agersea said:
MEinWV said:
Both sides from northern France, Normandie and Bretagne. technically French, but am half celtic and half viking.
Ancestors came across in 1600s, up the Saint Lawrence river, to settle in eastern Quebec. Started farming, then into lumber trades. Family members moved to Edmunston, New Brunswick, across the border from Madawaska, Maine. Crossed over to the promised land in mid 1800s and became U.S. Citizens. Changed all their names(first and last) to English names in order to be treated better and get better jobs.
Charles I ( Charlemagne ), King of France is my 38th great grandfather. My brother and I have spent much time in the past 6 years going over geneaological records. Hardest job for us was decifering and cross-referencing immigration records to match the family. Still have a lifetime of work to do on it.
It has been fun!
Very interesting, MeinWV !!!
I was wondering, how did you get the knowledge about the very early branch of your family in the 1600s ??
Has the knowledge always been in the family, or did you dig up all that information yourself ??
The catholic church is responsible for the indepth information that led us back to the 1600s. The incredible amount of detailed info they have on the french catholic families that came to the new world is amazing. The close ties that families had with the church led to the precise record keeping that occured. Birth, Baptism, Marriage, and Death info was religiously recorded by the church.
When individual french families began to collect geneaological info, they had a relatively easy time of it, and soon amassed huge volumes of material in each family group. I was originally a Pelletier, and they had already done much of the tough work. Using immigration and census records on both sides of the border, we finally made all of the matches, that made it easy to plug our line into the rest of the Pelletier families. At that point, we were able to make the connections back to France,(the parents of the original 1600s immigrants). From that point, we started looking for other Pelletiers that had already "shot the lines" back in time. We eventually found concrete family ties into a line that has gone all the way back to Charles the first.
Anyone that has a french family background and is interested in finding their roots, are fortunate to have this vast wealth of info that has been gathered for them.
. Wish I had the time to research though, I'd like to visit Ireland some day and be able to go to the places where my family originated from. Good thread.
there is no sun in england!! 
