Tracing our Canadian roots
I have found no Canadian ancestry in my own genealogy, so it sometimes amazes me how many people around here have French/Canadian ancestors, my husband included. Even without that ancestry, though, if you have not been able to trace the course of your family’s emigration to America you should consider they might have first landed in Canada.
The main problem with immigrants is that they could have come into America almost anywhere. In one of my collateral lines, a German immigrant ended up in New York in the 1900s. We of course assumed he came through Ellis Island, the main port of immigration from 1892 to about 1920. After much fruitless searching of the Ellis Island database, he was found entering the port in Seattle, Washington. As it turns out, he emigrated from Germany to Australia, eventually shipping out to America over the Pacific.
Half of my own ancestry came through Ellis Island little more than 100 years ago. The rest were New England immigrants. Fred’s Canadian family history is several generations back so I have done little research there. In my Irish Research workshops, I always have people explaining their ancestors’ first arrival in an Eastern Canadian port, often above the Maine coast or via the St. Lawrence. Even though our relatives may have lived just over Maine’s borders and freely passed back and forth, those days are over, especially since 9-11. Online research has become more critical than ever.
Ancestry.com is free at most Maine libraries and has many Canadian censuses and other records. Familysearch.org is always free anywhere, and searching “Canada” on their wiki will bring you many hints, tutorials and links to records and research all over Canada. For information on Prince Edward Island (PEI or PE) http://www.islandregister.com will provide many family trees and other links.
For some official records online, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia both have government websites. The Provincial Archives of New Brunswick: http://archives.gnb.ca/Archives/default.aspx?culture=en-CA. For Nova Scotia online records: https://www.novascotiagenealogy.com/
There are many regional resources within Maine, too; consider that whole “chain migration thing” because there was a lot of it as our ancestors went back and forth from Maine to Canada. As a result, there are more Acadian research centers cropping up, sometimes as a part of already active historical societies.
Betty Ryder will be speaking at Wassebec in November on the topic of French Canadian history/genealogy in the Greenville area. Waterville/Winslow is well known for its Acadian background. Our border counties, Washington and Aroostook have many resources to explore, for Washington I usually start at Mainegenealogy.net.
But none can compete with the resources to be found in Aroostook County. Start your search at the Aroostook County Genealogical Society, visit their website at www.ac-gs.org The Society has great local books and resources; they also publish research books such as The Families of the Upper Saint John in 1790. They have a great newsletter, which you can have delivered by email, and their members are very knowledgeable and helpful.
The County Genealogical Society Caribou meetings are held at the Caribou Public Library; the Houlton meetings are at the Houlton Regional Hospital. This helps you with your French Canadian research.
Nina G. Brawn has lived in the Dover-Foxcroft area for over 50 years and currently lives there with her husband Fred. Nina was the last of 10 children, has three children of her own and nine grandchildren. She can be reached online at ninagbrawn@gmail.com.