=======================================

WHAT'S NEW

      Is it July already . . .?  Wow; time's sure fun while you're having flies.

     Anyway.

     Happy Canada Day. (July 1)

     Happy Independence Day. (July 4)

     Hopefully things are now going to settle down for a bit.

     Got a new cousin to introduce this month.

    "Son: Christopher in 1975

   "Mike -- born in Rumford, ME in 1956

   "Dad:    Paul J. Pepin

    "Grandfather:    Napoleon Pepin (married to Hebert) born in Quebec, his father died when he was just a baby, so he was practically raised an orphan by lumberjacks"

     Mike proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is indeed one of Us.

     How . . .?

      He said and I quote,

     "Also Interesting to note your inference to "risk" associated with Pepin.  I'm actually a racecar diver on the weekends and definitely have an extreme adventurous nature.  I'm racing at www.speedway95racing.com

     "Not off to a good start this year, 'cause I jumped into a top division with 15 yr veterans, so . . . I'm the rookie.

      "Racing over the weekend was WILD....came in 6th....let's see:  there were SIX cautions, 4 wrecks, 1 minor collision with moi, a fist fight in the pits, our championship driver being permanently suspended, a fan with a fatal heart attach and I broke my A-frame and was frantically trying to get ready for the next race (double-feature, came in 8th.)"

      [Hey, Don, you guys should aughta swap racing stories]

      He is also musically inclined -- a testament to the family legacy of creativity --  being a performer, writer, engineer, and producer -- though the last thing he did was an instrumental CD of relaxation music and likes most styles of music.  Well, except for jamming with his 18 year old nephew.  Mike says, "I've been jammin' a bit with my nephew's grunch-rock band....it was quite comical as they first didn't even want to let the ol' uncle rocker sniff the drumsticks."

      I was laying here the other night, enjoying the quiet.  My head was still humming a bit after a day of entering names into the Monster Data Base; I'd hit the 18,000 mark (18,105 as of 7:03pm PST, 5 July 2002).  Mind you, that's 18,000+ people over an average of about 175 years -- 1608 through 1775 -- AND that only about 2/3rd of these guys lived long enough to marry and be fruitful.

      Math was one of my better subjects in school.  Just *thinking* about how many of us are out there makes me grin, especially those from the daughters' lines where the Pepin name has become fuzzy or forgotten.  Why?  Many of these lost cousins don't have the foggiest idea why flying via internal combustion along a stretch of pavement like one's hair is on fire -- or spinning doughnuts in a bulldozer simply because one can -- is fun.  They'll figure it out . . . or they won't.

 <chuckle>

 =======================================

 

      Anyway.

     Last month we looked at Marie-Françoise (2Robert1Robert), and her two husbands, Pierre COURCY, and Elie LEGROS dit St
LAURENT.

Joseph DEGUIRE dit Desrosiers, son of Pierre DEGUIRE dit Desrosiers and Jeanne GAZAILLE, was baptized 1 Oct 1704 in Contrecœur.

Angélique and Joseph married 16 March 1731 at St-Michel-d'Yamaska.

2.  Marie-Elizabeth DEGUIRE, baptized 14 June 1733; married Lucas SHMID on 30 April 1753

 3.  Jean-Baptiste DEGUIRE, baptized 12 May 1736; buried 27 May 1736

 4.  Henri-Louis DEGUIRE, baptized 16 July 1737; married Marie-Anne LAPLANTE.

5. Jean-Baptiste DEGUIRE, baptized 1 Oct 1739; buried 4 June 1814, at l'Hôtel-Dieu; married Marie-Charlotte LUSSIER on 25 Jan 1768

6.  Marie-Angélique DEGUIRE, baptized 2 July 1741

7.  Marie-Rose DEGUIRE, baptized 17 Feb 1743; buried 24 Feb 1743

8.  Marie DEGUIRE, baptized 1 March 1744; married Pierre LEVERRIER on 30 Aug 1767

9.  Marguerite DEGUIRE, baptized 10 Aug 1746; married Pierre HÉBERT on 14 Feb 1763

10. Pierre DEGUIRE, baptized 20 March 1749

11. Marie-Rose, baptized 2 Jan 1752; buried 8 Jan 1752

12. Geneviève DEGUIRE, baptized 29 Sept 1754; married Antoine COURNOYER on 11 Jan 1773

     If you can add, subtract or correct any of the above, e-mail me and tell me about it.

     These are from the footnotes scattered through out the Tanguay.  Alas and alack, my spiffy French dictionary is one of the books that is in storage.  So, I'm winging it.

--Louis GAUTIER, #11423, name footnote: Tome 1, p 260, "Sieur de la Pigeonnière, 1er Capitaine du detachement de Ste. Foye, était à Ste. Foye, en 1700."

     Louis was the guy in charge of Pigeonnière and was 1st Captain of the Ste. Foye detachment, and he arrived in Ste. Foye in 1700.

--Jean GERVAISE, #388, name footnote: Tome 1, p 265, "Un des ancêtres de Mgr. et de Sir George-Etienne Cartier."

     Jean is an ancestor of Sir George-Etienne Cartier.

--Philippe GERVAISE, # 9165, name footnote: Tome 4, p 259, "Marié sous le nom Gervais."

     Philippe was married as Philippe GERVAIS.

 --Sébastien GINGRAS, #17813, burial footnote: Tome 1, p 268, "Inventaire, le 27 oct. 1697.-- Greffe de Rageot."

     My *guess* is that they finally finished going through Sébastien's stuff on 27 October 1697, I can't imagine it took them 10 years to plant his mortal remains.

--Marie-Clotilde BRISSON, #77, name footnote: Tome 1, p 269, "Un des ancêtres de l'Honorable Madame Joseph Masson, seigneuresse de Terrebonne, (voir 2 fév. 1767, à Montréal.]"

     Marie-Clotilde is an ancestor of the Honorable Madam Joseph Masson, the lady in charge of Terrebonne.

--Françoise-Elisabeth ISABEL, #17888, name footnote: Tome 4, p 294, "Et Bourassa : la mère de son père ayant épousé Jean Bourassa ; voy. vol. I, p. 76."

     Françoise-Elisabeth's paternal grandmother was married to Jean Bourassa.

--Charles GOGUET, #17964, name footnote: Tome 4, p 317, "Ecrasé par un arbre dans la forèt."

     Something to do with trees/the forest . . . ?

--Madeleine BROUILLET, #17967, name footnote: Tome 4, p 317, "Inhumé sous ce nom."

     She was buried under the name Madeleine BROUILLET.

--Gabriel GOSSELIN and Françoise LELIÈVRE #13153 & #18006, marriage footnote: Tome 1, p 276, "1653, juillet.--Contrat de marriage, par Rolland Godet.

     According to Rolland Godet, Gabriel and Françoise's marriage contract was signed in July of 1653

--Jacques GOULET, #18036, name footnote: Tome 1, p 277, "Demeurant au moulm de M. Deschatelets."

     I believe this is describing how Jacques kept a roof over his head and groceries on the table.

---Pierre-Jacques GOURDEAU, #10885, name footnote: Tome 4, p 344, "Seigneur de Beaulieu et de la Gosardière ; capitaine du port de Québec, 1718."

     Pierre-Jacques was the guy in charge of both Beaulieu AND Gosardière, and was also the port captain in Québec in 1718.

--Madeleine HÉLY, #18086, name footnote: Tome 4, p 355, "Et Léonard, du nom de baptéme de son père."

     Madeleine HÉLY is also know as Madeleine LÉONARD because LÉONARD was the name her father was baptized with.

--Martin GRAVEL, #16973, name footnote: Tome 1, p 280, "Il conduisait une barque.  Plusieurs fois cité dans le  Journal des Jésuites."

     What ever this is about Martin, it was from some Jésuite records.

 

RAMBLINGS FROM THE EDITOR

     It's now 8:18 PM PST and, after entering in Angélique and Joe's kids, the Monster Data Base contains 18,124 individuals.  So how come we aren't knee-deep in Pepins?

     At one point in time, the ambition of most young men under 5'6" tall in Eastern Canada was to become a Voyageur.  I've seen several listings so far that indicate some of our ancestral kin folk became Voyageurs.

     Such a romantic figure, the Voyageur.  Canoe-men extraordinaire, these tough and O-so-colourful adventurers helped spread commerce and pea soup across all of North America.  There was no place too remote, no place too difficult, no portage too long, that a true Voyageur could not beat his brothers to -- singing at the top of his lungs -- and paddling fast enough to water ski (if water skiing had been invented, you can *BET* your last piece of hardtack that the Voyageur would have excelled at it).

    Get more than one Voyageur in close proximity to each other and you had the raw materials for some sort of competition or race.  There weren't too many things Voyageurs couldn't turn into a contest.  One will have more dogs than wives; another might have more wives than dogs, and yet a third will always pop up who will have more wives AND dogs than anyone else there.

     Get two canoes -- or bateaux -- on the same stretch of water and you have a canoe race.  Mind you many Voyageurs who worked for large and/or famous fur companies did NOT swim; the companies found more merchandise reached its final destination if the boatmen couldn't swim.

     Most of the merchandise was bundled into bales weighing about 90 pounds each. The rational was that if all the bundles weighed the same, it would be easy to tell which ones had been pilfered from.

     Most of the Voyageurs were under 5'6"; short legs made more room for merchandise in the canoe.

     The fur traders used the many rivers, streams, and other such bodies of water across North America as their highways.  Of course now, sometimes there were stretches of water that not even a Voyageur who could swim would attempt (though I do wonder how many of the Pepins looked at a stretch of white water and thought, "We *might* make it, and --whoo-wee-baby -- whadda ride!"), necessitating taking the merchandise out of the canoe, taking the canoe out of the water and carrying the whole shebang to the next navigatible bit of water; these pull-out points were called "portages".

     Carrying individual bales of merchandise gets tedious after a while and besides, it's a prime opportunity for some friendly competition.  Jacques can carry 4 bales, using a tump line -- a strap that loops over your forehead, and the free ends dangling down your back are each hooked to a 90 pound bail letting you carry more than any same person should-- and some creativity.

    Jean-Baptiste manages 5.

     Jacques says his cousin Pierre can do 6 . . . and you eventually wind up with the record of 8 bales (as recorded by a young HBC clerk who witnessed it).  But there are many pitfalls on the road to fame.  Such as, if you can't swim and you fall into the river carrying six 90 bales, odds are you won't be joining the boys later for pea soup, hardtack, and a nice pipe of rope tobacco.  It also makes having descendants tricky.

      So, the same thing that gives us that zeal for life is also our Achilles heel.

======================================= 

NEWSLETTER INFORMATION

     If you have family you want to share this with but they don't have a computer, please feel free to print it out and share it with them.  If you have family with a computer and/or Internet access who you think might be interested in the newsletter, drop'em an e-mail and let'em know about it; feel free to pass along my e-mail address.

     Back issues of COUSINS can be found at:

http://www.fortlangley.ca/pepin/cousins.html

     This URL will take you to the COUSINS Front Desk.  Or, you can click on any of the red lions that appear on the Pepin pages and Site Directory.

 

     If for any reason you wish to change the way you receive the newsletter -- or if you no longer wish to receive COUSINS -- drop me an e-mail at lisa@fortlangley.ca and tell me.

     If you just wanted to chat, my number is -- for now -- 604-524-0507.