... a few acres of snow ("...quelques arpents de neige...)
Voltaire
Depiction of a canoe going over the rapids by Frances Hopkins
There is also a point in history when circumstances, by necessity, create something new.
Though tedious, confusing, and sometimes maddening the process of genealogy can be, the gathering of names on generational charts is a necessary step to finding out who a family is, where they came from and possibly why.
Early in the process of sorting out who my family was, I realized that the people who populated the increasing number of charts were actually participants in an incredible drama... the founding of a country and a culture. That country would become known as Canada, and a people often referred to as French Canadians.
I realize that a good argument can be made for the fact that New France was never more than a colonial possession, a trading outpost for French merchants, a drain on the treasury during the Bourbon regime, some even say the cause of the French Revolution, but something happened during the approximate 125 years of the French administration of Canada. The settlers stopped seeing themselves as citizens of France, and for good reason, several generations had never seen the old country known as France except through the eyes of governors and intendants and the occasional religious teachers.
Descendants of some of the most remarkable feats of courage and determination, often utter recklessness, these children of carpenters and masons, fur trappers and explorers would become the ancestors shared by most French Canadians.
The families researched are those of my father, which will be referred to as the Lizotte Side and my mother, the Cameron (Camirand) Side. Over a thousand direct ancestors sitting on charts waiting for their cue.
If you have an interest in French-Canadian genealogy or belong to that group of people, I welcome you to step in and look around. It is quite likely you will find an ancestor or two.
Marjorie Lizotte
member of the American-French Genealogical Society since 1985
member of the French-Canadian Heritage Society of Michigan from 1998 to 2003
This site first published in December 2009.
Updated August 2010 to attach a sub-domain entitled Lure of the Mills.
Updated January 2013 to add a page on First Nation People.
