Posting Member: Jenn
Topic: It’s late! Website updates and more…
Family Name Associations: Bentley and Howard, Canuel, Kelley, Darling, Given and more
Location: Home 🙂
Mood: Sleepy!
It’s been crazy around here with the updates, so I’m just going to run through what’s happening and then try to actually get some sleep tonight!
First off, Jake and I have been updating the Heraldry section of the website… Fun new family information for Boylan, Bush, Downey, Carr, Farley, Hume, Hutton, Ireland, Leduc, Lindsay, Masterson, McGillen, Morris, O’Kane, Sutherland, Hogan, Doherty, Brisebois, Todd, Pool, Calvert, Dean, Metz, Wyatt, Given, Hamilton, Skaggs and more…. Woohoo! A few tartans and new crests were added too, but we’ll continue to plug away at all that as we can.
Secondly, Cousin Marilyn – The awesome super powered genealogist that she is, found another child of Margaret Alice Bentley and Ernest Howard… So we’ve added Grace Philomene to our list of cousins. It also ties in nicely with family naming, as Ernest Howard’s mother is Philomene Boudre who we have such a hard time finding out more about due to the misspelling of her name all the time!
Next… Huge additions to our French Canadian families over the last two weeks. Updates in the Canuel tree especially. We’ve actually discovered a bit of a puzzle that’s got everyone talking, yet again, about the origins of Angus Campbell – Auguste Canuel.
By now, most of the researchers involved with the Canuel tree have heard the family stories… Auguste was a trapper, turned boarding house owner, turned Engineer for the Mines in Timmins. Everyone has suggested he’s Native Canadian of some sort, the majority of family stories claim Mi’kmaq. However, there’s NO proof of this heritage. If anything, we’ve disproved the possibility by discovering his parents and siblings.
Or did we?
Angus decidedly left his family and most of his heritage behind in Quebec when he relocated in Ontario. It took us years to figure out we weren’t Scottish immigrants who came in through Quebec, although we were always told there was a native connection, we’ve never been able to figure out how. Although the Canuel’s have distant notes of Metis heritage, nothing seems to claim anything beyond French Canadian ancestors. In the last two weeks we’ve begun to question exactly who Angus’s parents were, and we’ve come to the conclusion that we’re probably further from answers than ever before.
Jules Canuel and Modeste Dube married in 1847, and first appear on the 1850 Census with Jule’s mother, Madeleine Larrivee. There’s several of Jules’ siblings listed, looking like they’re his children – Which caused vast amounts of confusion for us until we realized the names and dates.
It’s important to note in 1850 they have no children of their own despite being married for 3 years. However, Jules’ brother, Joseph Octave DOES have 3 children. He’s also apparently widowed and we have no clues as to the identity of his wife.
We’re beginning to believe that Joseph Octave died before 1860, and that children Caroline, Pierre and Hippolyte were never Modest and Jules’ biological children, but rather adopted.
Along comes Auguste. Who’s child was he? Did Modeste and Jules adopt all their children? Records claim Auguste was baptized as their child, but then, records claim the same for Pierre… We’re still hunting for proof of Joseph Octave’s death, or Caroline’s birth. A mystery all round.
The Canuel tree is a bit of a mess, as we’ve added and removed kids and shuffled people around trying to make heads or tails out of this information. We will have more to add as we learn it!
We’ve also made progress with entering a lot of information on the Fille de Roi, the original women who came from France and married soldiers for the most part, forming the basis of the colony here in Canada as far back as the 1600s. We added information as well about our ancestor, John Darling of Permaquid, Maine, including how his daughter Johanna Darling/Dollen Kelley and her daughter Mary Kelley were captured by Abernaki and sold into slavery, resulting in their arrival in Quebec and ultimately, becoming a part of our ancestry!
We have more coming about the Lachine Massacre, and the Fille du Roi Ancestors in general… So much to keep us busy with!
We also made progress with the Given line in the US this week, we’re focusing on Elizabeth Graham and James Given’s line, trying to figure out the Hamilton connection for all those boys named John Hamilton! Both the Berry and the Given line seem to be hording their secrets when it comes to this connection, so we’ll add information as we uncover it.
Annnnd… That’s everything I can think of for tonight! I’ve run out of sticky notes, so I think I covered everything we’ve been working at. This next week for us is going to be busy off the genealogy front. We hope each and every one of you is happy, healthy and enjoying the spring thaw! We look forward to chatting with you all soon 🙂
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