Unindexed Records on FamilySearch • Tracing my French Canadian Ancestry • Part III
Grab a coffee, sit down, and stay a while: this will be a doozy of a blog post. If you’re new here, this is Part III of my French Canadian genealogy journey. In part I, I found the baptism record of my 2nd great-grandparent, Alex Gardner. And in Part II, I found Alex’s parent’s (my 3rd great grandparents) marriage record. In this blog post, I’m going to show you how I traced back two more generations (to my 4th and 5th great grandparents!) using hidden records on FamilySearch.
Now, by ‘hidden’ records, I really just mean unindexed records, or records that cannot be searched. If you haven’t yet begun your French Canadian genealogy research yet, you’ll find that FamilySearch is one of the best, if not the best resources for you because of its massive collection of Catholic parish records. FamilySearch has baptisms and marriages dating back to the early 1700s throughout Quebec! The downside, however, is that the majority of these are not indexed, and thus cannot actually be searched. So how do you get to them? Well, here’s how I did it.
1. Determine the Names
At some point, you will have to start with either a baptism record or a marriage record to determine the names of the parents from the previous generation. For example, in Part II of this series I found a marriage record for my third great-grandparents, Toussaint Desjardins and Adele Létoile dit L’Italien. This marriage record was, luckily for me, indexed and searchable on FamilySearch, so that is where I began. The marriage record was incredibly detailed, giving the names and the locations of both Toussaint and Adele’s parents. According to the record, Toussaint was born to Paul Desjardins and Marguerite Christie, and Adele was born to Charles Létoile dit L’Italien and Scholastique Rollin. In order to trace farther back, I would need to find the marriage records between these two couples in order to determine their parents’ names.
In short, the first hurdle to jump over is to find your own “gateway” record, as I call them. In my case, it was Toussaint and Adele’s marriage record. More recent parish records are indexed and searchable on FamilySearch, so I would recommend starting there. Toussaint and Adele’s marriage record, from 1861, was indexed and searchable, and enabled me to continue the rest of my genealogy research by giving me the names of their parents. Once you have the names, the fun begins!
2. Find the Date using Mes Aieux or FamilySearch Shared Family Tree
Though I now had the names of my 4th great grandparents, searches on FamilySearch returned with nothing, meaning their marriage records were not yet indexed. Luckily, there are a few different avenues available to researches who find themselves in this predicament.
MesAieux.com is a (partly) free French Canadian genealogy research site, and it is particularly great for finding marriages. If you make a free account, you can search the site for the name of one of your ancestors, and it will give you all the marriages for people of that name, as well as parishes and dates. So, in my search for the marriage between Charles Létoile dit L’Italien and Scholastique Rollin, I searched for Scholastique in the Mes Aieux database - I thought it would be easier to search for Scholastique rather than Charles, who had a dit surname. Three results came back, and sure enough, the first one was for my ancestors:
Thanks to Mes Aieux, I was able to determine that Charles and Scholastique were married in the parish of Pointe-Claire in 1823, and after finding this albeit unindexed record set on FamilySearch, I was able to quickly scroll through the pages for that year until I came across their marriage record:
And, of course, with this marriage record I was able to then determine the names of the next generation back! According to this record, Charles was born to Benjamin Létoile and Marie Louise DesChênes, and Scholastique was born to Louise Rolin and Marguerite Fauteux.
Watch this quick 5 minute tutorial on how to navigate Mes Aieux for this purpose:
Mes Aieux isn’t the only database you can use to find marriage dates. If for whatever reason it doesn’t work for you, consider turning back to FamilySearch.
The FamilySearch Shared Family Tree is an oft-overlooked resource, at least for me. Typically, I won’t go near it unless I’m absolutely desperate for someone to throw me a bone. I know some genealogists use it and update it religiously, and all the power to them, but I simply cannot be bothered to contribute to such a massive family tree knowing that someone else could edit away all my research with the click of a button.
That being said…
Since I’ve started my French Canadian genealogy journey, the Shared Family Tree has actually become the first place I look. Because I am largely unfamiliar with the types of records available for French Canadian genealogy (and on top of that, I can’t speak French!) navigating the records can be daunting. In situations like these, sometimes it is nice to rely on the work of other genealogists.
And no, I am not advocating that you copy anyone else’s family tree! But if checking the Shared Family Tree to see if any researchers before you found the records you’re looking for saves you time and effort, well then I say: work smarter, not harder.
In this case, I found that two researchers in particular were active in researching my family lines, and they had added specific marriage dates to many of the couples I was researching. Take, for example, the aforementioned Benjamin (or Germain) Létoile and Marie Deschênes.: my 5th great grandparents. In the shared family tree, a researcher had inputted their marriage date as January 29, 1798 in Sainte Anne de la Pocatière, although no record was attached to this fact. Having nothing else to go on, I followed this lead.
Sure enough, I found this exact marriage record. And of course, I am working to validate it and make sure it is indeed my people but at this point, I have no reason not to believe its accuracy. It indicates that Germain Létoile dit L’Italien was born to Bonaventure Létoile dit L’Italien and Marie Amiot. Germain’s wife, Marie Deschênes, was born to Charles Miville dit Deschênes and Marie Charlotte Dubé.
So there you have it: how I found some of my 4th and 5th great grandparents in unindexed records on FamilySearch. Let me know if you’re successful in finding your ancestors in the Shared Family Tree or on Mes Aieux!