Our Acadian Ancestors .Have you ever thought of when they left their home in France to sail across unknown waters to a place they had never set eyes on? Well I came across this article while searching for my Boudreau ancestos in "Un historique de la famille Boudreau .The photo of the french vessel is also from that same book.

Crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

The crossing of the Atlantic Ocean for our Acadian (even French Canadians) ancestors was not always restful. The voyage in these vessels could last from 30 to 60 days.

These vessels could cross the ocean between France and Cape Breton in seven weeks. Usually the vessels would leave the ports in France in the early spring in order to arrive to Acadie in time for the sowing season. The crew and passengers could expect storms to rise at any unexpected moments. Furthermore the crew had to confront pirates and thieves very active on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland during 1710 to 1740 years. Enemy ships were always to be feared especially during the times of war. The pirates had to be contented with fish,furs from Acadie and New France and manufactured products. Which could not be compared as to stealing gold, sugar, and coffee from the ocean ships from the South. But all was not always bad on the vessels, before the chaplain would say the vespers ,the sailors would dance on the deck while the passenger were taking a breather on the bridge.

The kings vessels from France also crossed animals to constitute livestock in New France,horses, pigs, ,cattle, cows,sheep, fowl etc. The ship also carried grains of all sorts, flour, barrels of wine plus all the passengers luggage and personal belongings.

I would imagine some of the children would have noticed many new and strange things during their voyage across the high seas, such as whales, and dolphins, seals, different kids of birds.

Arriving in Acadia or Quebec, they must have come across so many different kinds of flowers and plants, some of them being poison and they would not have known. How sad. But many of them were survivers, and very brave to come from their homeland to a strange new land not having a clue what to expect.

I do hope you have enjoyed reading this little article. On another note , I have added my Boudreau genealogy of my ancestors, with a few other names, I mentioned in my page that if errors were found to let me know. So if you have Boudreau lines who were in Quebec and came to Petit Rocher in New Brunswick, then they are my line also or branch into mine.

Thank you for stopping by, and do have a great day.

Aline