map of Ile D'Orleans - zoom in to see location of parishes
Although Pierre and Marie were married at St. Laurent on the island, it seems they lived in the area of St. Jean on the Ile D`orléans, as this is where their children's baptism records are found. Pierre and Marie had 121 children between the years of 1786 and 1807,2 according to the Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967 on ancestry.com, at St. Jean Parish.
The Chronicles of St. Lawrence book (pub 1878) states the following about the parish of St. Jean.
Church of St. Jean, Ile D'Orleans
Click on the above picture of St. Jean church to take you to its Flickr source
Most descriptions of the Ile D'Orleans describe the residents as fishermen or boatmakers, but some do refer to agriculture as a profession. I looked at the baptismal records of Pierre and Marie's children to see how Pierre made his living. Some of the earlier birth records of his children do not list his occupation (or I was not able to locate it on the record). However; on his daughter's, Marie Angele, baptismal record, Pierre is said to be "cultivateur". He is also described as an "agriculteur" on his daughter Marguerite's baptismal record. According to Google Translate, these french terms both describe a farmer. So it seems that Pierre Labrecque was not a seafaring man.
I am not sure where exactly they lived on the island, other than the general area of St. Jean, so I looked in the book, French Canadian Resources, which has a section on census information to see if there was a census taken and available that may have Pierre and Marie enumerated. Only parts of this book are available on google books; this is a book definitely worth obtaining. In the census section, the book references an 1831 census for Lower Canada, which looks like it would contain information for Pierre Labrecque and Marie, even which crops they were farming, if he was still farming at the age of 75 years. Perhaps he was living with one of his 12 children. It will be interesting to find this census and the information it provides. Looking at the census section of the Library and Archives Canada website, the 1825 and 1831 Census for Lower Canada for the Ile D'Orleans is available on microfilm C-718 and C-720, respectively.
There are a lot of other sources and published genealogies for French Canadians in Quebec and some specifically on the Ile d'Orleans. Most of these books are written in French, which makes it difficult for me to get much information from them. I will eventually take a look at these books when I have some time to sit at a library. Among these French written books are also information on land transactions. One book looks like it would have information pertaining to the Labrecque family and worth the effort to obtain and try to translate. The book : Les terres de l'île d'Orléans, 1650-1725 by Léon Roy, Raymond Gariépy, perhaps would list landowners and where their land is on the island. Although Pierre Labrecque was born in 1756 and would not be covered in this book, I am sure it would list his grandfather, Joseph Labrec, born on the island in 1697 and married in 1722. This would give a sense as to where Pierre probably grew up on the island.3
I am guessing our Pierre was either given land on the island or purchased land from his father, Pierre Labrecque (b 1723). In order to find this information I would probably need to look at the notorial records for Quebec for this time period. Two good sources on finding information about notorial records are from Library and Archives Canada Notorial Records, and Family Search's wiki article on Quebec Notarial Records.
The first step in finding these records is to determine who the notary (notaire) was for the locality and time period of your ancestor. I came across a book on worldvitalrecords called The Notaries of French Canada 1626-1900 which lists some notaries for Ile d'Orleans, and some for St. Jean and St. Laurent. I am not sure if the St. Jean and St. Laurent are for the Ile D'Orleans or some other area in Quebec, but I am guessing they are for the island. There were only two notaries listed for the island itself in the book; only one for the time period Pierre and Marie were alive, a Joseph Fortier, 1731-1775. I needed to find another way to figure out which notaries may have recorded information on my ancestors. I searched the internet to see if other people researching ancestors from the Ile d'Orleans had come across notaries with relevant records. I produced the following list, which also includes the Ile D'Orleans notaries from the book The Notaries of French Canada.
1644-1693 Paul Vachon (Beauport)
1654-1657 Francois Badeau (Beauport) (14 land grants on island - Labrecque not one of them)
1666 -1691 Gilles Rageot (Quebec)
1662-1682 Romain Becquet (Quebec)
1691-1716 Louis Chambalon (St. Laurent and St. Jean) (Quebec)
1682-1709 Francois Genaple de Belfonds (St. Laurent) (Quebec)
1707-1719 Pierre Rivest (Quebec)
1726-1748 Jacque Pinguet (Quebec)
1731-1775 Joseph Fortier (Ile D'Orleans)
1885-1901 George Emile Larue (Ile D'Orleans)
After looking up these notary's names in the Notaries of French Canada book, I noticed that these notaries are registered in Quebec City. It seems that I will have to look at not only the Ile D'Orleans notaries, but also the Quebec city notaries for a specific date for my Ile D'Orleans ancestors.
Once I found the name of the notary, the next step was to find the notaire's index or répertoires. You can find some online at ancestry (Quebec Notarial Records (Drouin Collection), 1647-1942) and some online at Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (Archives des notaires du Québec des origines à 1930). These are not the actual notorial records, but only list names and perhaps date and notorial act. The description for the ancestry database provides the following information on obtaining the actual records, "Millions of notarial records are located in several regional archives in Canada. Some records may also be available on microfilm through the Family History Library." Unfortunately; the index for notary Joseph Fortier was not in either the ancestry.com database or the Bibliotheque et Archives Nationales du Quebec database. My next step was to search the catalogs to see if Mr. Fortier's index was on microfilm. I am not familiar enough with the different catalogs on the Canadian Archives websites, so I decided to email the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec to see if they had his index and records. They replied that the index for the notaire Joseph Fortier is on 2 microfiches, numbers 3000302 and 301091. The email also stated that they have the records of the notorial act on microfilm for Joseph Fortier.4 I also searched the library catalog for the Family History Libraries to see if they had the microfilm I was looking for, as it would be easier for me to obtain that locally than to visit Quebec (which I eventually want to do). I was happy to find that they do have microfilm on Actes de notaire, 1731-1775 of Joseph Fortier in their library. I am not sure an index is included in this microfilm, but it would be difficult to browse through all four microfilms of acts without an index, especially since the documents are in handwritten french. I guess I would start around the year of marriage and around the year of his father's or mother's deaths if there is no index.
Pierre and Marie lived during an eventful time in Quebec's history. The French and Indian War, which resulted in Canada transferring hands from the French to the English was the first major event. Also occurring during this time period was the failed invasion by the American Colonies towards the end of the American Revolution. Although these events occurred before Pierre and Marie were married, they paved the path to other events in Canadian history which occurred and most likely affected this couple and family.
The first major change was in June 1791.5; the Constitutional Act of 1791, with the division of Quebec into two colonies, Upper and Lower Canada. The article from Wikipedia states the following about the newly formed Lower Canada, where Pierre and his family lived, “Lower Canada retained French law and institutions, including seigneurial land tenure, and the privileges accorded to the Roman Catholic Church”, which kept Quebec a unique part of British owned Canada. Information on the parliamentary record is discussed in the book, A History of Quebec: Its rescources and people : an illustrated VOl. 1. Chapter 22 begins a good section on this information. Wikipedia also has an article, Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, listing members of the parliament.
The War of 1812 was the next major event. Most likely Pierre did not join the military as he would have been 56 years old. According to the History of Quebec book, the sentiment in Lower Canada was a desire to be free of England’s hold on them; however they still supported England against the United States in this war (p353). Militia that was raised, (p354), starting with unmarried men between the ages of 18-25. Their oldest son, Pierre, would have been 26 years old, and second son, Charles, would have been 23 years old. Charles would have been of the age to join the militia; but I am not sure he was still alive at this time. I was not able to find a marriage record or a death record for Charles, so he may have died as a child (check census information). Their third son, Joseph, would have been 20 years old in 1812, fitting the requirement of the militia. I have not seen any information regarding the involvement of the men from the Ile D’Orleans In the war of 1812, but there are some muster rolls available online6; no Lebrecque is listed in any of these lists. The Americans never did enter the city of Quebec or the Ile D’Orleans throughout the war, which lasted until 1814, with all borders between the United States and Canada left as they were.
Marie and Pierre spent about 52 years together on the Ile D'Orleans, until Marie's death on March 14, 1837, recorded in the parish of St. Jean, Ile D'Orleans, Quebec. Pierre died only two years later, on February 27, 1839 recorded in the same parish. They lived a long life together on the island, with their children close by. Out of all 12 children, I have record of only 1 child dying before they did, Marie Labrec, who died in 1791 at the age of three and a half. I did not find death dates for five of their children, but most of those children (except Marie Magdalene and Charles) have marriage records on the island, showing that lived to adulthood. It is nice to think that they were a close family living near each and helping each other out.
notes:
1. Their daughter Anatolie's birth record states parents are antoine labrecque and marie godbout- but Anatolie's marriag record states that her parents are pierre labrecque and marie godbout - birth record probably a mistake as I did not see any other children of a couple of antoine labrec and marie godbout and did not find a marriage record for an antoine labrec and marie godbout for this area (browsed through the records and searched on yourfolks database for marriage record).
2. Antoine may have been born after 1807 - I was able to find 10 out of the 12 baptismal records in the parish records of St. Jean; however, I did not find a record of baptism for their daughter Genevieve or their son Antoine. These children were listed on the yourfolks website as children of Pierre and Marie, so I searched for their marriage records in the same database on ancestry. Both marriage records for Genevieve and Antoine do state they were the children of Pierre and Marie.
3.There are also some other publications which list land grants and transactions in Quebec. Another one is, Liste des terrains concédés par la Couronne dans la province de Québec de 1763 au 31 décembre 1890, which is actually digitized and available online. The title is translated as, List of lands granted by the Crown in the Province of Quebec, and it is an index which enables you to locate microfilm copies of the land records from the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. A brief explanation of this work can be found on the Libray and Archives Canada website, under land records. I am not sure how helpful this source would be for finding information about land that Pierre acquired as I doubt by the 1780s land would still be available for grants by the Crown on the small Ile d'Orleans. The Library and Archives Canada also has a section on Land Petitions in Canada. An index to these land petitions and some of the actual records are online at their website. Since Pierre was married in 1785, I would be looking for transactions that occurred around this time, which would be indexed in Lower Canada Land Petitions, Quebec and Lower Canada, 1764-1841 (RG 1 L3L). I believe that these land transactions are also land granted from the Crown, so again, most likely would not contain the information I am looking for. I did search for a Pierre Labrecque in this database, and found Pierre Labreque, 1802, microfilm C-2494, vol. 7, page 2049. I am not sure this record is worth obtaining as it is most likely another Pierre Labrecque, perhaps not even on the island.
4. After receiving this email, I tried to search for Joseph Fortier on the pistard catalog on the Bibliotheque et Archives nationales Quebec website, to see if I could figure out how to find other notaries when I needed to. Joseph Fortier is listed in some documents in Pistard, but I could not find the microfilm which lists his index and records. I was able to find some records of other Labrecques, including the marriage contract for Pierre's father and mother, Pierre Labrecque and Cecile Baillargeon by notary Louis Pitcher in 1755. Also in this catalog is a record of land given to Pierre's father, Pierre Labrecque, in 1750 from his widowed mother Genevieve Paulet. Both of these records are online at linked in the Pistard catalog. I also looked at the "Private Archives and Colonial Records" section of ArchiviaNet from the Library and Archives Canada (which is no longer updated I believe) to see if there were other notorial records. I did find one for the marriage contract of Pierre Labrecque and Jeanne Chotard by notary Guillaume Audouart in 1662, Pierre's great-great grandparents. I really do not understand all the different catalogs and digital sources available on both of these websites and how they are connected. That will have to be one of my goals for researching my French Canadian ancestors, to gain a better understanding of these resources. UPDATE : I found a Quebec City Area, Marriage Contract Index, 1761-1940, on ancestry, and on the Quebec National Archives Library, which indexed marriages and the notaries that the records are filed under. Pierre and Marie's contract was not done by Joseph Fortier after all, but by Antoine Crespin, fils. His records are kept at the Archive on microfilm CN301, S77, according to this database.
5. Canada Online - Constitutional Act of the Province of Lower Canada document
6. Muster rolls of Canadian soldiers for war of 1812
Ancestry Database: War of 1812: Miscellaneous Canadian Records
Links of interest:
The Canadian Encyclopedia French Canadian Nationalism
Wikipedia article on Lower Canada
Wikipedia article on the Constitutional Act of 1791
Wikipedia article on the War of 1812
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