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Episode 083-May 1, 2019
Not all French-Canadian immigrants to New England came in the late 1800s. There were several reasons for our ancestors making an earlier appearance. Guest Patrick LaCroix will share these with us.
Then he will discuss the Canadians who came to America and fought in the Mexican-American War.
Early French-Canadian Immigrants and the Mexican-American War
Patrick and I discussed the following:
Emigration
Patrick is a native Québecer who came to this country for graduate studies and has a PhD in history.
We hear a lot about immigration from Quebec to the Northeast US from the Civil War on. But how many migrated before the Civil War? The head-of-household-only pre-1850 US censuses are of little help because they don’t list where people were born. The best historians can come up with are theories.
Theory #1- from Ralph Vicero: Using mainly 1850 and 1860 US census records, he determined that in 1840, 90% of all French-Canadians in New England lived in Maine or Vermont. He said that by 1860, there were 22,000 in New England and a similar number elsewhere in the US. [See bibliography below.]
Theory #2- from Yolande Lavoie: She conducted her studies strictly in Canada. She looked at population figures and compared the numbers of people born in Quebec versus those who died in Quebec. She tallied the number who were missing at the end of each decade. [See bibliography below.]
Theory #3- from Gilles Paquet and Wayne Smith: They conducted research more like Lavoie’s, but came up with higher numbers. From 1831-1851, they believe 9,600 people left French Canada per year. [See bibliography below.]
Causes for emigration
Theory #1: Agricultural crisis due to antiquated techniques, depleted soil, and crop failures
Theory #2: With such large families, sons from subsequent generations were not able to find large enough available pieces of good farmland.
Theory #3: Because of modernization, there was a shift away from subsistence farming to large commercial farms. (Probably why we see so many of our ancestors’ occupations listed as journalier.)
Theory #4: Canada saw the beginnings of a new trade regime in the 1840s with policies constructed in London. These policies shifted toward free trade, and Canadian farmers no longer had the benefit of protected markets.
The Mexican-American War
Patrick’s search for his relative François LaCroix is what lead to his researching the Mexican-American War. He discovered one or two people on each page of the enlistment lists who were born in British North America. The enlistment records give a person’s age, occupation, and birthplace. It does not give last residence; so it will require further research to determine if the soldier enlisted directly from Canada or had lived in the US for a time first.
While researching, Patrick came upon interesting stories related to Robert d’Estimauville and Pie Narcisse Legendre.
Records
The original enlistment records are at NARA. Patrick used the digitized version on Ancestry.com, Register of Enlistments in the US Army (subsets 1840-1846; 1846-1850; 1847-1849). He found 500 men born in British North America. These sets of enlistments represent only 1/3 of men enlisted in the US Army at that time. Patrick’s findings should appear this spring or summer in the International Journal of Canadian Studies. See Patrick’s blog post, Canadians in the Mexican-American War, and download two versions of his list of soldiers here.
19th century local histories: list men who served in the Mexican War. Many can be found on archive.org, and many of these books are keyword searchable.
Patrick is still looking for pension records and welcomes input from listeners. I did find the index entry for Robert d’Estimauville’s pension record.
Contact Patrick
Patrick’s blog, Query the Past, at querythepast.com.
Email: There is a form on his website, or contact him through academia.edu (https://exeter-us.academia.edu/PatrickLacroix)
Twitter: @querythepast
Patrick’s bibliography
VICERO, Ralph D. “Immigration of French Canadians to New England, 1840-1900: A Geographical Analysis.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1968.
LAVOIE, Yolande. L’émigration des Canadiens aux Etats-Unis avant 1930 : mesure du phénomène. Montreal: PUM, 1972.
PAQUET, Gilles, and Wayne R. SMITH. “L’émigration des Canadiens-Français vers les Etats-Unis, 1790-1940: problématique et coups de sonde,” L’Actualité économique, 59-3 (1983), pp. 423-453. Available here: https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/ae/1983-v59-n3-ae2567/601059ar/.
GALLAHER BODDY, Molly B. “Beyond Boston: Catholicism in the Northern New England Borderlands in the Nineteenth Century.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Hampshire, 2015. Access restricted to UNH users/subscription to Proquest Dissertations & Theses.
GREER, Allan. Peasant, Lord and Merchant: Rural Society in Three Quebec Parishes, 1740-1840 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985).
Regarding the Civil War…
LAMARRE, Jean. Les Canadiens français et la guerre de Sécession, 1861-1865 : une autre dimension de leur migration aux Etats-Unis. Montreal: VLB éditeur, 2006. On Lamarre: https://www.rmc-cmr.ca/en/history/jeanlamarre.
Other resources
NARA
Mexican-American War records from the National Archives
Military Resources: Mexican War, 1846-1848
Fold3
Cyndi’s List
Cyndi’s List: United States-U.S. Military: Mexican-American War, 1846-1848
Other
Online Mexican War Indexes & Records
Military Records at the Archives & Library of the Ohio History Connection
Militia Resource Guide 1815-1870 (for Pennsylvania)
FamilySearch
United States, Mexican War Index and Service Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
United States Mexican War Index and Service Records, 1846-1848
US Mexican War Pension Records
United States Mexican War Pension Index, 1887-1926
Old War Index to Pension Files, 1815-1926
United States, Mexican War Military Unit Names (FamilySearch Historical Records)
Mexican war records at FamilySearch.org
Ancestry.com
U.S., Compiled Military Service Records for American Volunteer Soldiers, Mexican War, 1845-1848
The Military history of Ohio: its border annals, its part in the Indian Wars, in the War of 1812, in the Mexican War, and in the War of the Rebellion
Past episodes recounting the invisibility of Franco-American history
Silent Presence: The French in New England-Part 1-Douillard
Silent Presence: The French in New England-Part 2-Douillard
Settling the American West: the Role of the Canadiens and Métis-part 1-Foxcurran
Settling the American West: the Role of the Canadiens and Métis-part 2-Foxcurran
Settling the American West: the Role of the Canadiens and Métis-part 3-Foxcurran
French-Canadian Legacy Podcast-Martineau
Announcements
Shout out to the cousins I met at the Genealogy Club of the Franklin, MA, Public Library and at the American-French Genealogical Society during last week’s presentations.
Journal Rundown
American-Canadian Genealogist, volume 45, number 1, from the American-Canadian Genealogical Society:
The True Origins of Louis Philippe Langlais of Saco, Maine, Taken as a Prize of War 10 August 1703 by William J. Simmons: a DNA update of the ancestry of captive Louis Philippe Langlais.
A Chaumable/Martin Family Connection: Many Unsolved Mysteries by Barbara LeBlanc
Michigan’s Habitant Heritage, vol. 40, #2, from the French-Canadian Heritage Society of Michigan:
Confirmations for Easter Tuesday, April 4, 1684
Engagé Contracts to Détroit from March 19 to April 15, 1752
18th Century Engagé Contracts to the Great Lakes and Beyond (excluding Detroit) from June 5, 1730 to May 27, 1731
Earthquakes and Other Phenomena in New France by Suzanne Sommerville
Nicolas Pelletier to Jean François Pelletier dit Antaya-Part 1-Nicolas Pelletier
French-Canadian News
The American-French Genealogical Society
May 5: Speaker David Vermette will discuss his book, A Distinct Alien Race.
Classes are held at the AFGS Library, 78 Earle Street, Woonsocket, RI, and begin at 1:30 PM (unless otherwise noted).
The Franco-American Centre
May 3 at 6 pm: David Vermette will again discuss his book at the Dana Center Lecture Room, St. Anselm’s College, Manchester, NH.
UMass, Dartmouth
May 7 at 4 PM: David Vermette is again presenting his book at the University Club in the Campus Center.
The French Canadian Heritage Society of Michigan
May 11, 11 AM, at the Mount Clemens Public Library: Loraine DiCerbo will speak on Genealogy in the 21st Century and Beyond.
Acadian World Congress
August 10-24, at various venues on Prince Edward Island and in southeastern New Brunswick: The 6th Acadian World Congress includes various activities as well as at least twenty-nine family reunions. For information about the previous Congress held in 2014, see episode #19.
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