November 2005 -- Vol 11, No. 5

In this month's COUSINS:

(To return to the top, click on the decorative bars)

WHAT'S NEW

In preparing this month’s feature, I recognized that I have been going in circles. 

So.

We have come to that point I figure I would one day: I need input from you folks.

But first, a Public Service Announcement.

I’ve been getting a lot of bounces again.  Now a friend has mentioned that with his email, the server automatically kicks back anything sent to more than a certain set, low number of individuals.  To test this theory, I’m sending the newsletter separately, and individually, to all the most frequent bounces, just to see if it gets through.

Anyway.

Since the December issue marks 6 years of COUSINS, I would like to do an All Request Issue.  What do you want to see in next month’s newsletter.  What family do you want showcased in the Feature?  Got dead-ends you want to have posted --even if you’ve mailed them in before and I seemingly ignored them --callus chienne that I am-- mail them in again.  <insert lopsided grin HERE> Want me to Ramble about something in particular?

Whadda ya wanna see?  Let me know.

THIS MONTH'S FEATURE: 

In October, we looked at the first three generation of Robert PÉPIN and Marie CRÊTE’s line.  There were a total of 41 individuals who lived long enough to marry and/or have children.  And, well, the first time through, all those letters and Roman Numerals *sounded* like a good idea but I kept getting lost, so I imagine some of you did, too.

So, after making myself more nuts trying to do this with Access and Excel (Microsquish Office programs for making data bases), I went to WORD and made a big table, with a column for each generation, thus we’re gonna try this again, but this time with the whole thing, the whole thing being all of Robert and Marie’s known descendants who lived long enough to marry and/or have children.

If you aren’t on this list and would like to be, send me some email.  If you are on this list and would rather not be, send me some email.  And if I hear from no one about this, the worksheet --a WORD .rtf file--with all the names will be available by request.  

If you can add/subtract/change any of this, send it on via email.

MAILBAG

Got an email that has me curious. It reads, in part:

“I am inquiring about your Michel-Etienne May.  He is part of my family associated with my Louis Cotnoir line of my great grandfather’s line. Michel Quit-Ta Cotnoir is (Michel-Etienne May) brother-n-law...Michel Cotnoir married Julie Maie.  Do you know if Michel-Etienne May is Indian? or Metis?  I am researching my Indian as well as French connections of this family & I had your Michel-Etienne aka: Quit-ta-tter, as buried with an Etienne Peppin not as Etienne Peppin.  My ref. for that was a gentleman in an old query who descends from him whom had him buried with Etienne Pepin aka: Peppin.  Can you tell me, how you connected for sure that he is in fact one & the exact reference, (do u have a copy to send via email?) so that I may put in my family history the confirmation?  […]  Do you know anything of the Cotnoir aka Cottenoir with or without (e) on end? families as well?  Do you know if this Pepin lineage is Indian or French?  Any help would be appreciated.  Thank you.  Laurie.”

This line is:

Michel MAY, son of Antoine MAY and Madeleine LAJEUNESSE (don’t know where Antoine came from and I’ve been told that Madeleine’s LAJEUNESSE line is “heavily Métis”)

   =Married 3 May 1802, St-Michel d’Yamaska…

Marguerite PEPIN, youngest child of Louis-Etienne PEPIN and Jeanne Marie Jennette MCCLURE

Their children, according to parish records from St-Michel in Yamaska, are:

                           
Marguerite PEPIN was buried 21 June 1818.

Michel MAY/MAIE

=married 22 Feb 1819

Angélique GENEREAU (Who are Angélique GENEREAU’s parents…? I haven’t a clue.)

Their children are:

If there are any of you Cousins who might be able to help Laurie out, let me know.

RAMBLINGS FROM THE EDITOR

The email from Laurie got me to asking questions about my research.  Well, not the research itself, but the conclusions I’ve reached.  Documentation prior to 1900 is really thin here on the west coast. The questions I asked myself prompted me to re-examine the twigs and branches out here on my branch.  Piecing it all together was a tricky bit of business.

I mean, I started with Louis Seymour Peppan and Gramma McFarland, who eloped on horseback from Squamish, BC, and homesteaded Cattle Point on Washington’s San Juan Island where my grampa Don was born in 1895.  The now late Chief Dan George was my great great uncle, a couple times removed, and I was also a shirt-tail relation of General Sam Houston.  There were stories about horse thieves, and of a man who refused to sign a peace treaty, and his daughter the dance hall girl.  Stories of bootleggers and smugglers.  Motorcycle racers of no small local renown.

It was 1970.  It’s now 2005, almost 2006

Louis Seymour PEPPAN is, if my conclusions are correct, Simon MAGICE aka Simon PEPIN aka Simeon PEPPIN aka Seymour PEPIN aka Seymour PEPPAN

Gramma McFarland started life as Emma Sarah HOUSTON

Simon aka Seymour was born 8 May 1855 at Fort Langley in what would become, in just three short years, the Crown Colony of British Columbia.  He got baptised in 1856, immediately after his parents, Etienne MAGICE, son of Michel and Marguerite PEPIN of St-Michel diocèse of Montreal, and Isabelle “femme Keitosé”, married.

Michel-Etienne MAY was the eldest son of Marguerite PEPIN and Michel MAY/MAIE.    

In the early 19th century, there appears on the Hudson’s Bay Company’s employee files a fellow named Etienne PEPIN aka Etienne MAILLÉ aka Etienne MAGICE aka Quit-Ta-Heel PEPPIN.  The HBC’s Etienne PEPIN is from “Yamaska parish, Quebec” and was born circa 1799, according to employee records.  From 1 June 1827 through 31 May of 1837, Etienne is a “Servant”, servants being the grunt labourers.  And from 1 June 1837 through 31 May 1853, he’s a blacksmith.  Besides bragging that he was the illegitimate son of “Marguerite Peipan”, he was fond of the Englishman’s expletive “Get to Hell” earning him the nickname “Quit-Ta-Heel”

Then there was the letter I wrote to a fellow named Fred PEPIN.  His family came west from Arnprior, Ontario, in the 1880s.  Prior to that, says Fred, the only Pepin in the province was Fort Langley’s Etienne PEPIN.  If there are any PEPIN kin out there who hail from Arnprior, drop me some email.  IN the meantime, I need to find the letter he sent with his family tree in it.

In Fort Langley’s copy of The Fort Langley Journal 1827 – 1830, on page 42, was an entry stating that A Louis OSSIN and Etienne PEPIN were staying and two other guys were returning to Fort Vancouver with Mr. McKenzie. 

In The Fort Langley Journals 1827-30 edited & published by Morag Maclachlan, the two other guys are identified as Antoine PIERRAULT and François TARIHONGA.  In the Maclachlan “Journal”, there is footnote stating that “Etienne Pepin of Yamaska” was still in BC in 1850, and in fact came out of retirement to go back to work for HBC.  The two sources for this footnote are a reference work on the history of Ft. Langley written by Jamie Morton, the other is short history book written in 1927 by Denys Nelson.  After reading the Maclachlan “Journal”, I discovered that Etienne arrived at the first Fort Langley, built at what would become the GVRD Derby Reach park on Christmas Eve, 1827.  And throughout the Journal, Etienne is referred to as The Blacksmith; he made “small inferior axe heads”.  Chatting with Jamie Morton, Jamie said he found evidence that Etienne’s Claim to Fame as a blacksmith was that he made really great nails, and that he may have been a self-taught blacksmith.

Besides the baptism record for Simon, I found baptism records for two older children, Marie and François, in the “Catholic Church records of the Pacific Northwest: Vancouver, Volumes I and II, and Stellamaris Mission”.

 And from Dwight HÉBERT I received the marriage registry from St-Michel-d’Yamaska for Etienne’s parents, Marguerite PEPIN and Michel MAY/MAIE.  A few years later, his father Henry sent me baptism, marriage, and burial info on Michel MAY/MAIE’s children.  I was intrigued that Michel Etienne was given MAY and his 9 younger brothers and sisters given MAIE.  Just flexible spelling, perhaps?

Anyway. 

In and around all of this, I was hoping that Marie had had kids with her husband, Simon Gill, and that I would find evidence of François having a family.

Well, Marie never had children of her own, though she was step-mom to Simon Gill’s son Simon from Simon’s first marriage to a Chehalis woman recorded as “Marie Aghelis”.  Marie PEPIN was 14 when she married 26-year-old-widower Simon Gill from Fort Vancouver.

But, now, with François, the only record of his existence is Entry 60 in the “Catholic Church records of the Pacific Northwest: Vancouver, Volumes I and II, and Stellamaris Mission” when he and sister Marie were baptized.  4 Sept 1841, at Fort Langley.  Marie is listed as being “aged 6 years and a half” and François as “3 years”.  Their father is Etienne MAILLÉ and mother is an unnamed “Uiskwin woman”, but on Marie’s marriage registry, she is “daughter of Etienne PEPIN of the parish of Masca, diocese of Montreal, and of a woman of the tribe of the Mascoyennes [Maskagonné]”

Marie’s step-son Simon Gill grew up and married Angélique PLAMONDON, the daughter of HBC employee Simon Bonaparte PLAMONDON and 2nd wife Emelie-Marie BERCIER née FINLAY. 

Marie’s step-son Simon GILL and his wife Angélique PLAMONDON had 14 children, and they saw all but four married.  The spouses of their children had surnames like: WYANT, BROADBACK, LOZIER, MCKINNEY, WHITLEY, MCTURNAL, ST. GERMAIN, PLAMONDON, SULLIVAN, JULIUS, KINDRED, CLOQUET, and BARNES.  Most of this marrying went on in south-western Washington and north-western Oregon area. 

And I’ve got Marie’s little half-brother Simon’s family pretty well squared away (yes, I know, it does appear that Simon was a particular favourite of this group of people)... after all, Marie’s little half-brother Simon is my great grandfather.  I still don’t know where he’s buried, but I do have it narrowed down to “somewhere in the Puget Sound Basin”.  I know that of his 7 surviving children (he and Emma had 8; lost the 6th prior to 1900):

-Frank died young with no known offspring

-Susie and Rosie danced the Pantages Circuit as dancers between --at the very least-- 1914 and 1916; Susie was at different times, Mrs. Ed Zoyara and Mrs. D.E. Johnson; Rosie was said to have died young, also, and with no known children.

-Charlie lived with Belle for years; they never married and had no children

-Lizzie married, had one son, Lou; Lou married the daughter of Liz’s sister-in-law, Kit, but there was no issue.

-Willie apparently never took any serious interest in women

-Don, the youngest son married a divorcée, Kit; they gave her daughter-from-a-previous marriage three younger siblings.

Now there is a chance that Susan, Frank, Charles S., Rosa B., or William S. might have had children floating around; being married isn’t *biologically* necessary to the child-creation process, nor is Experience.  On the back of a photo of their mother, Emma, Emma writes, “I am not so fat now since Ive bein worrying about Susie.”  Husband trouble?  A difficult pregnancy?  Though I do rather suspect Susie’s problem was that she was yet another lucky recipient of the Pepin Family Legacy ::Depression:: and having a really rough ride.  I know had *I* been given an option, I’d have certainly chosen Lands and Titles over diabetes, and genetic predispositions to clinical depression and substance abuse.

But of François MAILLÉ aka François PEPIN --he might even have been yet another François Edouard-- nothing.  Well, other than, perhaps, Simon named his oldest son Frank after his uncle François.

So.

What happened to François?  He could have died young.  A childhood illness . . . accident . . . or could he have gone back East?

Now I answered Laurie the best I could, and really really tried hard to keep it . . . not long, offering her the URL for the page on Etienne PEPIN and Isabelle KWANTLEN at http://www.fortlangley.ca/pepin/EtienneIsabelle.html for sources on a lot of the information she was looking for.

I hope I hear from her again --she is family.  There’s a very short list of who Laurie’s “gentleman in an old query” might be.

 I’m so very curious.  Very curious.

NEWSLETTER INFORMATION

     If you are reading this online because you no longer receive it via email, and you would like to receive via email again, drop me an email.

     If you are reading this online because you asked to receive via email and it hasn’t happened yet, drop me an email.

     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.

      For a hard copy of the newsletter, send an email to lisa@fortlangley.ca, and 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, drop me an email.  If I don't answer right away, email me again. 

COUSINS
comes out once a month -- more or less
This month's was finished 16 Nov 2005, 3:02 PST