I started tracing my dad's family tree a few months ago...I wasn't sure how to go about it but got a membership to Ancestry.com and jumped right in. I found that it's easiest to split the "branches" so I'm basically tracing my Great Great Grandfather's family and his wife's, my Great Great Grandmother's, family. Surprisingly the tree is very very clean...French Canadian all the way back to the immigration from France (except for my Grandfather who muddied up the water by marrying a full-fledged Swede...who also happens to be the "Elsie" in Alice and Elsie...and of course I'm joking, my Grandmother was an exceptionally wonderful woman!) And I have to mention that it's clean to the point that they appeared to have all been from the same two cities in France before immigrating to Quebec.... I wonder why?
Obviously it was very beautiful...this is a picture of "Old Quebec City"...which has been touted as being the Canadian version of our Ellis Island, probably why they all ended up there right?
The tricky part, I'm finding, is the change in the spelling of the last name when they then move from French speaking Quebec to the English speaking US. It becomes a "phonetic" spelling which makes it very hard to find death records. My Great Grandmother's name was Marie Celina Dauphinais according to her (French) birth record. Her Father's name was Godfroid Dauphinais and her Mother was Hermoine Rivard. Those names, on the tombstone inscription in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, now read Lena Duffina (Carpentier-married name), Godfrey Duffina and Ermie (Rivour) Duffina respectively. Lucky for me I found the cemetary in which they were buried and will be heading there to find the Duffina family (although I prefer the Dauphinais spelling). I will post pictures if I'm successful in finding the grave markers (I believe Lena's husband, my Great Grandfather, Hercules Carpentier is also buried there) but it sounds like there was some moving of buriel sites so I may not have any luck.
(Old Quebec City pictures nabbed from this website: http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotos-g155033-w3-Quebec_City_Quebec.html#1604479)
I keep teasing my sister that if I go back far enough in France we may find that we are related to King Louis or one of the King Henry's? Wouldn't that be something...better polish my crown!
I spoke with the cemetary "caretaker" on the phone Friday to get all the "rules" and to find out exactly where my ancestors are buried...he gave me very specific directions (and they're literally right inside the front gates) but we could NOT find this gravemarker...who in the world would miss this big thing? Anyway we drove around the entire cemetary...thank goodness it's small then on our way back to where the caretaker originally told us to look Tom spotted it! See the terra cotta colored marker on the left in the background...that one is also for the Auger's (my grandfather's brother Clifford Carpentier is buried there) so that's the one that caught our eye first...which is the excuse I'll use for missing this marker.
Buried by this marker is my Great Great Grandfather Joseph Esdras Auger and his wife Marienne Auger...their daughter Mary Ann (Auger) Carpentier and her husband (my Great Grandfather) Phillip Telesphore Carpentier. It appears as though someone was clearing away the growth from Joseph's and Marienne's headstones but Phillip's and Mary's were a little on the neglected side. Luckily I brought my gardening gloves and some tools to get those cleaned up a bit.
Because Tom had to work we didn't have time to take the 1 1/2 hour drive to Cannon City to find the Dauphinais (Duffina) graves but maybe next weekend.
I've decided to hire an electrician to hang a chandelier in my new studio (aka Shelby's bedroom) and it's a toss-up between these two....I'm leaning towards the top one...whatta ya think?
