Making Headway on the Chouinard and Lague Family Lines

Well, it has been a little over a month since I my post to this blog and what a busy month it has been. Since my last post I have added in excess of 200 more ancestors to the family tree. While that is a large number by itself, now think about each person the events of that person's life. For example, people are born, baptized, work, marry, die and are buried. I have made every effort to identify these events and others for each person when that information is available and supported by evidence.

I have spent the majority of my time working on the Chouinard family line and also the Lague family line. While I still continue to locate church records for the Chouinard line, I can take it back to Gatien Chouinard who is believed to have been born in 1590 in Nouzilly, France. The Lague line is just as extensive as the Chouinard line, but I still have lots of records to retrieve from the church records that are available online. it will likely take me another month to finish this line. At that time I hope to proceed with the Mageau line.

Today, was a great day for me. The Vermont State Archived emailed me the index record for Joseph P. Lemay's marriage for Marie Alphosine Moquin. I have been hunting fo this one record for several months now.

This Lemay ancestor would be the my mother's and her siblings great grandfather on their mother's side.


If anyone is actually reading this, I am in need of pictures for any relatives or deceased ancestors that you  might have. I do not need/want originals, but I would like digital pictures to that I can add them to my family tree software. If you can help with that or by providing copies of original documents, please email me at modoc31@gmail.com

Until next time,
Keith

And the work continues!

Good day to everyone, I wanted to take a few minutes to post an update and what an update it is. I have been working for the last few weeks with Elaine LaRoche from Canada and she has been doing an outstanding job! She has been able to locate primary (original) sources that prove when our ancestors were born, baptized, married, and died. When those records have been lacking I have been using secondary sources that are scholarly in nature and derived from the original documents.

Research throughout the month of January has focused primarily on the Lemay family line and that work will continue for another week or two. At which time I should be finished and will move over to either the Camerlin or Mageau lines. For the time being my research will focus on our French-Canadian and Acadian ancestors for no other reason than I have help from Elaine and records are readily available.

Interesting facts that I have found regarding our Lemay ancestors:
- Lemay can and has been spelled many ways throughout history - Lemee, Lemai, Lemai dit Poudrier, Lemay dit Poudrier, and Lemay.
- The "dit Poudrier" was an add-on name to distinguish some of our early ancestors as "powder makers" the dit name was keep for many generations afterward.
- The earliest Lemay in Canada was Michel Lemay. He originated from France at the age of 27. The following is Michel Lemay's Baptismal record.

- In 1829, the Soly (Solie) family married into the Lemay family. Following the Soly line back to 1744 we find Laurent Soly. He was possibly of Spanish decent, but he found himself in Acadia (modern day Nova Scotia) as a soldier in Swiss Karrer Regiment. In December 1744 he and two other men lead a bloodless mutiny at Ft. Louisbourg to demand better treatment and rations from the french for whom they were employed by.
- The family tree thus far goes 14 generations back from my son, all the way back to Michel Lemay's parents in France.
- Every few generations there twins born in the Lemay line.

Well, that is my update for now. If you wish to receive a copy of your portion of the family tree, please email me at modoc31@gmail.com.

Warmest regards,
Keith Mageau

Happy New Year!

Well, the past month or so has seen little little in the way of progress on the ancestry hunt war front, but things have changed drastically in the last week.

Several months ago I posted a request for assistance on Ancestry.com regarding the Lemay family line. It wasn't until Dec 31st that I finally got a reply that someone was able to help. This someone, who is appearing more and more like a godsend happens to have, both Lemay and Mageau lineage as well. Not sure how we are connected, but somehow I am sure there is a common ancestor. The best part, she lives in Ontario and is willing to search for and translate documents for me.

In the last few days she has sent me, via email, several Baptismal records for:
- Joseph William Lemay
- Marie Jeanette Yvette lorette Lemay
- Marie Yvonne Lauretta Lemay

All three of these are the siblings of Joseph A. Lemay (My Great Grandfather) and the children of Joseph P. Lemay and Marie Alphonsine Lemay (Moquin)

I also received the baptismal record for Ovila Mageau. Guess what? That's not his full name! His full baptismal name happens to be - Charles Joseph Avila Majeau. Looks like it was he or maybe his wife Elizabeth Mary-Louise Mageau (Camerlin) that changed the "J" to a "G" in Mageau.

Each day sees new evidence with translations being sent to me from Canada. These new developments have re-motivated me to continue on. So much so that I purchased semi-professional genealogy software and have been inputting my data (with sources when known).

Now all I need is a year's subscription to ancestry.com's worldwide access, but the cost is prohibitive right now. Oh well, I will press on without!

Until next time,
Keith