31. July 2008 by Tim.

The smart match contacts I have made have been incredibly helpful.  It is funny - in an odd sort of way - communicating with someone I have never met, never heard of, never would have met or heard of, if it were not for the fact that we share an ancestor.  In other words, we are related.  A woman named Marie Louise Simon, who was born in 1701, married a man named Augustin Belanger in 1727.  It is arguable that if that event had not taken place, I would not be writing this now.  Their children had children had children, etc and one of them was me.  Marie Louis is my great-great-great-great-great-great-great- grandmother.  Oddly enough, she is also the 7th great grandmother of one of the people I met through MyHeritage.com.

To me, that is a mind boggling concept.

Anyway, I have not had a lot of time lately to delve deeper into the various documents sent to me, nor to investigate thoroughly the web site Mr St Gelais sent to me.  However, as I do, I will post here more frequently.

I’ve found my 7x-great grandmother and a 9th generation cousin…amazing.

Posted in Progress | 1 Comment »

22. July 2008 by Tim.

As I go through the files sent to me detailing the Pichette and Corneau ancestry, I post more and more people to the web site at http://www.myheritage.com/site-27501792/lamont-web-site.  The site generated a number of “matches” between my people and those on other family trees.  Well, I wrote to several people and got my first response!

Robert St-Gelais wrote back offering to add some names to my tree!

As soon as I reply to him and have some results, I will post again.

To be honest, I am surprised at how helpful the genealogical world is.  Now that I have done some work and am getting into it a bit more, I feel like I’m part of a group, part of a special set of people.  Not exactly like co-workers, more of a sense of belonging.  Like being a Freemason, or joining the Irish-American Club in a town gives one a sense of auto-acceptance, so does finding someone who is interested in genealogy.  Interesting.  And unexpected.

Posted in Progress | 1 Comment »

20. July 2008 by Tim.

I had been going through the file given to me regarding Godfrey Pichette’s forebears and entering the first few into the family tree web site (http://www.myheritage.com/site-27501792/lamont-web-site).  I had just entered Rose Godin and Louis Pichette (Godfrey’s grandparents) when the site notified me that names I had entered matched names in someone else’s tree!  WooHoo!  The first potential chance to link my work to that of someone else.

Some were obviously not the same person - though named the same, the dates were off by 150 years or so.  But in three cases, it is possible that “my” Rose Godin and Louis Pichette are the same as theirs.

I’ve written to all three offering to share what I have about Rose and Louis’s history and will be anxiously awaiting their replies.  I should note, though, that a couple of them dont have any recorded activity on the site in some months.  I do not know how long it will take to get a response.

Posted in Progress | 1 Comment »

18. July 2008 by Tim.

I know it’s been a bit since my last update but that is more a testimony to my laziness than to the amount of progress during the month.

I took a day and went to Rhode Island to stop in at the Archives.  I should have done a bit more homework because what I had been looking for were 5 marriage records.  I was only able to find 1 of them because the others were “too new” - having taken place fewer than 100 years ago.  Oh well.

Still, I found the marriage record of Godfroi Pichette and Genevieve Corneau.  These were the parents of Rosanna, as you recall.  Godfroi and Genevieve were married on February 13, 1888.  The record of their marriage lists their respective parents - and that was my target in heading down there.  Godfroi’s parents were Amable and Suzanne.  Genevieve’s parents were Narcisse and Marceline.

The reason this was so important is that it tied Godfroi to a genealogical history I had been sent by someone who had contacted my at www.Ancestry.com.  That file will let me trace this branch of the tree back to the early 1600s!!

 Mission accomplished!

Now, to continue work on the other branches.  Missions never end LOL

After I parse the file, I will be adding the people to the Family Tree on My Heritage.

Posted in Pichette, Crowley Side | 1 Comment »