Sound familiar?
You’re looking for your ancestor in US records post-immigration. What name should you be looking for? How did the town clerk or enumerator write it? Or maybe you pick up a Quebec baptism, marriage or burial record for your ancestor. What does it say? Unless you’re proficient in French, we’ve all been there! So close, but just out of reach.
French Language Lifelines for the Anglo Genealogist is the help you’ve been searching for. In this guide, you’ll find hints for dit names, French sounds, gender, French numbers and dates, and church record translations. You’ll find many quick-access charts, putting information at your fingertips. There are handy lists of names and occupations. There’s a guide to online search strategies to help you be successful with your online research. There are even sections on gleaning information from records written in Latin.
Become a more efficient researcher with French Language Lifelines for the Anglo Genealogist!
In the USA, order here.
In Canada, order here.
Inside you’ll find:
Table of Contents
Table of Figures
Introduction
Part 1: Searching for French-Canadian Ancestors
Surname Variations
Given Names and Diminutives
Pronunciation and Text-to-Speech Aids
Soundex Searches
Understanding Search Engines
The Search Strategy Toolkit
Part 2: Understanding Pronunciation
The Sound of /TH/
The Sound of /Ō/
The Mute H
The Sound of Double L
The Sound of /Ā/
The Sound of /CH/
The Sound of an Initial /OU/
The Sound of a Medial or Final /OU/
The Sound of /D/
The Sound of /AIN/ and /IN/
The Sound of /QUE/
The Sound of /ER/ and /ERT/
The Sound of /EU/, /IEU/, and /IEUX/
The Sound of /G/
The Sound of /EUIL/ and EUILLE/
The C-Cedille (ç)
The Sound of /OI/
Part 3: Understanding Language Peculiarities
Dit Names
L + Apostrophe
Surnames with De, Des, and D’
Gender Clues
Saint vs Sainte vs St. vs St-
Québec —the City or the Province?
Part 4: Making the Records Speak
Baptism, Marriage and Burial Abbreviations
French Numbers
Ordinal Numbers
French Dates
Family Relations
Relationship Clues
Clues to Nationality
Religious Denominations
Terms and Phrases Found in Baptism Records
Terms and Phrases Found in Marriage Records
Terms and Phrases Found in Burial Records
Geographical Terms
Appendix
Language Review
Charts, Forms, and Worksheets
Answers to Exercises
Navigating French Language Websites
Typing French Diacritical Marks
Christmas Words
Money Words
Measurement Words
Occupation Words
Given Names in Latin Records
Latin Baptism, Marriage, and Burial Records
Index
Sandra,
This is a wonderful idea for Anglo genealogists, of which I am one. My father, born in St. Louis de Kent, New Brunswick, came to Massachusetts at age 5. He spoke French in his parents’ home, but went to school and learned English, then married my mom who is not French. Their four children, me included, were not raised bi-lingual, and I truly wish we had been. So I took French in high school – two years – but it was a very different French from what daddy spoke. He could only help me with my homework now and then because it was so different – Parisian French, I believe it was called?
Anyway, I will be ordering your book and thank you for doing this. I can decipher the written word from French to English in the most basic forms, but reading a book or long text is simply beyond me. I’m sure your book will help my research efforts immensely. THANK YOU for taking the time to put this all together for folks just like me, who need a bit of a helping hand with translation efforts.
BTW, we have not had you back to our society in a while, so perhaps we can do a Zoom meeting with you in 2021? If you are doing virtual presentations, we will talk.
Susanne (Susie) DeGrace Haenisch
CMGS VP & Program Chair
cmgso.org (our local society’s web site)