Links Family History Blog

A Complete Surprise. In building out The French Side of my family tree, there was a knowledge gap around the maternal ancestors of my 2nd great-grandmother Marie Olivine Trial (grandmother of my maternal grandfather). This was due to the fact that her mother died shortly after Olivine was born, Olivine being raised by her father and step-mother. For the longest time, all I knew was Olivine's mother's name: Hermine Champagne .  The surviving records about Hermine Champagne were few and far between. And because she had died so early in life, no family lore from her side of the family survived. So it came as a complete surprise to me one day to discover that: Hermine Champagne was a direct descendant of founding Acadian settlers at Port Royal-Annapolis Royal in what is now the Canadian province of Nova Scotia;  some of her family had survived the Great Deportation of 1755 and re-settled in Québec years later; and she was the last in my direct family line to bear the Acadian nam

Les Filles du Roi In an earlier post,  The French Side: Marie Catherine Levesque , I mentioned several Filles du Roi (King's Daughters) in the direct paternal and maternal family lines of my 2nd great-grandmother, Marie Catherine Levesque (see also Levesque and Michaud on blog page  The French Side ). Filles du Roi were the more than 700 courageous female pioneers who, between the years of 1663 and 1673, left everything and everyone they knew in France to cross a vast ocean during a war with Britain and settle in a dangerous new French colony.  But these fearless women did it, and became the progenitors of a vast number of Canadians possessing French heritage. VIDEO: Family Line Founder - Jeanne Marguerite Chevalier (1645-1716) Figure 1: Lineage of Jeanne Chevalier to Marie Catherine Levesque Today, with the help of Lisa Elvin-Staltari and her YouTube channel,  Have Roots, Will Travel,  I pay tribute to Jeanne Marguerite Chevalier : Fille du Roi, Québec pioneer, family line founde

What's Inside Ancestry.ca's New Pro Tools ? About two weeks ago I subscribed to Ancestry.ca's newly-launched (at least, in Canada) Pro Tools add-on membership. Before subscribing, I found it frustratingly hard to find information about what features were included in the monthly subscription, so I decided to take the plunge and find out.  Although I wasn't quite sure what I was signing up for, I have been pleasantly surprised by how much I have been using some of the Pro Tools features. But for those of you who want to know more before diving in, here's an overview of what you get for your (at time of writing) $12.99 / month (Canadian $) Ancestry.ca Pro Tools subscription. Figure 1: Inside Ancestry.ca's Pro Tools - A Snip from my Dashboard Note:  As I understand it, currently the only requirement for subscribing to the Pro Tools add-on membership is having an active paid Ancestry.ca membership -- Pro Tools is independent of your Ancestry.ca membership level. Disc

Surrounding My Brick-Wall Ancestors. In an earlier post, Cole FANs: Joshua Levi Cole , I introduced the youngest child of my brick-wall ancestors - and founding Canadian Cole family members - Henry "Harry" Cole (Abt. 1790-1849) and his spouse Elizabeth "Eliza" Churchill (Abt. 1790-1875). Now meet Joshua's older sister, Mary Jane Cole  Orr. In researching Joshua as part of my F-A-N (Friends-Associates-Neighbours) research strategy for his parents, I uncovered a tantalizing clue to his mother's whereabouts in the 1870s (see Author's Notes [1] below). But I also discovered that he didn't go alone when he moved to Medonte Township in Simcoe County: he relocated with an older sister and her family.  Encouraged by this early success in my FAN strategy, and eager to find more clues about this generation of the Cole family, I turned my attention to Joshua's close associate - his sister Mary Jane  Cole  Orr. Mary Jane Cole  Orr (1822-1901). Given the int