Késsinnimek - Roots - Racines

MAKING THE CONNECTION
by Louise Dubrule

It has been a pleasure to read about the results that some of the readers of this publication have had in researching their roots. It would seem that the older we get, the more important it is to leave a history of lineage to our children and grandchildren. If I have one bit of advice to those who wish to engage in this fascinating effort, it is this: please, above all, write everything down. Even if you have no interest in tracing your family right now, chances are that someone, a generation or two down the line, will be asking questions that you could answer.

I have two examples to offer. My mother’s family names go back only to her grandfather Thomas Levesque who married Madeline Bouchard...no dates or locations. Her mother, Felixcine Delaire, was believed to have Native American heritage (Cree?) but it wasn’t mentioned in polite company at that time. Nevertheless, the photos lend credence to the idea. Members of the Levesque family have been accused of being stubborn and strong-willed, but one aunt insisted that there was a Scottish bride named Scholastica who brought that trait to the family. How she fits into the puzzle we’ll never know.

In my husband’s family, we’ve hit a real snag with the Dubrule family. We’ve known about his great grandfather, Jean Baptiste, who wrote his last name DuBrule, but we have no idea of dates or birthplace. Efforts to place him in Quebec history have been fruitless, leading us to think that perhaps the family emigrated to the United States from elsewhere. We were able to find his grave in Winooski, Vermont, but not that of his son Joseph, (my husband’s grandfather) even though his death is registered in the parish records.

The same thing goes with photographs. I was fortunate enough to have my mother’s old black and white snapshots dating back to 1918, and I’m ever grateful that she put the names and dates on them. What little bits of history they are! We’ve been able to collect some from my husband’s family, but it was only in the last six months that a picture finally emerged of his grandfather. It had been in a box, forgotten, and untitled. We finally got a glimpse of the face of his grandmother, Catherine Byrnes from County Cork, Ireland.

On the other hand, my husband’s maternal family kept literally everything and we’ve been able to trace the Gravel line to the late 1500’s in France and the Guimond/Giguere connection to 1600. They are truly French from earliest times, and the Gravels were instrumental in the early days of Montreal and Quebec City. What a legacy!

When we embark on lineage search, we all hope to find a nobleman or other important personage. When I was a young girl, there was a book in our town library that fascinated me. It was entitled “Daughter of the Seine” and told the story of a brave lady named Cecile Philippon. My sister and I imagined that she was really an ancestor and that perhaps we had connections to the royal court of France. How different reality proved to be!

The first Philippon ancestor in North America arrived as a convict, exiled to New France for selling salt on the black market without paying duty to the crown. Actually, there were two Philippon brothers and they came with the name Philippon dit Picard. They were the children of Jean and Louise (Lugne de Flecher) of Amiens in the Picardy region.

Pierre was born in 1706 and we don’t know how old he was when he arrived in Quebec, but he made a life for himself and was married for the first time in 1737. His wife must have died soon after, for he married again in 1739 and this wife, Marie Angelique Amyot, bore him children, including our next ancestor Yves, born in 1763.

Yves managed to confuse the records by spelling his last name Philippon de Picard. Indeed, in the early records of the province of Quebec, Picard and Philippon are virtually interchangeable. A couple of years ago, in doing research, I came upon the site maintained by Jean Marie Picard of Quebec. Much to my surprise, I discovered that he and I shared the same ancestor in the first Pierre. The line split when one of Pierre’s other sons, also named Pierre, chose to keep only the Picard part of the name and gave birth to a whole new lineage.

Yves’ son, Joseph Antoine, was born in 1787 and married in 1817 in St. Marie. I had no idea why the family moved from Quebec until I found Jacques L’Heureux’s site that talked about the Old Canada Road from Quebec down through the area called La Beauce. It finally made sense that farming families would be seeking better, more fertile areas and open spaces to settle. However, Joseph Antoine didn’t follow the farming vocation but became the first school teacher in St. Marie instead. He drowned tragically in 1832 when only 45.

Hector Philippon, born in 1828 and married in St. Victor in 1856, had 9 children with wife Marie Adele Tardif Duchesnes. His namesake, Hector Victor Joseph who was born in 1856 was my grandfather. (To avoid confusion, he was called Victor by one and all. Only his birth and death records list him as Hector). As a young man he was dragged by a runaway horse and broke a dozen bones before he was able to disentangle himself from the traces. Far from doctors, he was wrapped tightly in sheeting strips and he spent the next several months in bed as he healed. All photos taken after that show him with bent legs and a cane. Still, he was a farmer and accomplished wood worker, and he fathered 2 children with his first wife Olivine Champagne, and another eight with his second wife (my grandmother) Delina Jolicoeur.

In 1919, Victor moved his wife and family to Berkshire, Vermont and established a farm there. They came to a new country where they didn’t know a soul nor a word of English. They left behind, in the rocky soil around Lac Megantic, a son named Honore who died of pneumonia at age 12. We can only guess at the courage it took to embark on such an adventure.

We continue to search sites and old records to fill in the blanks, and we are often stymied with closed doors or with offers of help...for a price. As we’ve come to realize, our roots are firmly buried in Canada, and we feel the connection with our past. We are a little bit of everything that has come before us.

Késsinnimek - Roots - Racines
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