The surname Courtois first appears on the maternal branch of my family tree with Marie-Flore Courtois, my 2nd great-grandmother. Flore, was born in Trois Rivieres, Nicolet, Quebec, French Canada on 9 Aug 1851 according to the Drouin church record for the St. Edouard parish.
I recently wrote about Flore in my blog post "A Material Mystery". I had requested her marriage certificate and found it was not an accurate record - or at least did not list her parents.
The breakthrough occurred when a Delta County (MI) Genealogical Society researcher sent me a copy of Flore's obituary. From that I learned the names of her three brothers, i.e., Louis, Victor and Arthur. I was then able to look up the brothers' marriage certificates on the no fee familysearch.org pilot site and learned the names of the parents, i.e., Gregoire Courtois and Marie Chene. From there I was amazed at what I learned in only a couple of hours .....
I learned the list of male Courtois ancestors back to the 1600s!
They are from Gregoire's father Charles, on back to Etienne, Francois, Gabriel, Charles**, and Antoine.
**Charles was born in 1647 in St Martin, Rouen, Normandie, France but emigrated to Quebec between 1670 and 1672.
I located the Gregoire Courtois/Marie Chene family in the 1861 Canada Census to verify the family unit -- the entry listed Marie Chene, Gregoire, Lea, Lucie, Louis, Marie-Flore, Victor, Arthur and Jean.
I look forward to researching this family line as Gregoire is listed as a "navigateur" while his father is listed as a "cultivateur".
Surname Saturday (2): Courtois (France > Canada > Wisconsin > Michigan) Monday, June 28, 2010
Posted by HEZ at 7:49 PM 0 comments
Labels: Courtois, Surname Saturday
A Maternal Mystery Sunday, March 21, 2010
Due to March being Women's History Month and my participation in the Burbank-based French-Canadian Heritage Society of California's (FCHSC) meeting today at the Southern California Genealogical Society (SCGS) Library ... one particular 2nd great grandmother is on my mind. She is proving to be elusive.
Her first name is Flore or Flora as confirmed by both family lore and US Census entries (i.e., 1900, 1910, 1920). She was born in August of 1854 or 1855 somewhere in French Canada but came to the US circa 1870. She then married Antoine Gamache in 1871 in Oconto, Oconto, Wisconsin. The couple later moved to Escanaba, Delta County, Michigan and that is where Flore died in 1923.
Some time ago, I requested a copy of her marriage certificate from the Wisconsin Historical Society with the hopes of learning the names of her parents. Unfortunately, when the copy of the marriage record arrived - her father's name (Jean Courtois) was listed, but her mother's name was not. In addition, the name of the bride on the copy looked more like "Clare Wartoiz".
It was with these facts that I approached the expert French-Canadian researchers for assistance.
I learned about the comprehensive French-Canadian collection on-hand at the SCGS Library - from the Loiselle Marriage Index microfiche to dictionaries of dit names to historical sketches of Quebec's famous families in the mid-1600s. I also learned that the FCHSC maintains a database of about 35,000 French-Canadian related ancestral names, relationships, vitals, and King's daughters and Carignan Soldiers annotations.
With many sources to pursue, I look forward to my next visit to the SCGS library. With the aid of the French-Canadian Research Team, I am confident that the mystery of Flore will one day be solved.