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Home: Surnames:
Roger Family Genealogy Forum
  
Irma, my best advice would be to check the 1910 and 1920 census records for the Haverhill area using the Soundex when available. If your branch added the "s" at the end and became Rogers in the US you should probably check both Roger and Rogers. When you find them in the census it will give you I believe what year they came to the US. Then find a parish in the area which at that time was populated with French Canadians and inquire about finding Leon's marriage certificate if Leon was in the US before he became an adult.
I happen to know that Haverhill did have some French Canadians who worked in the shoe industry around the turn of the century. And that Vermonters did go there. One of my relatives went there from his home in South Hero, VT after the Civil War and became a bootmaker. I think he worked in Worcester for a while first but he ended up in Haverhill. If you can access City Directories from Haverhill that would be another route to go to determine that they were in fact there and in what years. Haverhill probably had other mills at that time and he may have worked in woolen or cotton mills there. Lots of French Canadians were recruited in Quebec by American mills all over New England around the turn of the century when they needed cheap labor.
Don't worry too much about the way the name is written. He was probably baptised either Joseph Leo or Leo Joseph, but adopted Leon J. as a man. This happened lots of times because of the anglicising of French names and also names were more fluid then. Names got changed in census records and sometimes they are hardly identifiable.
A Catholic church record might give you the parish in Quebec they came from. Look for burial records in a Catholic cemetery nearby for his parents if they lived in Haverhill. These are some ideas. Good luck.
  
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