Branching Out: Fabulous Filles Finds

Right before our 2019 #genchat on the Filles du Roi, I was gifted with the documents that proved that I, too, was a descendant of a Fille!  Like all wonderful French-Canadian marriage records, each step back to Louise Gargottin named the couples in the marriage and the parents of the bride and groom.  I knew that I had the beginnings of further research in my hands.

Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library. “Champlain’s map of New France 1632” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1850. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/a006b3a0-f8c3-0132-b212-58d385a7bbd0

Using the names on the documents that I had, I started looking them up in the Tanguay Collection on Ancestry (thanks to at-home access through my library the past couple of years), using the Tanguay as a finding aid.  The information on the Tanguay pointed me in the right direction to find baptism and marriage records on FamilySearch and Ancestry.  Often, I had to browse through records the old fashioned way, scrolling until I found what I was looking for.  With old handwriting and variable spelling, this was really the only way I could find the records!

At this point, I have found the following Filles du Roi:

• Catherine Barre (married Mathurin Chaille)
• Jeanne DeLaunay (married Pierre Guillet)
• Marguerite Ferron (married Guillaume Bertrand)
• Louise Gargottin (married Daniel Francois Perron dit Suire)
• Marie LeMaire (married Pierre Ratel)
• Catherine Pilliar (married Pierre Charron)
• Martine Taurey (married Nicolas Marcotte)
• Marguerite Vitry (married Jacques Desry)

In addition, I found two Filles a Marier so far!  Filles a Marier were predecessors to the Filles du Roi, but were not recruited to immigrate to French Canada by any program.  The Filles a Marier I discovered were:

• Francoise Grenier (married Noel Langlois)
• Judith Rigaud (married Francois LeMaistre)

My next step with these incredible women will be trying to discover their individual stories, such as: who were their parents? What ship brought them over?  At the very least, setting up a virtual cemetery in FindaGrave would be cool.

For the curious, you can find a list of the Filles du Roi here, and the Filles a Marier here.  Keep in mind that the spelling can vary!

Curious: Some of My Questions

Growing up, I always pestered my mom with endless questions about everything.  But I’ve found that this is a good quality for genealogists to have!  You never get an answer if you don’t ask the question.  So for this week’s #52Ancestors prompt of “Curious”, I decided to post some of my most burning questions, in no particular order:

• Who were George W. Colomy’s parents? FamilySearch says Daniel Colomy and Rebecca Pinkman, but the tick marks on the 1840 Census don’t seem to match up, and there are no solid sources to support this.
• After George W. Colomy changed his surname to Chesley, I’m sure he ended up marrying either Mary Jane Coleman or Sarah Van Wie and lived in Albany, NY.  Which George W. Chesley in Albany was he? And where did he actually end up?
• Why did Frederick French and Bertha Colomy divorce?  I found that they separated by 1903 and were divorced by the 1910 Census.  The local paper (the Lynn Item) is not online after 1899.
• How did Job R. White die, and where is he buried?  I know from family stories that he died in Florida.

Genealogy research is like a maze!
Courtesy Library of Congress.

• What town did Stanislaus Markoski come from? I haven’t even been able to find a passenger list for him.
• I want to find the passenger lists for Adam Valek and the rest of his family!  His Declaration of Intention states he doesn’t remember the name of the ship he came over on.
• What are the personal stories behind my Filles du Roi ancestors?  Since my post on Louise Gargottin, I have found several more Filles!
• Who are Levi Taunt’s parents?  I’ve found some candidates, but nothing definitive.
• Who are Anna Capernaum’s parents?  Online trees give some unsourced parents; again, nothing definitive.

• Where was Altie May (Williams) (Atwell) Woodlock between 1900 and 1943? And how did she come to move to New Rochelle, NY?  
• I want to find Frank L. Colomy’s birth record.  I’m still not sure whether he was born in Maine or New Hampshire, and the birth records there are sparse.
• How did William Gordon Atwell die?  All I know is when he died, not how.

Favorite Photo: Handsome Grandfather

As a genealogist, choosing a favorite photo is like choosing your favorite child.  You love all of them!  Okay, maybe some more than others, and maybe a favorite can change over time.  Anyway, I decided on this 1942 photo of my paternal grandfather:

George Edmund Pleau, 1942. Author’s collection.

The reason I chose this is because boy, was he handsome back then! I can see why my grandmother fell for him.  George Edmund Pleau was about 19-20 years old in this picture (depending on what date it was taken).  When I think of my grandfather, I normally picture this:

George Edmund Pleau, 1977 or 1978. Author’s collection.

WESX is an AM radio station that began in 1939 with studios at 124 Washington Street in Salem, MA and 341 Union Street in Lynn, MA.  I suspect the photo might have been at the Lynn location, since it was just a few blocks from where my grandparents were living at the time.  My grandfather had a beautiful bass voice, so he probably sang at the radio station.  What would his musical father and uncles have thought of this?  His uncle Eugene (who I don’t think he ever knew) also performed on radio, at least in 1947 on WIOD in Fort Pierce, FL.

Favorite Find: Rochester, NY

My genealogical journey pretty much picked up where my paternal aunt left off: with the Pleau family in Rochester, Monroe County, NY.  Like my aunt, I really wanted to learn about the paternal family where my grandfather came from, particularly because he knew next to nothing about it.

The coolest thing about knowing that the Pleau’s lived in Rochester was the fact that my in-laws only lived an hour away from there! So during a few of our family visits, I took a few side trips.  One place was the Local History & Genealogy Division of the Rundel Library in Rochester.  Not only did they have a whole floor of interesting materials, they also had an awesome digital collection of city directories and photos.  The library is also in the heart of Rochester and therefore within walking distance to places where my ancestors worked and worshiped (though I have yet to visit Our Lady of Victory Church).

Rundel Memorial Library, Rochester, NY.
By Matthew D. Wilson (LtPowers) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10596150

Also in Rochester are Holy Sepulchre Cemetery and Mount Hope Cemetery. Holy Sepulchre has its own website that allowed me to locate the graves of George and Emma Pleau and several of their children (which then allowed me to photograph them and post on Find a Grave).  Their very helpful office helped pinpoint unmarked grave locations as well.  Mount Hope is where Chester and Ella (Pleau) Britenstool are buried, as well as Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass.  Chester and Ella, however, were practically at the entrance!

Finally my favorite New York resource, which is not a physical location: Old Fulton Postcards, which actually holds many New York newspapers, including the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.  It was from these newspapers that I gleaned so much information for the early days of this blog, providing color to my previously unknown Pleau family.

Foundations: A Mason’s Work

The first #52Ancestors prompt is “Foundations”, and I’m going to be coming at this from a different angle.  

A mason at work. Courtesy Library of Congress.

When I think of a foundation, I think of a foundation of a house or a building, and masons are responsible for building those.  One of my mason ancestors is John Wesley Williams, my 3x great-grandfather, who I’ve previously written about here. As I’ve said, John’s being a mason has made it easier to distinguish him from others with the same name (especially in Providence, RI!). 

Like many genealogists, I like tracking my ancestors through each census, and for some reason, I couldn’t find John in the 1900 Census for the life of me.  I tried looking him up in the Providence city directories and couldn’t find anything between 1898 and 1903. Where was he?

On a whim, I tried broadening my search:  John’s name, age, and born in New York…and an entry for a John W. Williams in Logan, Harrison County, Iowa came up!  I looked:  born April 1837 – check; born in New York – check; occupation mason – yes, this had to be him!  On June 8, 1900, John is found with other blue-collar workers boarding with the Isaac N. Watson family.  Wikipedia shows that Logan, IA’s population more than doubled between 1890 and 1900.  I can only imagine there was quite the building boom there during that time, so his services as a mason would be needed.  His being in Logan at this time certainly explains the gap in his presence in Providence City Directories.  By 1903 John was back in Providence and living with his son Charles.

John died on October 14, 1918 in Rhode Island and appears to be buried in Pocasset Cemetery in Cranston, Providence County, RI, which is also new information for me.