The Gregorian Calendar Enters Use in Russia

Pope Gregory XIII

On my mother's side of the family, I am (as far as I know and have been able to verify through research) 100% Jewish.  All of my Jewish immigrant ancestors and most of my Jewish immigrant relatives within memory (and based on research) lived in the Russian Empire.  A small number of those relatives remained within the empire long enough also to live in the Soviet Union.

And that means that all of those ancestors and collateral relatives lived with the Julian calendar.  You know, the calendar that was corrected and improved upon by Pope Gregory XIII (lucky 13?), thereby giving the world the Gregorian calendar.

The Julian calendar dates back to the days of Julius Caesar, from whom it takes its name.  It had a 365-day year with a leap day added every fourth year.

The Julian calendar was a little longer than the actual solar year — .0078 days per year.  That doesn't sound like much, but over time — 1,628 years — this created a problem with when the seasons began and, more importantly, with determining when Easter began.  That then became a problem for the Catholic church, which is when Pope Gregory enters the picture.

Pope Gregory commissioned a new, more accurate calendar and declared on February 25, 1582 that the day after October 4, 1582 would be October 15, 1582, correcting for this mistake by dropping ten days.  But he did not rule the world, only the church, so at first only the Papal States and the church itself enacted the change.  Not long after, many Catholic countries switched over.  Protestant countries took longer, because they didn't want to be following the edict of the Catholic church, but eventually most of them made the change also (Great Britain and its colonies, including what would become the United States of America, corrected the calendar in 1752, dropping eleven days).

But many parts of the world didn't change until the 20th century, including the Russian Empire.  In fact, the Russian Empire never did make the change.  The Russian Revolution occurred, the Russian Empire was dissolved, and the brand-spanking new Russian Soviet Socialist Republic, which became part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), declared that the country would switch to the Gregorian calendar.  January 31, 1918 was followed by February 14, 1918, dropping thirteen days to bring the calendar into compliance (because those additional centuries of extra leap days added up!).  So today is the 107th anniversary of the Russian change to the Gregorian calendar.  I love the fact that, once you took into account the changes in dates, the October Revolution actually took place in November.

All of my ancestors who were still alive left the Russian Empire before the October Revolution.  Most of my other relatives did also.

But a few were not able to leave quite that early and did live in the Soviet Union for some amount of time.

My great-grandfather's older sister, Etta Gorodetsky, married Dovid Kardish in the Russian Empire, and they had at least eight children there.  One child died in Europe, but Dovid, Etta, and the other seven children immigrated to Canada in 1927.

Dovid is probably my cousin, based on information I have found and been told, although I have not determined exactly how. But that makes everyone else in his family my cousins.  He had eleven known siblings.  Dovid's father and four of the siblings died in Europe, but his mother and six of his siblings were living in the Soviet Union before they left for Canada.  And one of Dovid's sisters never left; she married in the Russian Empire in what is now Ukraine, was still there during the transition to the Soviet Union, and eventually went to Uzbekistan, dying there before it became independent.

So all of those who did not leave before the fall of the Russian Empire went through the calendar transition from Julian to Gregorian.

The records I find for my relatives before the switch to the Gregorian calendar have dates based on the Julian calendar.

So I need to note in some way in my family tree that those dates are Julian, to make sure I'm accurately recording events.

I would prefer to enter the dates per the Julian calendar, because that's how they were originally recorded, and that's the logic I use for entering locations.  What it was called when the event happened is what I enter, and then I make a note that the location is now called something else.

But my computer program isn't able to handle dates that way.  When I put in a Julian date, it wants to interpret it as a Gregorian date, like all the other dates in the database.

What I eventually decided was to record the dates per the Gregorian calendar and then to make a note for each one of what the original Julian date was.  That way, the computer doesn't get confused, I still have the information about the date as originally recorded, and everyone is happy.  And I want to keep my computer happy.

Would It Have Been Three Generations of Illegitimate Births?

It occurred to me that we almost could have had three consecutive generations of illegitimate births in my family.

We start with my grandfather.  I have written previously about how my great-grandmother Laura, way back in 1903, had my grandfather without the benefit of marriage.  His original birth certificate had the socially disapproving "OW" ("out of wedlock") written on the line where the father's name would normally have been.  The form actually included instructions to write OW if the child was born out of wedlock.  I guess you weren't allowed to put the father's name under those circumstances.

Sure, my great-grandmother went back 37 years later and amended the birth certificate to include her (then deceased) first husband's name as the father, but I proved through Y-DNA testing that Cornelius Elmer Sellers was not my grandfather's biological father.  I'm very happy that Elmer was willing to marry Laura and accepted her 7-month-old son as his own.  Neither my grandfather nor any of his siblings had any idea, as far as I can tell.  But Grandpa was still born illegitimate.

Grandpa went on to marry in 1923, and he and his first wife, Elizabeth, had three children.  The first one, a little boy, died at just 20 months old, but my two aunts lived long lives, and I knew both of them.

In 1930, just after the start of the Great Depression, the four family members were enumerated in the census as living in four different places.  Grandpa was back at home, living with his mother.  The older of my aunts was living in that county in the county children's home.  The younger aunt was living with a relatively well off couple in a different county.  Elizabeth was living in that second county, working as a maid for a family.  My guess is that she moved to that county so one of the parents would be near their younger daughter.

According to the 1930 census, Grandpa was working as a textile weaver at the silk mill in town.  Coincidentally, my grandmother Anna was also working as a textile weaver at the silk mill in town.  My hypothesis is that the silk mill is where they met each other.

However they met, they got along well enough that my father was born in 1935.  And they stayed together for about 17 years or so, until my grandfather decided to run off with a young woman he had met working at the nearby U.S. Army post.

Maybe my grandfather had a reputation.  But that young woman told him that she wasn't going to do anything with him until he proved to her that he was a single man (at least, that's what she told me).  So in 1953, he got divorced — from Elizabeth, not from Anna.  Which meant that he had never been married to my grandmother.  Which then meant that my father was illegitimate.

Hey, now we have two generations!

Many, many years later, my father was married to his third wife.  One day she suddenly decided she wanted to convert to Catholicism.  We learned that part of the process for that was that she had to have her and my father's previous marriages annulled.

When my father's first wife, Mary Lou, heard about that, she was extremely upset.  After all, they had had a daughter together.  And Mary Lou believed that if the marriage was annulled, the daughter (my half-sister) would then be officially considered illegitimate.

My stepmother did not follow through on her conversion, so none of the marriages was annulled, and we didn't have to deal with Mary Lou stressing over my sister being declared illegitimate.

Recently, I learned that the marriage of my cousin's parents was officially annulled.  My cousin thought that had made her illegitimate, and she was still upset about that, even though it had occurred many years previously.

I researched the question, and discovered that in the Catholic church, if a marriage is annulled but was a valid marriage to begin with, the children are still considered to be legitimate.

So not only is my cousin considered legitimate, which definitely made her feel better, even if my stepmother had gone through with her conversion, my sister also would have still been considered legitimate after her parents' marriage had been annulled.

So no, we would not have had three consecutive generations of illegitimate births.

But it still makes a good story.

When I discovered that my grandfather's divorce in 1953 was from Elizabeth and not from Anna, I called my father and told him, "Guess what?  You're a bastard!"  He thought it was hilarious.  And my sister was highly amused at the thought that she would be considered illegitimate if her parents' marriage were annulled.  We have a good sense of humor in this family.

Image by Steve Buissinne, stevepb, through Pixabay.  Used under the Pixabay content license.

One Catholic School Alum in the Family

Today is the beginning of National Catholic Schools Week for 2025.  And Catholic schools actually played a role in my family, notwithstanding that none of my ancestors (at least as far as I know) was Catholic per se.

When my father was born, my grandmother was almost 43 years old (although she thought she was almost 42), which in 1935 was a relatively advanced age to be having a child, especially since her last children (twins) had been born 20 years previously.  She probably was not planning or expecting to become pregnant.

But pregnant she was, and she thought the sun rose and set on my father (which, I have been told, rather annoyed her first child, my father's half-sister who was 21 years older than he).  She wanted the best of everything for him, including an education.  In rural New Jersey in the 1940's, the best education you could find was at Catholic school.  And if you went to Catholic school in the 1940's, that meant you were going through catechism and essentially growing up Catholic.

So my father grew up Catholic.  He told me about the religion lessons and the nuns rapping his knuckles with rulers.  He went through confirmation (his confirmation name was Joseph).

Did he actually get the good education my grandmother wanted?  I haven't seen his school records from New Jersey, so I don't really know.  But if what my mother said about how he did in public high school in Florida was similar to his performance in Catholic school in New Jersey, maybe not.

My mother told me that my father had to take American history three times to graduate.  It wasn't that he didn't understand it, she said (and I know my father was very intelligent), but that he just didn't want to be bothered with it, and so he didn't pass the first two times.  After it was made clear to him that he had to pass the class to get the diploma, he finally did.

And here's the proof:

Wedding Wednesday

Lucy Wynona McLaughlin married Daniel Edmund Caldwell on May 10, 1958 in Santa Monica, California at Saint Monica's Catholic Church.  Lucy was the half-sister of my ex and therefore the aunt of my stepsons.  While I still lived in Oakland, California, I learned through a probate file that she was living near me, so one day I bravely drove to her address and cold called in person.  I was fortunate that she was home and willing to talk with me.  I ended up visiting for four hours.  She allowed me to take home her wedding album and scan all the photos.  She was a stunningly beautiful bride.  She called me her "not quite sister-in-law."  I'm so happy I was able to meet her, and that her nephew David met her and her younger son.  I miss her a lot.

Lucy and father Karm Singh

Daniel Caldwell (right), probably with the best man

Lucy and Karm

Daniel and Lucy in the center, with flower girl Carol to the right

Saint Monica's Catholic Church

Lucy and Daniel during the recessional

Lucy and Daniel

Lucy and Daniel

Lucy and Daniel on the church steps

Daniel and Lucy

Daniel and Lucy

Daniel and Lucy with flower girl Carol

Daniel and Lucy

Daniel and Lucy

Lucy, Daniel, flower girl Carol, and Lucy's mother's family (I think)

Edmund, John, Lucy, Carol, ?, Hugh

Lucy, Daniel, flower girl Carol, and Daniel's family (I think)

Back row: Karm, Mary, Lucy, Daniel; front row: Hugh, Ed, John, Carol

Hooray for Newspapers!

It's amazing how quickly time can get away from you.  I knew it had been a while since I had posted the new additions to the Wikipedia newspaper archives page, but I didn't realize it had been eight months.  That's obviously far too long.  My only excuse is that I've been busy trying to move to Portland, Oregon, and it's amazing how much time it takes to do all the paperwork.

Lucky for us researchers, almost all of the newspapers added have free access.  The exception is the Friedens Messenger, for which you need to be a paid member of the St. Louis Genealogical society.

• Hungary:  Although the newspaper itself has closed down, the online archive of Népszabadság is being maintained for free access.  I don't read Hungarian, however, and I can't figure out what years are covered.

• Korea (new country!):  Yes, you read that right, Korea.  Not North or South, but just plain old Korea.  The National Library of Korea (in South Korea) has an online collection of newspapers published in Korea prior to 1950.  The link I posted is to the English-language interface, but the newspapers are in Korean.

• Mexico:  El Universal is online for 1999 to the present.

• Sierra Leone:  I discovered that Early Dawn, available on FultonHistory.com and incorrectly labeled as "Earley Dawn", is also on the Internet Archive and much easier to read, although the site notes that some issues are missing.

• California:  The Monterey Public Library has digitized its historical newspaper collection and placed it online for free.  The 34 newspapers range from 1846 to the present.  They are listed on the library's site in chronological order, which is a little different.

• Florida:  The Weekly Challenger, the newspaper of the black community of St. Petersburg, has partnered with the University of South Florida at St. Petersburg, which is now hosting digitized issues of the paper for 1976, 1985–1988, and 2009–2016.  Plans are to to digitize more historic issues and add them to the online archive.

• Idaho:  The University of Idaho has digitized the historical run of Argonaut, the student newspaper, and posted it online.

• Illinois:  The Aurora Public Library has online indices for the Aurora Beacon-News for obituaries (1933–2004 with many gaps) and for a clipping collection (1925–1956 and 1963–1978).

• Illinois:  The Coal City Public Library has a searchable index for obituaries and death notices, most of which came from the Coal City Courant newspaper.  The index can be searched only by surname, and nothing on the page indicates what years the database covers.  I searched for Smith as a general test, and years ranged from 1884 to 2017.

• Kansas:  The Rossville Community Library not only has posted an obituary index online, it has gone the extra step and scanned and posted the obituaries listed in the index.

• Massachusetts:  Smith College has placed every issue of its alumnae quarterly, for 1909 to the present, online.

• Michigan:  Oakland County has an online historical archive site which houses what appears to be a substantial collection of digitized newspapers.  Unfortunately, I can't find a way to determine the names of the newspapers in the collection or what years it covers.  Seventy-four locations are listed on the browse page.

• Michigan:  The University of Michigan has an online archive of the historical run of the student newspaper, The Michigan Daily.

• Missouri:  The St. Louis Genealogical Society has posted issue of the Friedens Messenger, published by the Friedens United Church of Christ, for 1940 and earlier, although the range is not specified.  Paid members of the society may view the digitized files.

• New Jersey:  The Elizabeth Daily Journal for 1872–1915 (with more years to be digitized and posted online) is available courtesy of the Elizabeth Public Library.

• New York:  The entire run of the New Yorker, all the way back to 1925, is now available through the New York Public Library site with a library card.

• Ohio:  The Lepper Public Library has a collection of seventeen newspapers covering the Lisbon (formerly New Lisbon) area, ranging from 1810 to 2011 (with a lot of gaps).

• Ohio:  The Ohio National Guard has shifted its publication, The Buckeye Guard, from print to digital and has posted the archives of the print edition (1976–2011) on its new site.

• Ohio:  The Salem Public Library has an obituary index for 1938–2016 for the Salem News and will send you a copy of the obituary.  It also has the "Yesteryears" section of the News for 1991–2002 online.

• Ohio:  The Warren–Trumbull County Public Library has two indices for obituaries:  The Warren Tribune Chronicle for 1900–1949 and the Youngstown Vindicator for 2011–2014.

• Pennsylvania:  Elizabethtown College has digitized its students newspapers, Our College Times (1904–1934) and The Etownian (1934–2009), and uploaded them to the Internet Archive.

• Tennessee:  A near-complete archive of the original incarnation of Confederate Veteran magazine, from 1893–1932, including a searchable index, can be found on the Internet Archive.  I placed it under Tennessee because that's where it was published.

• Texas:  The Texas Obituary Project is a collection of scanned obits from LGBT publications, dating back to 1975.

• Wisconsin:  The complete historical run of the print version of the UWM Post, the student newspaper of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, has been digitized.

• Multistate:  The Catholic News Archive currently has nine newspapers (including one issue from 1832!) from five different states and the United States in general.  This is a Veridian site (yay!), and more newspapers will be added over time.

• Multistate:  FamilySearch.org now has a database of GenealogyBank obituaries from 1980–2014.  Even though GenealogyBank itself is a pay site, this collection is free.

• Worldwide:  Catholic Newspapers Online is a portal collecting links to Catholic newspapers from multiple countries, both historical and current, and has 22 pages of links so far.

• Worldwide:  "Last Seen:  Finding Family after Slavery" is a collection of ads posted in newspapers after Emancipation, where people tried to find relatives from whom they had been separated, whether by slavery, escape, or the military.  Currently the volunteer effort includes notices one Canadian and thirteen U.S. newspapers, but the project continually grows.

• Worldwide:  The Mennonite Library and Archives in Kansas has placed online a large collection of German-language newspapers and other publications from German Mennonites.  The countries include Canada and Paraguay!

"Who Do You Think You Are?" - Tom Bergeron

I made it!  This is the last episode for the most recent season of Who Do You Think You Are?  And I'm even including a small amount of commentary on the "Into the Archives" filler episode.  I'm all caught up now, at least for a while.

The lead-in for this episode says that Tom Bergeron will follow the dramatic trail of his father's French family, including a young family that endured starvation and religious persecution.  He will be moved by the actions of one of his ancestors, who was brave enough to leave France behind.

Bergeron is a two-time Emmy Award-winning television host.  He began as a disc jockey in radio but by 1998 was the host of Hollywood Squares (well after the days of Paul Lynde, unfortunately).  He gained some measure of fame as the host of America's Funniest Home Videos (a program on which a good friend of mine worked, in the Bob Saget days) and now is known for Dancing with the Stars, where he is in his tenth season.  He divides his time between Los Angeles and Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  He lives with Lois, his wife of 33 years, and their two daughters.

Bergeron begins by telling us that he grew up in New England with what he considers to have been a typical family life.  His mother was Mary Catherine Costello; his father was Adrian Raymond Bergeron, Jr.  He went to Catholic grade school for eight years.  His was the classic family:  father, mother, brother, sister, and a pet.  As far as he knows, he is Irish on his mother's side and French on his father's.

He spent more time with his father's family growing up.  He knew one of his great-great-grandparents (lucky him!):  His father's grandmother was called "Mi-me" (or at least that's the closest I can come to approximating his pronunciation without using diacritical marks), which Bergeron thinks might be French for "grandmother."  He has no idea what her actual name was.

Bergeron thinks that his family went from France to Canada and then to the United States.  He apparently has already discovered that looking for family history can be like driving in a fog.  Growing up, his family didn't talk much about about their history.  Now he is interested in learning how the Bergerons came to the United States, what they went through, and about them as people.

Bergeron begins his journey of following the trail of bread crumbs by meeting with Kyle Betit at the Portsmouth Public Library, probably not far from his home.  Betit has built a family tree on Ancestry.com for him to look at.  (We, however, do not really get to look at it; there are few camera shots, and they go by quickly.)  We start with Bergeron himself:  Thomas "Tom" Raymond Bergeron, born May 6, 1955 in Haverhill, Essex County, Massachusetts.  We move from him straight to "Mi-me", who it turns out was Marie Azilda "Memere" (mémère translates to "old woman" and is French Canadian for "grandma") Gaudrault, born December 27, 1883 in Les Eboulemonts, Charlevoix, Québec, Canada; died September 23, 1977 in Haverhill.  Bergeron is surprised at the name Marie; he never knew what her name was.  There is a small amount of discussion about the fact that the French in Québec are almost all Catholic.  We see glimpses of a few more names:  Moses (Moïse) Bergeron; Michel Bergeron, born 1842, died 1929; Joseph Bergeron, born 1804, died 1883.  The camera zooms in on Marie-Josèphe Vanasse dit Précourt (but no discussion about dit names).

Bergeron wonders when his father's side of the family came from France, and Betit directs him to look at Suzanne Rabouin, born November 23, 1655, died 1755.  She was the daughter of Bergeron's 9th-great-grandmother Marguerite Ardion, born 1636–1640 in La Rochelle, France, died unknown (yeah, sure it's unknown).  She married Jean Rabouin in 1663; he was also born in La Rochelle.  Bergeron finds this information intriguing and asks if they met in France and then came over.  Betit, who apparently is trained to lie on camera (which makes him a better actor than Kelly Clarkson), says, "In this case we don't know."  (Sure, you don't.)

Now that Bergeron knows who his first French ancestors were to come to the New World, he wants to know the next step.  Betit recommends he continue his search in La Rochelle, of course.

As Bergeron departs, he's already having a good time but is wondering why his 9th-great-grandparents went to Canada, whether they knew each other in France, who were the parents of his 9th-great-grandmother (what about his 9th-great-grandfather?), and whether they were upset when she left.  That sounds like an interesting list of beginning questions to me.

As he drives around in La Rochelle (I noticed he did his own driving everywhere), Bergeron says he wants to find out why Marguerite would leave for Canada.  He's impressed by the feeling of real history in the city, that you can sense thousands of years gone by.  He is likely seeing the same buildings that Marguerite saw when she was a child there.  He goes to the La Rochelle archives (La Charente-Maritime Archives Départementales), where historian Kevin C. Robbins of Indiana University suggested they meet.  The first thing Robbins has Bergeron do is put on a pair of the infamous white conservator's gloves.  Then out comes a 1623 register of notary contracts; Robbins knows that this particular notary worked primarily with Protestants.  There is a marriage contract for Ardion and Soret, Marguerite's parents.

Bergeron admits immediately, "I can't even pretend to read any of this."  Conveniently, Robbins has a translation handy.  Before they get around to the contract, there's discussion of the fact that the Reformed religion (Protestant, but specifically Huguenot) was typical for La Rochelle at the time; about 80% of the city was Protestant.  The Catholic kings of France were suspicious of Protestants, and Protestants thought that the church was corrupt, greedy, and focused on money (well, you can't fault them on that).

February 1623 registration of marriage
of Pierre Ardyon and Suzane Soret
(their names are just above the
signature at the bottom)

The mariage contract, dated January 5, 1623, was between Pierre Ardion, a master stonemason native to La Rochelle (whose father Jehan, "in his lifetime" [suggesting he was already deceased], was a wholesale fish broker), and Suzanne Soret (daughter of the late — [I couldn't see the name] and of Marie Simon], also a native of the city.  Pierre Ardion, being a master stonemason, probably helped build many of the La Rochelle buildings Bergeron had earlier been admiring.

And what was in the future for this newly wedded couple?  This was a period of growing tension.  The Catholic kings had been hunting down the Protestant community.

The narrator tells us that the French Royal Army tried to take La Rochelle in 1572 but failed.  After this, Protestants in the city minted their own coins and ran their own municipal government, and many of them prospered.  King Louis XIII, who came to power in the early 1600's, considered the city a threat to Catholic control and decided to make an example of it.

In 1627, royal forces of the Catholic king surrounded La Rochelle for another siege.  To learn more about what happened, Robbins directs Bergeron to a colleague who specializes in the military situation in that period.  In the meantime, Robbins "intend[s] to pursue" more research on "what happened to Marguerite" and will let Bergeron know what he finds.  (Have you noticed there's no more mention of the 9th-great-grandfather?)

Bergeron says this is the first day he is starting to see the silhouette of his ancestor through the haze.  As she becomes more real to him, he is becoming more emotionally invested in the search.

la tour Saint-Nicolas

The next stop on the La Rochelle tour is the Tour Saint-Nicolas (Saint Nicholas Tower), which stands at the mouth of the city's harbor.  Bergeron wants to learn what happened to Marguerite's parents during the siege.  Greeting Bergeron at the tower is Erik Thomson, a historian of early modern Europe (the 17th century is "early modern"?)  at the University of Manitoba.  Thomson begins the history lesson by saying that in August 1627, the army had surrounded La Rochelle.  Between 25,000 and 30,000 soldiers constituted the army, while as many as 20,000 residents of La Rochelle remained in the city to face the siege.  The city's defenses were made of stone, so Pierre Ardion would have been an important person for keeping them in good repair.

map of La Rochelle showing
the second, outer, wall

The army built a second wall some distance from the city's original wall.  The plan was to surround the city, cut it off, and starve the residents.  A dike was built to close off the harbor mouth to remove access to the sea and complete the outer circle.  Louis XIII intended to choke the life out of La Rochelle.  The people in the city were aware of the situation and knew they were being starved to death.

By the spring of 1628 things were looking pretty bleak for the town.  Thomson has a translation of an account written by Pierre Mervault, who survived the siege:  A Journal of the Last Siege of the City of Rochel, Begun the 20 of July 1627.  The original book (in French) was printed in the 17th century.  Bergeron reads two short sections.  (The translation style is . . . interesting.)

At this time the necessity, which was horrible, obliged divers to seek ways and means to pass the Line, others to scatter themselves in Vineyards, to gather even but Virgin Grapes, and some to render themselves willingly.  It was now published in the Camp, upon pain of death, not to suffer them to approach the Line, nor to take Prisoners any that should come out of Rochel, but by Musket-shot force them to return within their Counterscarp and Ports, from whence many were killed, choosing whether to finish their lives by a Musket-Bullet, than to return home to die there miserable of Famine:  And many Women and Maids of the common people, going into the Vineyards, were violated, and beaten with Forks, and shafts of Halberts; then stripped as naked as when they came from the Wombs of their Mothers, and so sent back to the City; and in this sort I have seen some return:  But to meet them, other Women went to carry them Gard-robes and Cloaks to cover their nakedness.

While reading this section Bergeron comments on how some people were committing suicide by deliberately choosing to walk out where the soldiers will shoot them.  He is also struck by the fact that the royal army was raping and beating women.  In the second section, things aren't going any better.

October 19, 1628
Now the Famine increased dreadfully, nothing being left, the greatest number having in three Months time not known what Bread was, nor any thing of ordinary Provisions, Flesh of Horses, Asses, Mules, Dogs, Cats, Rats and Mice, were all eaten up; there was no more Herbs or Snails left in the Fields, so that their recourse was to Leather, Hides of Oxen, skins of Sheep, Cinamon, Cassia, Liquorish out of Apothecaries Shops, Flemish, holewort frigased, Bread of Straw made with a little Sugar, Flower of Roots, Irish Powder, Belly of the skin of Beasts and Sheep, Horns of Deer beaten to Powder, old Buff Coats, soles of shoes, Boots, Aprons of Leather, Belts for Swords, old Pockets, Leather Points, Parchment, wood beaten in a Mortar, Plaster, Earth, Dung (which I have seen with my own eyes) Carrion, and Bones that the Dogs had gnawn, and indeed all that came in their sight, though such food gave rather death than sustenance, or prolongation of it, from whence there passed not a day that there died not two or three hundred, or more persons, of such sort, that not only the church-yards, but then the Houses, Streets, and out-parts of the City were in a little time filled with dead bodies, without having other Sepulchres than the places where they fell, the living not having so much — (and I couldn't read the end)

Bergeron exclaims, "They were eating leather?!"  He is astounded and horrified by what the king was doing to the population of La Rochelle.

It becomes obvious that La Rochelle had to surrender.  When it did so, only about 5,000 people were left.  The siege had killed three quarters of the population.  Obviously, Pierre and Suzanne survived (because from what we saw earlier, Marguerite's birth wasn't until the 1630's).  In profound contrast to the detailed description of the siege, everything in the city looks perfectly normal now.

Bergeron is somewhat subdued after the revelation of what his 10th-great-grandparents survived.  We see him apparently the next day, because while he is surprised at how emotional his reaction is to their circumstances, he wonders what he will learn "today" and asks, "Haven't I been through enough?"  Even though he knows his ancestors have been dead for hundreds of years, he hopes things went well for them.

Kevin Robbins has returned with some "newly discovered" information and has arranged to meet Bergeron at the Médiathèque in La Rochelle (it appears to be part of the public library system).  Bergeron is hoping that Robbins has the next chapter in his search.  Robbins starts with a book of baptisms from November 1632–July 1638 (and something else, but I couldn't read the rest of the very aged handwriting on the cover), and since we were shown at the beginning of the episode that Marguerite was born 1636–1640, I was expecting her baptism to be shown.  Indeed, I was not disappointed.  In the church of Villeneuve, the only Protestant (i.e., Huguenot) church still allowed by the king, Marguerite Ardion, daughter of Pierre, was baptized August 11, 1636, eight years after the siege was over.  (I looked several times for Marguerite's baptism, and I just can't find it in the La Rochelle records that are online.  If someone else finds it, please let me know!)

Burial registration of Pierre Ardion,
47 years old

Bergeron wants to fill in more of the gaps between Marguerite's birth and her travel to Québec, and Robbins replies, "That's why we're here."  He has more documents!  Next we see the book of burials for 1631–1647 for the Villeneuve cemetery in La Rochelle.  Pierre Ardion was buried December 31, 1641; they say he was 50 years old (but the burial record says 47).  (I realized about this time that Robbins had not been providing Bergeron with translations, as is customary for WDYTYA, but rather was reading all of the entries to him.  I wonder why they did it differently for this episode.)

The men discuss that after Pierre died, Suzanne would have been in a difficult position.  As a single mother, she probably would have faced the need to work.  (Why wouldn't she remarry?  Was that not common among the Huguenot community in La Rochelle at this time?  And based on the discussion, I have to assume that Pierre must not have had much money, even though he was a master stonemason, though that might be partly due to lingering aftereffects of the siege.)  After talking about this, Robbins takes out a book of deaths from 1647–1658.  Bergeron definitely seems more on the ball than a lot of the celebrities we've seen on this program.  Not only is he able to read the cover, he asks, "Now we're gonna find out when mom died, right?"  And then they cut to a commercial.

Burial registration of Suzanne Soret,
50 years old

On returning to the program we learn that Bergeron is correct.  Suzanne Soret ("the widow Ardion") was buried in July 1650.  Marguerite was an orphan at 14 years old.  Bergeron thinks of his own two daughters and what things would have been like if they had had to fend for themselves when they were 14.  Going back to Marguerite, her best-case scenario would have been having extended family who could incorporate her into their household.  We don't learn how she handled that, however.  The first document the researchers were able to find for Marguerite after her mother died is in a book with the title "Liste des protestant convertit ..." for 1655–1661.  Again, Bergeron is able to get the gist of the French and realizes it's a list of conversions; did Marguerite become Catholic before she went to the New World?  And indeed, Marguerite, an unmarried woman, age 23, converted to the Catholic faith on January 1, 1659.  There would have been a lot of pressure on her (and on all the remaining Huguenots in La Rochelle) to convert.  She probably had fewer options than many others, though.

The next book is particularly fragile, and Robbins handles it very carefully.  (Then why handle it just for an entertainment program??!!)  It is another book of marriages; it includes a contract for the marriage between Marguerite and Laurent Baudet on January 12, 1659.  This comes as a shock:  Marguerite was married before she married Bergeron's 9th-great-grandfather in Québec?  The translation shows that Baudet was a shoemaker from La Rochelle, son of the late Simon Baudet, who was a stevedore; Marguerite is identified as the daughter of the late Pierre Ardion.  Baudet was illiterate; instead of a signature, he made his mark.  Bergeron turns to the camera, breaks the fourth wall, and exclaims, "You can do better, Marguerite!"  Looking at the dates, Marguerite converted less than two weeks before her marriage.  It seems pretty clear that the conversion was done only so she could marry; she was a survivor and did what she needed to do.

Robbins points out a marginal note:  A son, Laurent Beaudet, was baptized on February 21, 1662.  (Unfortunately, I couldn't find the Beaudet records either.)  Of course, Bergeron hasn't heard about this child and can't imagine Marguerite would have taken such a small infant with her on the cross-Atlantic journey.  Robbins says he looked but could not find a death or burial registration for either of the two Laurents.  Bergeron asks where he should go next, and Robbins tells him to investigate Marguerite in Québec.  As the two men part, Bergeron says, "Merci," and Robbins responds, "Je vous en prie" ("You're welcome.").  I was pleasantly surprised at how good Bergeron's French pronunciation was, such as when saying Québec and Suzanne (and far, far better than the mangling that Melissa Etheridge did).  Sometimes he sounded better than Robbins.

While driving, Bergeron says he was not expecting so many tragedies on top of what Marguerite's parents had experienced during the siege.  He hopes Marguerite had a happy ending with Jean in Québec.  He drives by some wall art of a young girl who looks like a hitchhiker; she is carrying a suitcase that has "La Rochelle Québec" printed on the side.  Is that what graffiti looks like in La Rochelle?

In beautiful Québec City, Bergeron heads to the National Archives of Québec (which is an interesting turn of phrase, considering that Québec is not a nation).  He wants to find Marguerite's marriage to his 9th-great-grandfather, which had to have taken place between 1662–1663.  Archivist Peter J. Gagné of the Musée de la civilisation of Québec City is waiting to meet him.  Bergeron sees white conservator's gloves and knows he's going to learn things.

Gagné shows Bergeron something, which he correctly guesses is a marriage contract.  Bergeron recognizes Marguerite and Jean's names and even the date, October 17, 1663 (by this point I was pretty sure that Bergeron has a good working knowledge of French).  Gagné hands him a translation and he says, "Thank you.  These have been very helpful."  (I really enjoyed his wry sense of humor.)  The marriage contract stated that Marguerite was a widow from her first marriage to Beaudet.  Bergeron asks if that means Beaudet died in La Rochelle.  All Gagné can tell him is that there is no mention of Beaudet in Québec records.

Registration of October 28, 1663 marriage of Jean Rabouin and Marguerite Ardion

The marriage contract also mentions Marguerite's 16-month-old son — he survived! — and that Jean Rabouin agreed to "retain and provide lodging, nourishment and catechism" and generally to take care of the child until he reached the age of reason (which might have been 15 years old, but they didn't show that entire section).  So the contract somewhat functioned as an adoption.  Bergeron is thrilled that something good had finally happened to Marguerite.  He is surprised, however, that Rabouin would marry a widow with a son and promise to take care of the child.  He says that Marguerite has "been through a shit [bleeped out] storm!" but is glad that she had the courage to make the trip.

Gagné now turns to an important history lesson.  The fact that Marguerite came to Canada in 1663 with nothing, and that Rabouin was willing to accept responsibility for her son as part of the marriage contract, most likely means that Marguerite was a fille du roi, or a "daughter of the king" (and if she was, then by extension, her first husband had to be dead before she left, or she couldn't have come as a fille).  (What Gagné doesn't discuss, at least not from what we saw, is that he is pretty much the authority on the filles du roi.  He wrote a two-volume work which has biographies on all of the filles, so Marguerite must be in there.)  Until 1863, there was a significant imbalance in the number of men and women in New France, with about six to ten times more men than women.

The narrator steps in to elaborate.  From 1663–1673 the French crown arranged for and funded about 800 unmarried women to immigrate to New France.  They were known as the filles du roi because the travel expenses were paid by the king's treasury.  Marguerite was among the first group of women sent.  Their job was to marry, have children, and help create a sustainable colony for France.

Bergeron suggests this was analogous to an arranged marriage, but Gagné corrects him.  The fille could choose her own husband.  In the economics of supply and demand, she had the supply, and she could demand what she wanted.  For Marguerite, this meant that she could stipulate that her husband-to-be accept and provide for her son from her first marriage.  Women held negotiating power, which was unprecedented for the time.  The program was very successful, and many (most?) of the women had large families.

But wait, Bergeron wants even more.  How can he find out about Marguerite's children?  Gagné says he needs to go to Nôtre Dame de Québec (hey, maybe Bergeron will run into Bryan Cranston there!), where he has a colleague who can be of assistance.

Bergeron finds it powerful to learn that Marguerite's baby survived.  He can appreciate that Marguerite was a strong woman:  He is married to a strong woman, and both of his daughters are strong.  He's starting to like Marguerite a lot.

Baptismal record for Jacques Rabouin

In the Nôtre Dame archives, Bergeron works with Ann Little of Colorado State University.  They start off with baptismal records, of which we see only one:  Jacques Rabouin, who was baptized October 7, 1675.  Bergeron is thrilled to find out that Marguerite had at least one more son.  When Jacques was born, she was about 39 years old.  If she was still having children at that age, she must have been healthy.  She was a good fille du roi.

The next item Little shows is an estate inventory dated September 6, 1679, which suggests someone had died.  She provides only the translation; we don't see the original.  Jean Rabouin was listed as the widower, so Marguerite had died by the age of 43.  Rabouin was the guardian of the following minors:  Marie, 16 years old; Suzanne, 14; Marguerite, 12; Izabel, 10; Anne, 9; Magdelene (7, though not stated on air); and Jacques, 4 (the child whose baptism we saw).  (The baptismal records for Jacques and all six girls are available online, as is the record for at least one more child.  Birthdates:  Marie, April 12, 1664; Suzanne, November 23, 1665; Marguerite, August 25, 1667; Izabel [Elisabeth], August 27, 1669; Anne, May 16, 1671; Magdelene, July 25, 1673; and Marie Angelique, September 28, 1677, who does not appear to have survived to 1679.)  The number of children surprises Bergeron.  (Marguerite's first son, Laurent, is not discussed, but if he was still alive, he would have been about 17, so he possibly wasn't considered a minor, Rabouin probably was not legally responsible for him anymore, and he wasn't covered by the guardianship.)

Church bells ring in the background, and Little turns her head to listen to them (possibly concerned that they might interfere with the taping?).  Bergeron jumps in and says, "The bells are tolling for Marguerite right now."  This man is quick on his feet.

Marguerite died at the Hôtel Dieu, which is not a hotel, as Bergeron thinks, but a hospital.  She probably died of an infectious disease.

The last document Little has is a map of landowners, on which Jean Rabouin's name appears.  The map is of a large island (Île d'Orléans) in the St. Lawrence River, about five miles out of Québec City.  It was the site of some of the initial colonization of the area.  Bergeron is excited:  "We get to go there!"  Little adds that he should visit Ancestral Park, which has a monument to the founders of Québec.  She points out to him that his family is special because he is a descendant of a fille du roi, the Canadian equivalent of being a Mayflower descendant.

Bergeron appears to be surprised and says that he was so focused on Jean Rabouin (really?  the entire episode has been about Marguerite's family; besides, he started out wanting to know about the Bergerons) he hadn't been thinking about how important Marguerite was.  Now he's blown away and says that Marguerite has emotionally taken root for him.

On his way to Île d'Orléans, Bergeron is looking forward to walking the land where Marguerite lived with her children.  He now can appreciate what the filles meant to Québec.  At Ancestral Park (Parc des Ancêtres-de-l'Île-d'Orléans) he finds Jean and Marguerite's names on the founders monument (La mémorial des familles souches de l'île d'Orléans).  He then drives to where Rabouin's land was.  There's a lot of land (but it isn't clear how much of it actually belonged to Rabouin).  (When he got out of the car to walk around, I noticed that he was carrying his jacket, which seemed odd on such a sunny day.  Maybe the car didn't get to stay in that spot?)

Bergeron becomes philosophical at the end.  We learn from the past to improve and enrich the present.  He has been moved by the stories of his ancestors' lives and was more emotional than he had expected.  He's now proud to be a descendant of a fille du roi.  Even when your ancestors have been dead for more than 300 years, if you listen, you can still learn from them.  He had anticipated that this search was going to be more of an intellectual experience, but it's great that he opened up to the emotional side of what he learned.  He closes by saying that life doesn't play out as you think it will.

And to close this season's commentary, I have a little to say about the "Into the Archives" highlights episode, which I was able to watch before it disappeared from my On Demand listings.  As I had expected, even though the commercials had hyped the never-before-seen footage, most of what we saw was familiar.  Two scenes got my attention.  The first was one from the Julie Chen episode, where we learned that the reason her grandfather Lou Gaw Tong built the school in his hometown of Penglai was because his mother had been murdered by hooligans.  Lou felt that the reason this had happened was because children were not being educated and therefore did not feel they had anything to work toward.  This was a powerful scene; I wish it had been included in the full episode.

The second set of scenes that caught my eye came from the Valerie Bertinelli episode.  I noted a couple of times in my commentary that her ancestry through Edward I probably would go back to Charlemagne, but I hadn't found the information.  Well, guess what they did — the Herald of Arms, Peter O'Donoghue, took her ancestry back to William the Conqueror, and from him to Charlemagne!  I also found a handy page online listing royal descendants of Charlemagne; the first one on the page is the lineage of William the Conqueror.  So I really was right!  Additional scrolls extended the lineage back to Adam and Eve and then to God, but O'Donoghue said Bertinelli might not want to put too much faith in those.

Skeletons in the Closet: Divorce

This is the first of what will be an occasional series of posts. The idea behind this series is to discuss subjects which are often denied, covered up, or in some way obfuscated when relatives talk about family history.  When information is hidden, family history research becomes more difficult and can be derailed.  I'm starting with divorce because it's somewhat less volatile than some of the other topics.

It can be difficult for many people in our modern world to understand why divorce might be such a touchy subject in one's family history, but for previous generations divorce was a much more significant event.  Approaching the situation with gravity was even part of the legal procedure.  A couple did not simply get divorced.  Cause had to be shown, and then an interlocutory decree would be issued.  The divorce would be finalized a year later, and then only after one of the parties followed through.  That intervening year was to allow the couple to really, really, make sure they wanted to go through with the divorce.

Because of the social stigma attached to being divorced, women in particular did not want to admit to it.  A lot of "widows" in the census were actually divorcées.

Some of the trepidation about divorce is a holdover from Catholicism, which still does not permit divorce.  The most that Catholicism allows is legal separation, which, in all ways but the final dissolution of the marriage, is just like a divorce.  Paperwork is drawn up, assets are divided, child custody is accounted for -- the same things you see in a divorce.  Legally, however, the couple is still married.  Most other religions allow divorce through some mechanism.

Apparently my family was very "forward thinking" regarding divorce.  My grandmother was divorced in the early 1920's -- I wonder if it caused scandal in the family!  My grandfather divorced for the first time in the mid-1950's, when it still was not a common occurrence.  (Before that happened, he and my grandmother were together and my father was born.  That, however, is a different kind of skeleton in the closet, a discussion for another day.)  One time I sat down and counted and came up with twenty divorces through four generations of one branch of my family.

From a family history perspective, a divorce can provide incredibly helpful information.  I have not yet found a divorce file that did not include the date and location of the marriage.  If you have not found that through other research, obtaining the divorce paperwork can give you a lead.  If the couple had children, their names and birthdates are usually included, particularly if the children are minors.  There may be a full inventory of the couple's assets and property, which can give you an idea of their economic status.  The file may also include addresses of the two parties if legal paperwork was served to them.

Divorce is a civil matter and the records are usually not found in the same department as birth, marriage, and death records.  They are usually available at the county level in the U.S.  Some divorce indices are linked from the German Roots site.  You can also use your favorite search engine with the county name (and state, in case more than one county has that name) and the words divorce records.  (Make sure you find a county site and not a for-profit third party.)  For example, I searched for "okaloosa county divorce records" (not in quotation marks) and found the Okaloosa County Clerk of Court site (which I discovered has scanned images online!).  If the county does not have images or a searchable index online, there will be information on how to request a search and how to order records.

Even though divorce is more commonplace in today's society, it still causes great emotional effects to all parties involved.  If you are researching a divorce in your family and you talk to family members about it, keep people's feelings in mind and be diplomatic and gentle in your discussions.

Stories about My Mother

Last year I shared some of the stories my mother had told me.  She liked to talk about her family, and I heard lots of stories.  But some of the stories about her I only heard after she had passed away.

I didn't learn how my parents had met until several years after my mother had died.  My grandmother told me that one evening my mother and her best friend had gone out to party.  Before they got to their event, their car had problems and was stuck at the side of the road.  My mother was upset that they were going to miss the party, but her friend told her not to worry:  "My uncle's a mechanic, I'll call him.  He can fix it."  Her uncle is my father, and so they met.  I don't know if it was love at first sight, but they married and had three children, so it couldn't have been too bad.

Some years later I had the opportunity to meet that best friend, who is my first cousin.  (She's only seven years younger than my father, because her mother [my father's half-sister] was 21 years older than my father.)  She told me that she and my mother had been proto-Women's Libbers and promised never to marry, have kids, or settle down.  Apparently she stuck to the plan better than my mother did!  After my mother married and moved to California they mostly fell out of touch.

Another story my grandmother told me was how when my mother was about 12 years old she announced one day that she wanted to go to Midnight Mass.  My grandmother just about had a fit!  The family was Jewish, she wasn't going to mass with my mother, and she certainly wasn't going to allow my mother to go out at midnight by herself.  Needless to say, my mother didn't go to Midnight Mass that year, but she maintained a healthy interest in Catholicism during her life.  She married a Catholic (my father was raised Catholic), and I even went to Midnight Mass with my mother more than once.  (Never saw her in a synagogue, though.)

It's always interesting to hear about your close relatives from other people.  You can view their lives in a new perspective.