Useful Research Tool

[awanderingbard]

I just found a website that allows you to use Google with results localized to somewhere other than you're living. So, for example, if you Google 'grocery stores' in your normal Google, it will give you results for your area or country. But if you're trying to research grocery stores in France, it's harder to get results. This site, allows you to tell it where you want to search from and gives you the result for that region. Very useful for story research.

In other research news, I have fallen into a big black hole of genealogy and I can't get out. It's so much fun! It's like being a detective!

"Hmm, this Thomas is living with Thomas and Amelia. Are they his parents? Yes, they must be. Amelia is my grandmother's name. She must have been named for her grandmother. Oh, look, there's a George, that must be his brother. And that must be who Russell George is named after. Now, who the hell is Margaret? Did he have a sister? I guess she must be a sister..."

I'm only on day two of my free trial at Ancestry.ca and I've added about twenty new people to my dad's side, which is very spotty.

Comments

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Some Montreal and some Quebec city, but with the church books you can go back forever there, I bet your mom's side and his mom's side are related somewhere considering I can trace him back to a few of the King's daughters and it seems like half the population of Quebec can do that.

The churches include St-Antoine-Sur-Richelieu, Ste-Hélène-de-Bagot, St-Ours,St-Charles-sur-Richelieu and others.

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

My mum's family were out in the Eastern Townships, so I don't know if they would have crossed paths.Her family are very rural.

The Filles de Roi are my favourite thing in Canadian history.I love them! I read a novel when I was little about a King's Daughter coming over and living in New France, and I've loved that era ever since I kept the book, actually. I think it would make a good movie.

According to family legend, my mum's mum's side were Huguenots who came over with Samuel de Champlain, so your husband's ancestors might have been coming over to marry my ancestors. :-D

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

My Husband's family had a Huguenot or two as well. Weird coincidence!

I find the idea of the Filles de Roi fascinating, the idea that they'd go out of their way to make family units to get a generation born in Canada vs relying on getting the population to grow via transplanting people there as adults, it was very smart.

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

They were very clever in who they approached, too because they went around to orphanages and searched for girls with literally no prospects for marriage and said 'hey, you go to Canada, we'll give you this trousseau and you will definitely get a husband and you'll get to have your own household'. Which had to look good to some girls who might end up just being stuck in convent or having to work in the most menial jobs. The British did a similar thing in America with Virginian Tobacco Brides, too, but they mostly sent women who were in prison for that, so not quite the same fatherly sentiment to it.

I think the problem was that the only women in Canada were the nuns and the native women, neither of which the French government wanted the coureurs de bois to be having babies with.

I just love the accounts of these boats full of women coming up and men on the shore shouting out proposals before they'd even got off. And you were allowed to pick your husband, so long as you eventually married, which was a real luxury for a woman back then, too.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I recently listened to a podcast on them from Stuff You Missed in History, I think that really went into that- how *great* it was for the women- they could choose the guy and got everything they needed to start the house like you said and whatnot. Hang on, let me find the list from when it was on tumblr

http://missedinhistory.tumblr.com/post/92450443155/in-the-1600s-france-had-a-problem-both-it-and

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

Oh, awesome! I'll save that to listen to! I'm a bit history nerd. My mum might enjoy it as well, she's also a big history buff. Thanks!

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Enjoy!

It's a great podcast, I have been subscribing and listening to it for years. There's a ton of old episodes up in itunes and the entirety of their collections of eps up at the how stuff works website.