Exploring background for Acadian research

                                                   Some of the buildings at Louisberg in Nova Scotia

My focus lately has been on the Acadian family lines I married into so I'm searching for things related to French Canada. The other day I watched a webinar about New France called Epic Tales From New France: Dawn and Carol's Greatest Hits. While entertained by the two speakers and the stories they had uncovered in their extensive research into their family history in Quebec, I was struck by how when we talk about New France, the reference is usually to Quebec. Not that I have anything against that province but the family I'm researching wasn't in that part of the country. I want to find information about the Acadians, particularly about the family lines linked to my own family tree.

While Acadia was part of New France, at least according to Google, the contrast between the treatment of the two colonies was stark once the British took over. Perhaps that was also the case under French rule, maybe my research will uncover that fact or not. Their different treatment had a lot to do with the placement of the colonies and perhaps with their alliances too. So it looks like history and geography will come up in my research.

The contrast in how the French colonies were treated also affected the records available for research now. The speakers in that recent webinar were able to take the family trees they were researching far back into the past, to 8th and 9th great grandparents. They gave a brief overview of the extensive records they had access to. Too bad records like those aren't the norm for Acadian research.

A jump start on Acadian lines

 

                                                 Google map showing Isle Madame the site of my Acadian interest

At the end of 2025, I was getting ahead of myself on the planning front. At that time my aim for 2026 was to concentrate on North American roots in the family tree, concentrating both on my own ancestors who link back to America's colonial past by establishing the closer lines that eventually lead back to those more distant relatives as well as working on the Acadian lines of the family that I married into.

The Acadian lines came to the fore much sooner than I anticipated. A post on Gail Dever's blog, Genealogy à la carte, carried the news about a free virtual presentation, "The History of the Acadians: Through Tranquility, Turmoil and Tenacity". I registered right away and sat through Nicole Gallant-Nune's talk as she took the viewers through the saga of the Acadians including the great derangement. I've always wondered what the McPhees and related families went through before they ended up on Isle Madame.

Ms. Gallant-Nunes's advice was to look at the Acadian project on Wiki Tree. So I've gone back to that site adding to the miniscule tree that I started there. This time I'm adding the links that will take me back to the Acadians that I'm interested in. I'm also starting to pull from my shelves the books on Acadia that I've gathered over the years. It looks like it might be time to access the information inside. 

Sources:

Genealogy à la carte – https://genealogyalacarte.ca/ 

Wiki Tree - https://www.wikitree.com/

The year in review - looking back at 2025

 

In previous years, well at least the ones when I did a review of my blog for the year, that review happened in December. So I'm out of sync but then the latter half of 2025 was like that. As I wrote last week, I didn't cover any big continuing stories last year but I was able to group the topics I covered into various categories.

The following list contains the categories and the dates on which they were covered. A link is provided to the first post for each topic.

DNA       February 15        DNA Update

   September 13     Ancestry’s Origins

   October 11          DNA Update

Link to February 15 post

https://genihistorypath.blogspot.com/2025/02/dna-update.html

 

Family Finds & General Musings

                March 29             A Strange connection

                April 5                 The joys of meeting in person

                June 20                More connections for the Hunters and Gilchrists?

                June 28                Hunter/Gilchrist connection on Islay

                July 26                Writing down the family story

                August 2              A genealogical path to history

                August 16            Remembering the weather

                September 6        Family pride of place

                October 4            Family moves

                November 1       Stymied by a mystery

                November 8       Adding descendants and more mysteries

Link to March 29 post

https://genihistorypath.blogspot.com/2025/03/a-strange-connection.html

Family Trees

                February 22        Clues in an overlooked family tree?

                March 1              Further documents to help prove a family tree

                May 17               Adding descendants to my family tree

                September 27     Tempting links to take a tree back

                October 18          Looking at family history from a different perspective

Link to February 22 post

https://genihistorypath.blogspot.com/2025/02/clues-in-overlooked-family-tree.html

Hints and Other Resources

                January 11           Previously untapped research hints

                February 8          Adding to a family’s history through books

                May 24               Tackling a genealogy article backlog

                May 31                Looking for links to Cromwell’s army

                June 14                The Hunter family of Glenegedale

                July 5                   Finds in boxes

                July 19                 Catching up with items saved “for later”

                August 23            What records will we leave?

                August 30            Even genealogy information gets dated

                November 22      Overwhelming hints

                December 6         A possible link to gateway ancestors

Link to January 11 post

https://genihistorypath.blogspot.com/2025/01/previously-untapped-research-hints.html

Research plans, results, etc.

                January 18           Records of questionable behaviour

                January 25           Sorting through past research

                February 1           Families on both sides of the law

                March 8               A further will to add more Strange information

                March 15             A RootsTech visit

                March 22             An adaptable research plan

                April 12               Census information can raise many questions   

                April 19               Occupation – engraver

                April 26               Getting a list of military ancestors together

                May 3                  Earlier military ancestors from my research

                May 20                Some of the more recent military ancestors from my research

                June 7                  Looking back at old research

                July 12                 Memories and genealogy field trips

               August 9              Trying to break an Irish brickwall

               September 20       Chipping away at a brickwall

               October 25          The lure of RootsTech

               November 15       Census problems in research

               November 29       Records with mixed messages

               December 13       End of the year planning

Link to January 18 post

https://genihistorypath.blogspot.com/2025/01/records-of-questionable-behaviour.html

Looking forward and back

 

Ah, the start of a new year, a time of possibilities. It's also time to look back at events that happened last year and any changes they've wrought. There have been a few adjustments to get used to. It's also time to look back on my blog for 2025 and review what I posted and see if I want to make any changes for the coming year. So I've started to review what I wrote. With an average of four posts a month, that's a lot of reviewing.

I'll post the results of the review with blurbs and links to give quick references to any subjects that might pique your interest. One thing I've noticed though is that last year I didn't share any historical family stories over a series of continuing posts as I used to in the past. I enjoyed those and would like to get back to doing some again. Look for those posts to start again in the coming months. I hope you like them too.

I hope your New Year celebration was a happy one and that 2026 treats you right!

Happy Holidays

 

     

                                      Happy Holidays!

                                          

End of the year planning

 

                                                                              Pirate ships in a local light display

It's the time of year when people stop to take stock of how their year has gone before making plans for the coming year. I was reminded of that recently when the person who runs one of my DNA groups sent out the itinerary for our December meeting. The plan for the meeting is to share our successes/breakthroughs for 2025 and to reveal our genetic genealogy goals for 2026. Nice to do if things have gone well but my year is like the sinking pirate ship in the picture. It has been scuttled by events beyond my control.

I did make a DNA breakthrough in 2024 when I used DNA and genealogical evidence to work out the parents of two of my 2 x great grandmothers, Mary Maidment and Sarah Minister. That task made me aware of the time and concentration needed to make those kinds of breakthroughs. Checking through my family tree, I see there are a few more 2 x greats that I can use similar methods to attach to their parents, so that could be a goal for 2026 but most of those family lines are from the UK which adds to the difficulty.

A more realistic goal for 2026 would be to continue expanding my family tree with the families that ended up in North America because it is more likely that descendants from those lines will have tested their DNA. I want to be able to identify those descendants in my match list. And then, if I have time, I hope to be in fine form to start working on the Acadian lines that attach to mine through marriage. Maybe I'll be better equipped to deal with those entangled genealogies once I've straightened out my own North American family links. 

A possible link to gateway ancestors

 

                                                                 Richard III lying in state in Leicester Cathedral

The discovery of Richard III's remains in 2012 fascinated me. I can remember when the skeleton was found in a car park in Leicester and it all seemed so nebulous. Could that really be the skeleton of the deposed king whose body had been misplaced for centuries? I read books about the discovery particularly Philippa Langley's The King's Grave: The Discovery of Richard III's Last Burial Place and the Clues It Holds. I also toured Leicester a few years later, seeing the site of the discovery as well as Leicester Cathedral where the last king of the Plantagenet line now lies in state.

This week's study group topic on Your DNA Guide was about the painstaking investigation which proved that the remains found were indeed those of the former king. One of the resources mentioned might prove to be of use in finding gateway ancestors if your lineage boasts one of the descendants listed in The Plantagenet Roll, a resource published in 1905 which can be found on Internet Archive. There is an index of the listed names of descendants. See the link under sources. So far I've found one possible link in the name Devonshire and I've only just begun. 

Sources:

Internet Archive index for Plantagenet Roll: https://archive.org/details/plantagenetrollo00ruvi/page/650/mode/2up