Genealogy Hedgecoe-McKenna

Lots to do!

Posting Member: Jenn
Topic: More information
Family Name Associations: Sanguirou, Gautier, Gauthier, McKenna, O’Neill
Location: Home
Mood: It’s a PA Day, Mildly crazed.

So, success!  There are these books called Histoire des Canadiens Francais by Benjamin Sulte.  They’re on  http://archive.org/  thank all that’s holy, because getting a hold of these anywhere else would be a nightmare.  So, first off, the census…

I even highlighted our Gautiers for ya’ll 🙂
That’s 1861, the Fife of Verdun.
That is the only occurrence in the entire series of books that I’ve been able to locate Pierre and his family within.  There are lots of other Gautier families, but we know there were approximately 14 with the name who arrived here during the beginning of immigration.

Again, we’re sending out love and thanks out to cousin Joan, who is on a roll with the discoveries lately!  The 1861 Canadian Census for Quebec for Thomas McKenna and Bridget O’Neill has been discovered – We were looking in Chicago, when all along they were right next door.  On that census is Alice O’Neill, Bridget’s younger sister before her marriage to Patrick Mullen.  As well there is a young child, a daughter of 2 years who has Infantile Cholera.  The record is horrible to read to start with, but Ancestry claims the transcription M A for the girl’s initials.
First off, Jake’s been saying for years that Thomas Edward wasn’t the first McKenna child.  Thomas and Bridget were married in 1857 and rather faithfully have a child every two years or so, and Thomas Edward was born in 1861 although we have never found an actual birth record.

I located a record for Margaret Ann McKenna, her death occurred 30 Aug 1860 and she was 13 months of age, leading us to believe she was born in Jul 1859.  The biggest problem?
The Census was taken 14 Jan 1861.
This suggests there was more than one daughter born before the first son, Thomas Edward, who’s initials were M A.
And admittedly, they had two other daughters, Margaret Ann Josephine who died in infancy, and Mary Alice who survived.  M A seems to be a theme, and given Thomas’s mother was Margaret Moynaugh and Bridget’s mother was Mary O’Kane, they followed well along with Irish naming traditions.
Now it’s just a matter of finding the records to back any of this up… Or disprove that there could have been two other infants that we haven’t located in 10 years.  My frustration with Notre Dame des Neiges knows no bounds at this point…  How could you loose so many records?  How can they be so wrong?
These infant deaths definitely do suggest that Thomas would have bought this plot as early as 1861.  My heart breaks for their frequent loss of children.

I’m about to go check out old screen captures of the Gautier association, and run herd on the gaggle of children that have infested my residence!  Busy weekend coming up, we’ll be in touch.

Jenn
Always one for making things pretty, Jenn is our resident artist. Métis, British Home Child Descendant, family historian and genealogist, she is always looking into some new branch of research and encourages historical preservation and education.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Powered by: Wordpress