Date: 6/10/2002 at 15:14:02
In Response To: Re: LaBrunes in Jefferson twp 
(Michael Cushing)
Re: LaBrunes in Jefferson twp
LABRUNE, DOOLEY, MAXWELL, HOGAN
Posted By: Sydney R. Robertson (email) In Response To: Re: LaBrunes in Jefferson twp
Date: 6/10/2002 at 15:14:02
(Michael Cushing)
Dear Mike:
There is, unfortunately, a long answer to your question. First, let me give you a link to a site which is helpful for French and French Canadian Genealogy. It is called FrancoGene and its URL is: http://www.francogene.com/. It will give you some basic information, lead you to the French GenWeb site, etc. You will need to be able to work in the French language. For some things, one of the on-line translators will work (I use Babel Fish on AltaVista). But I also have a resident translator who has been invaluable in helping with queries, postings, records, etc. The most important thing is to get a link back to a specific place in France, otherwise you are looking for a needle in a haystack.
the best way I know to descibe this is to give you an example from my search. When I started to try to connect my ancestors back to Canada, I knew the following; Charles VOLIN and Mary BOURNIER were born in Canada in the early 1800's and came with their nine children to Dubuque County, Iowa in about 1848. The VOLIN surname appeared as VOLEN, VALIN, VALLIN, etc. I ultimately found that it was originally VALIN. In the same way I found that Mary was really Marie Apolline BERNIER. After much searching in Canadian Genealogical Records (which are excellent, by the way) I began to discover that almost every surname had an original descendant who came to New France and that there were extremely good records on who these people were. So I knew that Charles was probably descended from Nicolas VALIN before I knew anything about Charles. Marie was more problematic, since she had the two most common names in French Canada. It later turned out that she is doubly descended from Jacques BERNIER dit Jean de Paris. You will run across these "dit names" in France, also. They are typically explained as "known as". Because many of the names were the same and literacy was not high, place linked and more simple names were substituted. I ultimately traced Charles and Marie back to French Canada through an obituary of one of their children, who died in Rapid City, South Dakota, and it was the only item of many. many that mentioned anything about a place. It said that their daughter Adrienne was born in Hyacinthe, Canada. That led me to the town of St-Hyacinthe where I found lots of VALIN's, but no Charles and Marie. But I found a Repertorie of Marriages for The Richelieu River Valley, which is where St-Hyacinthe is. I found Charles' and Marie's marriage in October of 1830 in the Parish of St-Damase, which is in St-Hyacinthe County. At that point, things began to fall into place, although I have yet to find the baptismal records for most of their children since they are not in the obvious (at least, I thought)Parishes of St-Cesaire (where two of the children were baptized), St-Damase or St-Hyacinthe. The important point is that I do not think I would have found anything if I did not have that partial hint in the obituary. In the case of France, you really need to know what Departement (essentially a county) they are from. When you try to search on the French archives, that is the first thing you need to know. If you have the town or parish, there is a very useful tool that will tell you what Departement they are in. However, some parish names are very popular (Notre Dame du Rosaire,Sacre Coeur etc. and they are going to be in many places. Good luck. Let me know if I can help.
Syd Robertson
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