Québec to Massachusetts – The Lemoine Family

This week’s case study: T. wanted to document his Canadian ancestry for a citizenship by descent application. He was also interested in finding out more about his Acadian ancestry which had shown up in an Ancestry DNA test with 8%.

The challenge: Missing US 1890 census records and NY state census records made it difficult to document father and son together after crossing the border. We had to find other supporting documents.

T. was able to provide the name of his paternal great-grandfather - Cyril LeMoine – and a possibly date and place of birth: 5 August 1870 in St-Robert, Richelieu, Québec. He even knew the name of Cyril’s father, Joseph Lemoine (note spelling variation), born about 1846 in Quebec. Cyril’s daughter Claire – T.’s paternal grandmother – was born in Massachusetts in 1901. That was a good starting point.

Claire’s marriage certificate confirms the names of both her parents, Cyril LeMoine and Mederise DuMontier. Claire married in Brattleboro, Vermont, on 30 Aug 1924, but she was born in Montague, Massachusetts in 1905 or 1906.

We can also find Claire in the 1920 census in Turners Falls, Montague Town, Franklin, Massachusetts, together with her parents Cyril (misspelled Ceyral) and Mederise, siblings Wilrose, Viola, Margaret, Adrien, Raymond, Elva (Alva), Rolland and a brother-in-law Bertrand, Viola’s husband. Claire was then 14. The record states that Cyril, age 48, immigrated to the US in 1878 and was an alien (i.e. not naturalized). He was the only one in the family born in Canada, everyone else was born in Massachusetts. Cyril was a watchman at a power company.

That ties in with a retirement notice printed for him in The Recorder, Greenfield, MA in 1945. It states that he had been working for the Western Massachusetts Electric Company since 1910 when it was still called the Turners Falls Power and Electric Company. The notice gives us some other useful pieces of information: that he had lived in Holyoke, MA, before he moved to Turners Falls in 1895 to become the first foreman of the Greenfield and Turners Falls Street Railway which started operating in April of that year. It also names his living children (with slight variations from the spelling of their names in the census record): Walter, Wilrose, Adelard, Raymond, Adrien, Alva, Hector, Viola and Claire.

Working backwards in time, I attempted, and failed, to find Cyril in the 1910 US census. Instead I found something quite odd: Cyril’s wife and all the children listed in the household of one Frank Topp. The record even showed that Mederise was supposedly Frank’s wife of 18 years! I initially thought this had to be a census taker error. But then I found another record that just added to the mystery.

The birth registration of Cyril’s daughter Viola L. Lemoine on 10 Dec 1900 (with the date of birth recorded as Nov 29) gives her mother’s name as Mederise Dumontier, but her father’s name as Frank!

All other children for which I was able to find birth registrations had parents’names recorded as Cyril Lemoine and Mederise Dumontier (with the usual spelling variations): Cyril W. (likely Walter), b. May 23, 1893; Cyril Adelard, b May 13, 1896; Hector, b Nov 16 1898; Marie Louise b Aug 14, 1903; Maria A., b Nov 21, 1905; Raymond L., b Mar 10, 1912; Chester, b Apr 7, 1914, Alva Edgar, b Jan 30, 1916.

And the 1900 US Census has Cyril Lemoine living with his wife Mederise and the four oldest children, Walter, Wilrose, Adelard and Hector – the younger ones weren’t born yet – in Montague, just like we would expect. The record states that Cyril was born in Aug 1872 in Canada, and that he and Mederise had been married 7 years. Also in the household were Cyril’s mother-in-law, Matilda Dumontier, and his brother-in-law Hector Dumontier.

What was going on? We may never know, but the best explanation I can come up with is that Cyril experimented with adopting an English name – Frank Topp – for a while but did so somewhat inconsistently and eventually gave up on the idea again.

After this detour the focus again was on tracing Cyril backward in time to Canada. So far, none of the documents had given us any location in Canada or even confirmed his father’s name. And here I ran into the next problem: it would have been ideal to be able to show Cyril still living with his family of origin before he got married in the 1890 US census. Unfortunately, those census returns were destroyed in a fire in 1921. It also didn’t help that the census records in which he was captured – 1900, 1910 possibly as Frank Topp, 1920, and 1930 (later census records didn’t ask for year of immigration) vary considerably regarding the date of his immigration to the US: 1883 in 1900, 1875 in 1910, 1878 in 1920, 1872 in 1930. His obituary, published on 13 Sep 1957 in the Morning Union mentions that he was the son of Joseph and was born in Canada on 5 Aug 1871. I searched for a marriage registration which would probably have named his parents, but no luck.

I checked the 1910 census for Joseph Lemoine living in or near Montague and found Joseph Lemoine, born in French Canada in 1845, married to Délina for 26 years, with a daughter Délina born in 1884 also in French Canada and an adopted 11-year-old daughter Esther. Importantly, this was a second marriage for Joseph, so we’d need to look for a first wife in the records – Délina could not have been Cyril’s mother as he was born before this marriage took place.

Joseph died not long after, on Oct 22, 1911, in Montague. The death was informed by another Joseph Lemoine of Turners Falls (which was part of Montague and where Cyril and his family also lived). This was probably another son of the deceased.

Joseph’s grave marker in Saint Anne’s Cemetery in Montague is inscribed “né le 6 Janvier 1845; décéde le 22 Octobre 1911; age 66. His wife Délina’s name and date of birth are also inscribed.

I next checked the Canada census for 1881. I could find only one Cyril Lemoine in Quebec in 1881, in St Robert, Richelieu. He was the 9-year-old son of Joseph Lemoine and Marianne Robidoux, with siblings Delvina (14), Joseph (12), Rosanna (5), Marie (3) and Osa (6 mo). This was promising but we needed a bit more to confirm that Cyril Lemoine, son of Joseph Lemoine in St. Robert in 1881 was the same as Cyril Lemoine in Turners Falls, MA, with Joseph Lemoine living nearby in the same town.

Cyril (spelled Cyrille) Lemoine, son of Joseph and of Marie Anne Robidoux was born and baptized in St Robert on 5 Aug 1871. Older sister Marie Albina (the census taker in 1881 had got her name wrong) was baptized there in Dec 1866, older brother Joseph in 1868, Marie Rosanna in 1875, Marie Léosa in 1877, and another Marie Leosa (the one called “Osa” in the 1881 census) in 1880.

On Sep 10, 1883 an unnamed female infant, daughter of Joseph Lemoine and Marie Anne Robidoux, died at birth and was buried. The mother, Marie Anne, died a few days later and was buried on Sep 16.

We now have a pretty good picture of the family in Canada. Can we reliably link them to the Lemoine family in Massachusetts?

Remembering the 1910 census, we saw that Joseph and Délina had been married 26 years at that point, that this was Joseph’s 2nd marriage and that they had a 25-year-old daughter Delina, born in French Canada. In Canada, Joseph Lemoin’s wife Marie Anne Robidoux had died in 1883. It was possible. Going back to the St Robert parish registers I found Marie Délina Lemoine, daughter of Joseph Lemoine and Délina Babeau, baptized on 23 Oct 1884 – born the previous day. And earlier, on Jan 7, 1884, the parish register recorded the marriage of Joseph Lemoine, widower of Marie Anne Robidoux, and Délina Babeau.

We have now conclusively shown that Joseph Lemoine of St Robert in Quebec first married Marie Anne Robidoux and, after her death, Délina Babeau and emigrated to Massachusetts with his second wife and their daughter Délina.

We can also document most of the children from the first marriage in Massachusetts: Joseph, the eldest, informed his father’s death in Turners Falls, Montague. Cyril, we covered above. One of the daughters named Marie married Wilbur Fortier in Easthampton, Massachusetts in 1895. She named Joseph Lemoine and her stepmother Délina Babeau as parents. Rosanna married Edward Degaraffe in Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1904. The marriage register gives the names of her parents as Joseph Lemoine (spelled Lemoyne) and Marie Anne Robidoux.

There is in my mind now no doubt that Cyril Lemoine who lived in Turners Falls, Massachusetts, all his adult life and died there is the same Cyril Lemoine born in St Robert, Quebec, to parents Joseph Lemoine and Marie Anne Robidoux.

After this tour de force we had a second question to answer: where did T.’s Acadian DNA come from? To start exploring that I decided to trace the Lemoine family further back in time in Quebec. Back again to the St. Robert parish registers.

First I located the marriage of Joseph Lemoine and Marie Anne Robidoux on 6 Feb 1866. The record states that Joseph was from St Pierre de Sorel, the minor son of Louis Lemoine, deceased, and Angèle Vien. Marie Anne was from St Robert, her parents were Joseph Robidoux, farmer, and Marie Anne Forieu(?).

To track the Lemoine line further back in time, I now had to switch to the parish registers of St Pierre de Sorel. Joseph’s father, Louis Lemoine, was buried there on 7 Apr 1852. Next, I located Louis’ marriage to Angèle Vien. It took place on 27 Jan 1845 in St Pierre de Sorel. Both bride and groom were widowed; the record names Louis’ first wife as Euphrasine LeClerc, and Angèle’s first husband as Jean Baptiste St. Arnaud.

Joseph was born on 10 Jan and baptized on 11 Jan 1846. It seems to have been a close call as the record notes that he received an emergency baptism at birth and was “re-baptized” by the priest the following day. Happily, we know that he survived and lived to leave a LOT of descendants.

Looking for Louis’ first marriage, I found it on 18 Feb 1833, and there was an interesting twist. In this record Louis’ surname is recorded as “Hus Lemoine”. He was the son of Louis Hus Lemoine and Josephte Renville, deceased, of this parish. The bride was Euphrasine LeClerc dite LaFrenais, resident in this parish, minor daughter of Joseph LeClerc dit LaFrenais and the deceased Louise Bocené from St Ours. Present at the wedding were François Hus Lemoine, brother of groom, Joseph LeClerc, father and Joseph and Xavier brothers of the bride.

Some of you may remember the case study a few weeks ago “One Baptism, Dozens of Descendants: Solving a French-Canadian Brick Wall” in which I explained the French Canadian tradition of “dit/dite” names in some detail. Here we have another example of that: LeClerc dit LaFrenais.

And as for Louis Hus Lemoine – he has an existing profile on Wikitree and on his father’s side an ancestry tree with every single ancestor tracked all the way back to France. Louis’ profile and a number of others could definitely use some more work, but the earlier ancestors have been well researched by the Wikitree Quebec Project. For several generations Louis and his ancestors appear in various records as “Hus Lemoine”, “Hus dit Lemoine” “Hü or Hue dit Paul” and variations thereof. I have a theory where the Lemoine “dit” name came from. If we follow the ancestry line back we find one Françoise Lemoine, fille du Roi, who came from France to Canada in the late 17th century and married Pierre Niquette. Their daughter Marie Angélique married Louis Hü dit Paul in 1699.

The bad news – there is not a single Acadian in that family tree from Louis Lemoine sr. backwards. There are, however, three “filles du Roi” ancestors.

Louis’ mother, Josephte (actually Marie Josephte) Renville (Rainville) also has an ancestry tree on Wikitree, perhaps not quite as well developed as that of Louis’ father, but certainly documented to back before the Acadian expulsion. Again, no Acadians in her tree, but another two “filles du Roi” and, in a funny coincidence, a clear line of descent from Nicolas Rivard.

Why is that funny? Well, two weeks ago the case study was trying to answer the question “Was Christine Dubé a descendant of either Robert or Nicolas Rivard?” In that case I found no connection to either of the Rivard brothers, but instead discovered an unknown Acadian branch of the family. This time we were trying to find out where the Acadian DNA originated and instead found a line of descent from Nicolas Rivard!

T.’s Acadian DNA is quite real, so its origin must be hiding behind one of the lines we have not yet explored. Perhaps Joseph Lemoine’s wife Marie Anne Robidoux, or his mother Angèle Viens, or Cyril’s wife Mederise Dumontier are the ones with the Acadian ancestry? Starting points for future explorations.

Until next week

Maria

PS: Have a Canadian ancestry challenge of your own? If you haven’t yet submitted your case, you can do so here. I select one each week to research and feature in this newsletter. And if you know anyone else who might be interested, please pass the word.

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