Lawrence Compagna - French Roots: Genealogy for North Americans of French Descent

French Roots

By Lawrence Compagna

Second edition copyright 2019

All rights reserved.

All photographs and illustrations containedin this book are either in the public domain or labeled as CreativeCommons.

Edited by AMC

Published by Candco Publishing, a division ofthe Candco Corporation.

Also by the Author

Excerpt French Canadian Roots

Excerpt Journey to Glastonbury

Robert Frost

Note to reader:

As you go through this book, keep in mindthat there is a glossary in the back. If any of the terms usedconfuse you, a definition or explanation may be available in theglossary that can clear things up.

Perhaps your last name is French?

Or perhaps your dear mothers last name wasFrench?

Or maybe you just know that you have Frenchblood, and you want to know more about this part of your familytree.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am here tohelp!

Amy Leigh Mercree

My name is Lawrence. I am an average guy.

I have a good job, three children, and myhome is unspectacular. I like sports, reading, and going for longwalks on the beach. I am really, really average. I even lookaverage except for my really nice glasses. They make me lookreally nerdy.

I have a passion for genealogy, but even thatis unremarkable; I read somewhere that researching ones ancestorsis one of the most popular pursuits on the internet.

What is not usual is what I have done with mygenealogy hobby I was able to trace thousands of my directancestors and push my line back beyond the middle ages, arguablyright back into the time of the Romans.

Before I tell you about that, and providesome advice so that you can do the same, let me tell you how I gotstarted.

One day, many years ago, my cousin wasvisiting my house. After describing her recent trip to Quebec, sheunfolded a piece of paper and laid it down on the coffee table infront of me. I picked it up and looked at it. It was a chartshowing my namesake ancestors and their wives going back to theearly seventeenth century. Each generation was listed, I thinkthere were ten. At the top of the chart was my great, great - keepgoing for eight times or so - grandfather Mathias.

I was amazed. We knew our ancestors goingback for four hundred years? I did not know it was possible.

This was back when the internet was stillrelatively young, the technology having been born a decade or soearlier. Its use in genealogy was still in its infancy as well, somost genealogical research was still done the hard way in personat an archive. This is what my cousin had done. She had a fewscanned original documents to go along with the chart. One wasparticularly interesting - it was a ships manifest from the year1664. In that year, my ancestor Mathias came to the New Worldaboard a ship called the Black Holland.

Mathias was among the first Europeans in theAmericas, and as I would realize later, it was for this reason thatour descent from him was remembered because he did somethingbrave, adventurous, and spectacular - he was among the firstEuropeans to colonize an alien place they called the NewWorld.

After my cousin left, I became fascinatedwith the chart she left behind. However, it only listed my onebranch of my family tree was it possible to flesh out my entirefamily tree? Even more intriguing, was it possible to push myancestry even further back then Mathias?

My obsession for genealogy was born.

• Isabel Allende

If you are reading this book, I assume a fewthings about you: One, you have French ancestors. Two, you may notspeak French, or if you do, you are not fluent (however, if you dospeak the language well, it will be a big plus when looking atoriginal records). Furthermore, your first language is most likelyEnglish. Thirdly, you have a passion for genealogy. Fourth, youhave a computer - this is important because you may uncover so manyancestors that you cannot keep up with just pen and paper. Fifth,you are adept at using a computer, or are willing to improve yourskills in this area. Sixth, you are comfortable navigating the vastamount of genealogy resources that are now available on theweb.

My final and most critical assumption is thatyou were born and raised in either the United States or Canada. Ideduced that you are from North America because this book iswritten in English. Had you been from the old country, your nativelanguage is French, so you would not be reading thisbook.

If this describes you, then you are in luck.I will help you uncover hundreds or even thousands of your directancestors, and - with just a little luck - even royal relatives.Together, we may push your family tree back to the middle ages, andyou will uncover all sorts of interesting characters along theway.

Mohsin Hamid, Exit West

Aside from knowing that your last name isFrench, or that you have some French ancestors, what you may notknow is the number of generations that your people have been inNorth America?

Your kin may have come recently from France,as did my maternal grandfathers family. They arrived at the EllisIsland Immigration Station in New York in 1905 aboard the beautifulpassenger liner the SS City of New York, which at the time wasthe largest and fastest liner on the Atlantic.

The SS City of New York

It is more likely, however, that your Frenchancestors arrived in the Americas long before my maternalgrandfather did. The vast majority of you will be descended fromthe French pioneers - the first European settlers of Canada and theMississippi valley of the United States.