The “Making of” Here to Stay
Until October 31, 2025, Here to Stay / Lives in 17th Century Canada is available with no S/H. Get your copy today.
In 1995, I became intrigued with tracing my ancestry to the first of the Canadian colonists who bore my patronym. Who were these of my people who came to North America four and a half centuries ago? I knew the names of my first progenitors on this continent, but I didn’t know much more about them. It was time to learn more about my personal Franco-North American history and about my group’s history in general. What resulted was The Making of Here to Stay.
Following my Franco-North-American roots
It proved easy to trace my genealogy back to the first of my patrilineal and matrilineal ancestors to cross the North Atlantic to venture a new life in New France.
Because New France was a royal colony (after 1663), reports were filed every year in Québec and Paris of births, marriages, deaths, contracts, court proceedings and more.
In addition, the Jesuits laboring among Indian populations or among the colonists sent yearly reports (the Jesuit Relations) to their superiors in Québec, who then redacted these reports and sent copies to their headquarters in Paris. What the official records missed of Franco-North American history is often picked up in these Relations.
Then there was Marie de l’Incarnation, the superior of the Ursulines in the frontier town of Québec, who wrote 13,000 letters back to France. These letters recorded the weather, the illnesses, the harvest bounty—or lack thereof—as well as the docking of ships bearing settlers to the colony, the latest gossip and scandal. The letters mention the colonists who had been abducted and who died at the hands of the enemy.
My first evening of research at the Maine Franco-American Genealogical Society resulted in ascending the line of Ledouxs to the eleventh generation with Louis Doux who was present in May 1668 on a Confirmation list of people who received the sacrament from Bishop Laval. Louis figures at the sixteenth line of that document. (The first mention of Louis with his surname being Ledoux doesn’t appear until about seven years later—as I was to learn in the following months!)
Based on the success of my first evening, I thought, “This genealogy is easy. Why not follow my matronym—Verreault—to the first ancestor in North America?”
So the following week, I returned to the Maine Franco-American Genealogical Society and, that evening, became acquainted with the indentured Barthélémy Verreault who arrived in Québec on November 5, 1662, before sailing on to Montréal later in the month. He married Marthe Quittel in September 1665. When had she come? So…
Why not learn about her?
I had to admit: I was clearly smitten!
Three years later in the making of Here To Stay
Eventually, I had identified 6,000 of the 8,000 ancestor possibilities one has at the thirteenth generation. (Obviously, in a small population, one finds many duplicates.) I now knew the majority of those who comprise the earliest ancestors in my Franco-North-American history.
What was missing, and was soon to follow, was a deep dive into the history of the first generation: struggles with turning forests into arable lands and pastures, Indian wars, births, community organization and even some everyday life.
.
Max
Amazon reviewer
Thus, insights into their lives resulted from reading dozens of histories, both in French and English. (I may have read as many as fifty books!)
I even discovered a relationship that had to be of best friends! That one is a guess, of course, but it is supported by documents that record the two men in each other’s lives (weddings, baptisms, employment, land ownership) for over two decades.
Until October 31, 2025, Here to Stay / Lives in 17th Century Canada is available with no S/H. Get your copy today.
Around 2005, I turned my notes into a manuscript which unfortunately got interrupted by… life. Then in 2022, after intermittyen tries, determined not to quit, I picked the story up again. (Don’t give up on your manuscripts!) What had been an innominate manuscript became Here To Stay / Life in 17th Century Canada.
In conclusion of The “Making of” Here To Stay
The book Here to Stay / Life in 17th Century Canada was published on October 15, 2025. To read excerpts, click here.