. “Genealogy – General Search”, digital images, BC Archives (http://search-collections.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/Genealogy : accessed 6 July 2016), entry for Murray Randolph Joseph Grozelle, 30 August 1981. Also, Memorial Park Cemetery, City of Kelowna, database (http://www.kelowna.ca/CM/Page270.aspx : accessed 21 September 2016), entry for Murray R.J. Grozelle, death 30 August 1981, plot B 6 62 81.

Copyright © 2016, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Darlene Belair (1935-2016)

Aunt Darlene – Dad’s sister – died early this morning in hospital in Peterborough, Ontario, surrounded by her loved ones. She had been unwell for the last few years with multiple health issues, including COPD, diabetes, and dementia.

Darlene was the youngest surviving child of Fred and Julie (Vanasse) Belair. Born “Marie Lilianne Darleen” on 18 October 1935, Darlene had three older siblings: Maurice (my father), Jeanne (Joan), and Raymond (Ray).

Darlene (back, right) with her parents and brothers and sister, 1956

Although born in Cochrane in northern Ontario, the Belair family lived in nearby Fauquier, where my grandparents relocated from southern Ontario during the Depression. Later, they moved to Timmins, where Darlene and her brother Ray went to elementary school. Later still, Darlene was educated at Académie Sainte-Marie in Haileybury, Ontario, a boarding and day school for girls run by an order of nuns.

After she moved to Peterborough in the early 1960s, Darlene worked at various jobs, including managing a convenience store and owning and operating a taxi cab in the 1980s. She was also a factory worker at Western Clock Company (Westclox) and at Outboard Marine Corporation.

Darlene with her great-nephew Nicholas, 2014

I’m glad that I had a chance to see my Aunt a couple of years ago when my husband and our son visited my home province of Ontario. I was happy to be with Darlene once again, because I always felt that she and Dad were a lot alike – they resembled each other, were hard workers, loved animals, and both had a sense of humor and loved to laugh.

Rest in peace, tante Darlene.

Copyright © 2016, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Church Record Sunday: Angélique Desautels’ 1699 Baptism Record

With Christmas just one week away, I searched my ancestor database for an ancestor who was born on Christmas Day. The closest I got, though, were two ancestors who were baptised on December 25th: Angélique Desautels (1699-1780) and Augustin Rochon (1728-1805).

I wrote about Augustin, my paternal 6x great-grandfather, two years ago; see 52 Ancestors: #52 Augustin Rochon, born on Christmas Eve. Today, I’m featuring Angélique Desautels, ancestor no. 965, my maternal 7x great-grandmother.

Eldest child of Pierre Desautels dit Lapointe and his wife Thérèse-Angélique Thuillier, Angélique was born on 24 December 1699, eleven months after her parents’ marriage in Montreal. [1] She was likely a premature baby or appeared in danger of dying, because she was baptised without delay at home by her paternal grandfather Pierre Desautels. [2]

Newborn Angélique survived and was baptised the next day on Christmas in Notre-Dame church in Montreal. Father R.C. de Breslay, a French-born Sulpician and Notre-Dame’s parish priest, administered the Sacrament. [3] In attendance at the ceremony were Angélique’s father Pierre and her godparents Pierre Desautels (her paternal grandfather) and Jeanne Bernard [sic] (her maternal grandmother). [4] Of those three, only Pierre, grand-père, declared he could sign his name, which he did. (His signature appears just before that of the priest, in the second image below.)

Angélique Desautels' 1699 baptism record (FamilySearch)

My transcription of Angélique’s baptism record, above (original lineation indicated by / ):

Le vinq cinquième Décembre mil six cent / quatre vinq dix neuf les ceremonies du baptême / ont étés supplies a Angelique fille de pierre / Desautels et d’Angelique Thuillier [sa femme] née / et ondoiée a la maison par pierre Desautels grand- / pere [du dit] enfant le vinq quatrieme des mois / et an [le dit] grand pere a servi de parein aux ceremonies / La mareine Jeanne Benard femme de Jacques Thuillier / le pere et la mareine ont declaré ne savoir signer / de ce interpollés suivant l’ordonnance / 
[signed] P desautels / R C De Breslay [prêtre] faisant / les fonctions curiales

My translation of the record (original lineation indicated by / ):

The twenty fifth December one thousand six hundred / ninety six the ceremonies of baptism /  were substituted to Angelique daughter of pierre / Desautels and of Angelique Thuillier [his wife] born / and [provisionally] baptised at home by pierre Desautels grand- / father [of said] child the twenty fourth of the month / and year [the said] grand father has served as godfather at the ceremonies / The godmother Jeanne Benard wife of Jacques Thuillier / the father and the godmother having declared they could not sign [their names] / added to [the text] following the regulation /  
[signed] P desautels / R C De Breslay [priest] performing / the parish functions

In January 1720, Angélique married Simon Sicard, a miller, by whom she had eleven children. Angélique died on 13 September 1780 in Sault-au-Récollet, in present-day Montreal. [5]

Sources:

1. René Jetté, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles du Québec (Montréal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1983), 338.

2. Notre-Dame-de-Montréal (Montreal, Quebec), parish register, 1642-1699, no page no., no entry no. (1699), Angelique Desautels baptism, 25 December 1699; Notre-Dame-de-Montréal parish; digital images, “Quebec, Catholic Parish Registers, 1621-1979”, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ : accessed 9 December 2016).

3. E. A. Chard, “Breslay, René-Charles de”, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 2, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003– (http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/breslay_rene_charles_de_2E.html : accessed 9 December 2016).

4. Notre-Dame-de-Montréal, parish register, 1642-1699, Angelique Desautels baptism, 25 December 1699.

5. “Dictionnaire”, database, Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) (http://www.genealogie.umontreal.ca : accessed 9 December 2016), Marie Angelique Therese Desautels Lapointe, Individu no. 24106.

Copyright © 2016, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Tombstone Tuesday: Mary (O’Connor) Grozelle

Mary Grozelle was the wife of Gilbert Grozelle, a distant maternal cousin of mine. Daughter of James and Catherine (McNearney) O’Connor, Mary was born on 17 October 1885 in Victoria Road, Victoria County, Ontario. [1]

Mary and Gilbert married in 1905 and had six children: Ruth, Carmen, Thelma, Sylvia, Melvin and Murray. Mary died on 15 November 1971 in Kelowna, British Columbia. [2]

Her gravemarker reads:

Mary R. Grozelle

In Loving Memory

1885 – 1971

Gilbert died in 1953. He and Mary are interred next to each other in Memorial Park Cemetery, Kelowna, while son Murray shares his mother’s plot. [3]

Graves of Gilbert (left), Mary (right), and Murray (lower right)

My husband and I took these photographs during our visit to Kelowna, when we attended the Kelowna & District Genealogical Society’s conference in September 2016.

Sources:

1. “Genealogy – General Search”, digital images, BC Archives (http://search-collections.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/Genealogy : accessed 28 September 2016), entry for Thelma Mary Grittner [sic], 19 January 1959, death registration no. 1959-09-001632. Thelma’s mother Mary (O’Connor) Grozelle was the informant.

2. “Genealogy – General Search”, digital images, BC Archives (http://search-collections.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/Genealogy : accessed 6 July 2016), entry for Mary Beatrice Grozelle, 15 November 1971, death registration no. 1971-09-016099.

3. Memorial Park Cemetery, City of Kelowna, database (http://www.kelowna.ca/CM/Page270.aspx : accessed 21 September 2016), entry for Mary Beatrice Grozelle [sic], death 18 November 1971, plot B 6 62 81.

Copyright © 2016, Yvonne Demoskoff.