Origins
When I was growing up, my dad always said we were German. As it turns out, that's not true. While I do have a healthy dose of German ancestry, I am also (in no particular order) English, Scottish, Fresian, Irish, Native American, and French. My roots in the US run deep in almost all of my family lines. The most recent arrivals were the Adens. They came in 1870 from Germany, but were ethnic Fresians.
My earliest immigrant ancestors, though, were the French. I believe Louis Hébert to be the first of those. One of my ancestors, he and his wife are mentioned in the Canadian Encyclopedia: "Louis Hébert visited Canada three times between 1604 and 1613 with the expeditions of Pierre Degua de Monts, Samuel de Champlain, and Jean de Beincourt de Pourtrincourt. In 1617 he decided to settle in Québec City with his wife and three children. He was ceded 10 arpents of land near the site of the present cathedral of Québec, and his family is renowned for having been the first to cultivate land in Canada.His wife, Marie Rollet, was the first Frenchwoman to scratch the soil of New France. It is said that, thanks to his medical knowledge among other reasons, Hébert was on good terms with the native people."
Next Saturday, I'm headed to Québec to do some research with my daughter Jennifer. We're hoping to find more information about our French-Canadian ancestors. I want to see the Louis Hébert monument. (Do we look alike?)
These brave French men and women were travelers. They were explorers. They were adventurers. That means records of their lives can pop up almost anywhere. Not only did they leave the security of a place like France, they continued to move to even more remote locations once in Nouvelle-France (New France), eventually arriving in "Illinois Country" or, as they called it, "Pays des Illinois" which was part of "Louisiane".
Primarily, we will be researching in Montréal and Québec City. But as I said, our ancestors were mobile. They lived in little villages all along the St. Lawrence River. Places like Batiscan, Cap-Santé, Lotbinière, Trois-Rivières, and Verchères to name a few. We hope to drive through these towns, get out and have a look around, and imagine what life was like 350-400 years ago.
I want to see what my ancestors saw. I know things have changed, but I'm really hoping we can get a feel for the place. We can't travel back in time, but as my daughter Jennifer and I agreed, it will be fun just to go somewhere and hear people speaking French, the language of our people, or at least some of them.
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