Acadian Life

I would like to share some parts of a book called A Land Discord Always by Charles D Mahaffie JR. I have only begun reading it and so far I find it to be quite interesting.
Here is a part I like:
To the people ,the long lasting Mathieu de Goutin was probably more important that the governors.Resolution of disputes is a governmental function that few societies can do without, and for twenty two years Goutin was their chief clerk and judge. His decisions could be overruled in Quebec but Quebec was far away, and de Goutin's judgement was usually final. Too,he married Jeanne Thibodeau daughter of an unusually prolific Acadian family, and in one way or another, he was probably related to a significant number of the litigants who appeared before him. Who ,after all would quarrel with Uncle Mathieu? There were less formal systems of justice as well. During Villebon's time, the Minas and Chignecto settlers elected panels to settle aruguments over farm boundaries, stray cows etc. And parish priests served as arbiters,often with the last word on any subject. Indeed they could if they wanted to brandish the ultimate sanction. It was a brave man would chance having the sanctions withheld.
Acadians lived simply but for that time they lived well. Pork was a favorite usually cooked with turnips and cabbage to make soups or stews. There was plenty of grain for making bread, fruit, vegetables, and milk were abundant. Maple sugar was a luxury, and another was beer brewed from firs and spruce branches boiled with molasses. They sewed,knitted,weaved,tanned.
According to Diereville he would bring a nice Bordeaux wine during his stays and found the food not unpleasant. Diereville said the following .
"There's nothing which they cannot do;
And by a hundred different needs inspired,
They make the things they lack; their wool
Is fashioned into Clothing,Caps and Socks,
They are no way distinguished by new styles,
And still wear hooded Capes; their Shoes
Of Elk and Seal skin are flat-soled
And made for comfort. From their flax
Linen is also woven, and thus by
Their industry, their nakedness is veiled."
There were things the Acadians wanted and could not produce themselves, such as guns, fancy textiles,modern tools or even something to make their homebrew more potent . They were suppose to get this stuff from France, but instead they got it from New England.
The book goes on , and is very interesting. So if you are interesed in reading the book , check online to see if there are some available , or check your library to see if they have them there.
Now changing the subject, I am getting ready for the coming holiday season, I got a little tree, since I am having company over this Christmas and I am very excited. I need to take out my decorations to see what I have and what I will need. Then comes the shopping.
Our genealogy group is doing very well, we help others if and when we can, everyone pitches in who can help. I am very proud of all my members, and our Chat n brag room is doing fine, it is a private group by invite only and it is something like Facebook but private. I am still on Facebook, and started my Williams dit Bristol group, our members have now reached 32, that is not bad for just a few days .Now there are Lirettes who branch into the Williams, there are Cormier, there Dambroise, there are Gautreaus,Myers, and many others. The hard thing is trying to find out which one descends from Mathurin. If you read this blog and you descend from Mathurin Williams dit Bristol anywhere in your line, I hope you will come to facebook and look for Williams dit Bristol group and join us.
So thanks for the lovely visit, I do hope you will stop by again, you never know what my next blog will be about.
Have a great day
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Williams Dit Bristol

Mathurin Guillaume Williams dit Bristol. Who was he? Where did he come from?
Well according to legend, he was suppose to have been a young boy ,perhaps a cabin boy and he jumped ship when it docked at Cocagne New Brunswick. He was said to have hid in a hayloft and was found by one of the founders of Cocagne Joseph Gueguen, who asked him what his name was. This young boy could not speak any french but Joseph Gueguen was well educated and could speak english.
The young lad said his name was William and he came from Bristol. So Joseph Gueguen adopted the young lad and gave him the name Mathurin named after a missionary, and then Guillaume french for William and Bristol because he came from Bristol England. Hence the name Mathurin Guillaume Williams dit Bristol.
Now Mathurin married Angelique Gauthier around 1790 and had five children:
Agnes who married Hubert Lirette, Jean Baptiste married Madeleine Helene Bellefontaine, Elie married twice first to Adelaide Lirette then to Henriette Fournier, Thomas married Marie Surette,Joseph married Madeleine Boucher.
Mathurin Guillaume Williams dit Bristol died in Memramcook in 1829. Some of his descendants took the surname Bristol and others took the name of Williams.
What happened to all the descendants? I know there were some who went to the USA, there were some in Maine and Massachussetts,some were in Connecticut and I am sure other states, some probably went to other parts of Canada and some stayed in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. I often wondered what I could do to try and bring this family together.And yesterday an idea came to me, why not start a group and call it Williams dit Bristol, and then let the news out for anyone who connects to Mathurin Guillaume Williams dit Bristol and Angelique Saindon, and when we are enough to share photos and stories with one another. So I have created a group on Facebook called Williams dit Bristol. If any of you readers have a connection to this couple, I do hope you will consider joining our group.At the moment we are 19 members ,not bad for one day.
On another note, tomorrow is Remembrance Day, I do hope you will take a moment to remember our fallen soldiers and all the ones who came back and say a little prayer for them. Lest we forget.
Thank you for the lovely visit, do stop by again and if you know of any descendants of Mathurin please let them know about the new group on facebook. You can access Facebook by going to www.facebook.com sign up , its free and find my group.
Have a great day
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Acadians in Rumford Maine

In the 19th and 20th century people from New Brunswick ,Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia left their homes in search of better jobs.

And Rumford Maine was the target of many of these folks.
Rumford is situated in western Maine. The Adroscoggin River runs about 11 miles from west to east through the town.

In 1886 according to BB Russell, Rumford had three saw mills, a shovel handle factory ,a grist mill, a cheese and starch factory. It was also the home of the Oxford Paper Mill later changed to Mead Westvaco. Now this was a place to go to find work for the Acadians and French Canadians. In the 1910 census I did a fast search and I noticed some of the following surnames and I did not do the entire census. I saw some Blanchard, Boudreau, Trembley, Boulanger, Gallant, Perry,Poirier,Cormier,Legere,Deveau,LeBlanc,Myers,Mallet,Gagnon,Bourgeois,Boucher,
Richard,LeBel,Bergeron,

Soucy,Surette,Casey,Martin,Babineau,Landry,Desroches,Daigle, and there were plenty more surnames. The people in the photo above are left to right Dorothy Martin Bernard,Lorraine Robichaud Legere,Hazel LeBlanc Hodgkins and Robert Daigle and they have done something so very nice and special. They had been working on their project for a whole year. They raised money through fundraisers and decided to put the money to good use. They wanted the Acadians who went to their River valley to be remembered. Since many Acadians did settle there and many worked for the Oxford Paper Mill in Rumford so they decided to have a placque made in their honor.The placque is now mounted on a rock near the Rumford Public Library. The ceremony was held Oct 31 2009. The Rumford town Manager Carlos Pouiia gave a speech. His mother was an Arsenault. The president of the Mexico Historical Society Bob Daigle gave a short speech on the Acadians. Terry Richard who's mother was a Richard and her husband was Dr Ed Martin the founder of the Acadian Heritage Society in the Rumford-Mexico area said that it was important to remember the Acadian families that populated their valley in its early days and that the dedication of the placque in their honor was a great thing.Lorraine Legere read a poem she wrote called A Tribute to the Acadians in the River Valley. Refreshments were served in the library and an old video of an old Acadian Heritage meeting which featured remembering Christmas in PEI in 1890.

So to Dorothy, Lorraine,Hazel and Robert I say to you, congratulation on a project so well done. That placque will be seen over and over again and parents can tell their children about their Acadian Ancestors.
Thank you all four for allowing me to post this on my blog and to share with all my readers.

Have a great day

Thanks for the visit

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Like Mother like Daughter

When I sit and talk with Mom, I never know what I will learn. This morning I went for my daily visit and we were talking about all sorts of things. I began by talking about the chances we took when I was young and I did not know the danger. We used to go to the National Park and to get there we would go over and under some boxcars. There were many of them all side by side. Now we did not know that they used to shunt those boxcars ,we could have been seriously hurt. Mom jumped in the conversation and said yes when I was newly married I went with my brothers in law and they climbed the boxcar and Mom said so did I. I was a tomboy she continued. Then I began laughing because I too was a tomboy when I was young and I was very hard on my clothes, a tear here and a hole there, dirt here .I said to Mom. "Mom were you hard on your clothes too?" Mom replied " I was always dressed nice, and yes I would rip my clothes. " I replied "AHA, now I know who I take after. grin. We both laughed.
Now Mom also shared with me things that just might interest some of you. She said when she was young, a couple could not live together unless they were married. And if a girl got pregnant Oh that was something terrible, the neighbors could not know that the daughter got pregnant. So Mom said the Mother would start wearing loose dresses, and pretend she was pregnant and the daughter was never to be seen during all that time. Then all of a sudden the mother had a new baby boy or baby girl. How exciting. Now I imagine some of you have come across that the daughter is really the grandaughter, because if you check the ages sometimes the mother is pretty old to have a baby. Mom also mentioned that if a woman had a mental child or handicap child, that child was always out of sight.
Mom said everything was always a secret , or hush hush. Shhhh don't tell anyone!
On another note, I have been busy creating mugs in my store , I have added a lot of our first ancestors and some of the wives . I even made a mug for the Steeves who were Stiefs . I have mostly our Acadian Ancestors at the moment ,but my mind is always thinking of something. You can go to my store and click on Surnames folder or url it will take you to the mugs and surnames by going to www.zazzle.com/allicor* or at the bottom of this blog you will see a slide show you can also go to the store that way. You don't have to buy, just have a look , I am sort of proud of my idea. You can also leave me a comment if you go there to let me know if you like my idea or not?
So until next time have a great day, thanks for the lovely visit.
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Got a taste who what our Ancestors went through

Well it is true I got a taste of what some of our ancestors went through. It began last night around ten pm. I was minding my own business, really involved in adding some cemetery transcriptions on my website ,when poof, off goes my computer, and I was in the middle of putting all the names on my page. Oh no! I lost everything? Sob sob. (so I thought). Wonder what happened? Oh well, the power must have gone off, but we still had lights. Then no computer but the television was still on. So onto the sofa we went. Oh a good story. All of a sudden POOF , no television ,no lights and it was pitch black, and I mean pitch black. Where are my flashlights? Oh I have a spotlight, here it is. Where is the on button? I cannot find it. Oh never mind I will go get the other flashlight. So here I am in pitch black darkness, feeling where I am going, in front of the sofa, now to find the wall in the hallway, oh there it is, now there is an open door I have to pass, there it is. Now where is the closet door knob? I felt and found it.
So no lights at all. I opened the door to the hallway outside, pitch black. Now I felt as if I was back in the sixteen hundreds, with no lights, only darkness. I am only glad we did not have an outhouse. Clumsy as I am I dread thinking what would have happened had I had to go out to it. grin. The power was off until around noon today, I believe lightning may have hit a transformer, because last night it was very very windy. And we heard thunder. Another thing we had those portable phones, and they are plugged into the wall socket so no phone. Guess where we went today? To walmart and we got a corded phone, now if the power goes off again we will at least have a phone working.
I hope you had a much better day than we did. grin.
Thanks for the visit, do stop by again.
Have a great day
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HALLOWEEN

Tonight there will be ghosts and goblins everywhere. So before I begin my story, please drive safely tonight, the kids sometimes dart in front of you to hurry to get to the house across the street. Some have hard time seeing with their masks. I personally believe masks should be avoided and do a face painting. It is safer. I mean to trick or treat. At parties , masks are fine.
Now my mind is going back to some Halloween's fun I had when I was younger.
I remember wearing my father's clothes and leaving home with a pillow case. We were usually three or four of us and no matter what the weather was like, it was exciting going to houses that we knew the folks and they not knowing us. We would walk and it seemed like forever. Oh let's go there, there are other children there and they are giving out something. Oh it's fudge! I love fudge. ( the fudge never made it back home I ate it along the way). By the time I got back home, my pillow case was full. We had tons of apples but today I am leary of the apples, there are some unsavory characters out there these days. It was safe back in my time, today it isn't. That is a shame because Halloween was for the children to enjoy and a lot of it has been taken away. When my son was growing up, I went out with him, he was older when he went on his own.
I think the parents going out with their children is also a good thing.
Now I want to share a story and I may have told it before, it is about my late husband Gerry.
He was a good sport and one Halloween we decided to go to a Halloween party at our local club, we used to go there often with our group of friends. So Gerry got dressed up like a hockey player, picture it, he was a small man. At the door, someone said " I think I know that person, there is something about him but they did not say who they thought it was. So it came time to be judged and Gerry and I pranced around that floor, walk, walk, walk, all of a sudden Gerry stops, takes out his hankie (back then there were no Kleenex) and he blows his nose. All of a sudden the ENTIRE hall yells "GERRYYYYY) , grin. That was something you would always see Gerry do is blow his nose. We sure got a laugh that time.
Aww Memories are great. I remember another Halloween we got dressed up as Cave people, we were two couples, and we went to a second hand shop, bought some old fur coats, and my friend sewed the costumes we got some long wigs, a plastic bat, buck teeth and we all looked great, we had a good time that night and one of our party won for the funniest costume or best one, I am not sure. Last night we stopped in at a dance and some were dressed up and how I longed to be one of them, it is the kid in us I guess. I do hope you all have a great time tonight.
Happy Halloween Everyone
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Soldiers who died and more

Hello everyone, first of all as you know Remembrance Day is drawing near and on that day we should all remember the men and women who gave their lives or fought in the wars for their country. I have been sent some cemtery photos for Gardner Massachussetts, which I have a lot to add on my website, but I decided to separate the soldiers on my page this time. So I have added all the ones I have so far on my Gardner MA cemetery page. Some were in the the two wars ,some in Vietnam ,and Korea. Some received medals, there is one who received the purple heart. So please check them out on my website at www.acadian-roots.com .
Now changing the subject, have you ever wondered why you cannot find a certain son of daughter of some of your ancestors? Well last week I was contacted by a lady out west who came across my website and found her great grandfather Onesime's obituary. Now her grandfather ,the son of Onesime did not stay in New Brunswick, he first went to the USA ,then he did like many young men did, he went out west. He stopped in Ontario, married twice and had a big family. This lady who shared all this with me, sent me some photos of her grandfather and of her great great grandparents. Onesime Gautreau and Bibienne Bourque. I was curious to know more, so I checked and found Onesime had a son Amedee, a daughter Melande and Wilfred, I came across a marriage of an Onesime son of Onesime and Bibienne marrying in St Paul but I haven't found his birth so far. But what I really wanted to say was that we lose track of people, because they move, or go where the work is. This lady shared with me stories about her father being a journalist and he wrote articles in various newspapers. Her grandfather worked for the railroad . All nice little tidbits to have. And to end this, there are two of her lines who branches into mine, a Cormier and a Landry line that I have found so far.
Now I would also like to add something about my website that I forgot to mention,I have a little support my site sign ,with a little pig , you click on the writing not on the pig and I in turn give you a gift . This is not an obligation it is a choice.
Thank you for the lovely visit, and please stop by again soon.
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