Re: Telesphore Bourgeois
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In reply to:
Re: Telesphore Bourgeois
Marilyn Hartwell 3/17/06
Hi Muriel,
This should probably all be posted at the Boisvert genforum, but it may help others here as well, so here goes. I received your file and have looked over the entire document.All you needed to do was send the children of Delphis and Marie and that would have been fine, as the further generations do not concern me.
In looking over everything, I think you may be restricting your research too much to the Manchester, NH city limits.You mention the numerous churches in which you have looked, but I see no mention there of St. Ann's (Irish and established very early).Many of our French-Canadian ancestors in New England married in Irish churches, before the establishment of the French-Canadian parishes (many of which were about 1880).
Some comments: Since your Boisvert-Gervais family appears in the 1881 census of Canada at St-Zéphirin, and since there is no marriage record in Canada (nor in that parish which I checked), I really believe they were married in the United States between 1869 and 1872.This timeframe should narrow down your search considerably. I have already checked the oldest parishes for Rhode Island (the Dr. Ulysse Forget file from 1850-1900), and several Massachsetts cities, among them: Holyoke, Lowell, Worcester, and Southbridge, and came up emptyhanded on all counts. I also checked Waterville and Biddeford, Maine (the only two Maine repertoires I possess) with no luck. Your search must then be concentrated, I would think, to thestates of New Hampshire and Maine, and to parishes established BEFORE 1875!I don't know if you have written to the two State's Department of Vital Statistics (in Concord and Augusta), but if you haven't, I would suggest you do. Not everything is online, nor can you get the information by just posting a message on a message board and hoping someone out there will see it.This is a problem that requires your active digging, writing letters to appropriate archives, and watching your mailbox for an answer. Unfortunately, my personal library does not have marriage repertoires for many of the parishes of these two states, since I live in Rhode Island. I do think however, that some place like Lewiston (SS. Peter and Paul or St. Mary's) or Augusta, as well as several rural New Hampshire churches, one of these, might have the marriage you're looking for in their records.Exactly which one, only an archives at the State level will be able to tell you. And in finding it, it may not have the parents' names recorded, as records for the French during this time sometime will only list the names of the spouses, the date of marriage and the witnesses (Irish priests were very skimpy in that regard), which is why you need to search for their death records moreso. You might also check under the names Greenwood (for Boisvert) and Jarvis (for Gervais) as many names were Anglicized at that time.
I believe that Delphis and Marie married here in New England and returned home to St-Zéphirin to have and baptize their children. Marie's birthplace, the town of Ste-Élisabeth is either the one in Arthabaska County or Berthier County (both contain Gervais families).I checked these two for a marriage record as well to no avail.I also checked every listing I could find for a Delphis, Adolphe, Adelphis and Rodolphe Boisvert in the Yamaska area, again to no avail.So they must have married south of the border and returned home afterwards; then their children returned to Manchester.I find it strange that you do not have nor mention Delphis and Marie's death records.Did they die in St-Zéphirin or in Manchester? That you might not know means you must search further for these identifying documents.If they died in St-Zéphirin, then their deaths will be in the parish registers. Writing to the archives in Trois-Rivières or St-Hyacinthe might locate something; or searching for them on the microfilms of the parish registers of the Drouin collection (while a long process) will rule out one or the other.Also a letter to Concord, NH may have their passing in their holdings, and may contain their parents' names.If you haven't done this already, then you need to follow up on it.If you have, then I have no other answer for you other than to join a Society like ACGS in Manchester and pay them to see what they can come up with. These are my suggestions on where to look at this point. Sorry I can't be more helpful but northern New England is otherwise not my expertise.Again, check St. Ann's parish, but also look "outside the box" of Manchester for an answer to your question.Best regards, Dennis
More Replies:
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Re: Telesphore Bourgeois
Marilyn Hartwell 3/19/06