Our Acadian Ancestors

Michel Boudrot was born about 1600 in Cougnes, de La Rochelle, France, arriving in Acadia before 1639. The 1671 census for Port-royal, he was a laborer and was also a civil and criminal lieutenant general (judge) according to the 1686 census. He married Michelle Aucoin  who gave him eleven children. Their daughter Marguerite  married Francois Bourg in 1665.  Marguerite & Francois' daughter Anne-Jeanne  married Charles Melanson in 1700.  Anne-Jeanne was 16.  They gave birth to a daughter Marie who married Charles Godin Boisjoli/Bellefontaine in 1733.  Their daughter Anne married Jean-Baptiste Chaloux Chalou in 1765.  They had a daughter Marie-Josephe who married Pierre Sirois at the age of 14.  Marie and Pierre had a daughter Marie-Josepthe who married Vincent Rioux.  Marie and Vincent had 18 children; including daughters Felicite and Basillisse.  Felicite is great great grandmother of Madonna and Basillisse is our great great great grandmother.  And there our maternal line to Mothers of Acadia ends. 


Who are the Mothers of Acadia.  These are women who came from France and settled in the Acadian region of Canada and whose decendants were subjected to the Le Grand Dérangement .  All indications of my records show that our decendants were not part of this deportion although they eventually came to the United States.

UPDATE:  The Godin Bellefontaine's were indeed involved in the deportation.  http://www.acadiansingray.com/Appendices-ATLAL-GAUDIN-GODIN.htm

Joachim Thibault de Courville

Joachim Thibault de Courville (died 1581) was a French composer, singer, lutenist, and player of the lyre, of the late Renaissance. He was a close associate of poet Jean Antoine de Baïf, and with Baïf was the co-founder of the Académie de Poésie et de Musique, which attempted to re-create the storied ethical and moral effect of ancient Greek music through a type of vocal musical composition known as musique mesurée.

Very little is known of Courville's life prior to his association with Baïf. Sometime in the mid 1560s Courville made the acquaintance of the famous poet, who was so impressed with his playing and singing that he called him "the master of the art of singing well." During this period Courville was employed as official lyre-player to King Charles IX. In 1567 Courville began to collaborate with Baïf on the composition of vers mesurés, verses written mostly by Baïf in which the French words were given long-short syllabic treatment in imitation of the supposed method used in Ancient Greek dramatic poetry; Courville set them to music. In 1570 the two, with the backing of the king, founded the Académie de Poésie et de Musique, inviting a few other professional musicians and aristocratic patrons; however they maintained a high level of secrecy in their undertaking, which was intended to reform not only music, but mankind. Baïf and Courville, reading accounts of the ethical and moral effects of such dramatic poetry in Ancient Greece, believed that hearers of their new musique mesurée, could be moved to become virtuous. The members of the Académie planned to perform their music widely once they had perfected their method.


The Académie disbanded after several years, probably under the stress of the religious violence which tore France apart during the last third of the 16th century, for both Protestants and Catholics were members, and King Henri III (who assumed the throne on the death of Charles IX in 1574) wanted to change the character of the Académie from a musical to a philosophical institution. By the 1580s the style Courville had developed was being used for setting of highly secular, sometimes sacrilegious, and occasionally erotic verse, something which was probably not his original intent.


No music by Courville has directly survived: he maintained secrecy as ordered by the Académie, and published none of his own music. However some of the chansons published by others, for example Fabrice Caietain and Claude Le Jeune, are presumed to contain either passages by Courville or stylistic copies. Courville died in 1581 in Paris.


Courville's lyre was a unique instrument, consisting of eleven strings, and often being played with a bow. It was modeled after a supposed Ancient Greek instrument.

Fr. Jean-Baptiste Thibault

Jean-Baptiste Thibault (14 December 1810 – 4 April 1879) son of Jean-Baptiste Thibault and Charlotte Carrier; d. 4 April 1879 at Saint-Denis-de-la-Bouteillerie (Kamouraska County), Quebec was a Roman Catholic priest and missionary noted for his role in negotiating on behalf of the Government of Canada during the Red River Rebellion of 1869 – 1870. He also established the first Roman Catholic mission in what would become Alberta, at Lac Sainte Anne in 1842.  Jean-Baptiste was a decendant of Francois Thibault and Elisabeth Levebvre. 

Jean-Baptiste Thibault, a farmer’s son, received his classical and theological education at the seminary of Quebec, where on 31 March 1833 he was admitted into the subdiaconate. On 28 April he set out for the North-West. Contrary to several of his predecessors, he had no debt to pay before his departure. Yet the Thibault family was scarcely well-to-do, if the sums of money that the bishopric subsequently sent rather often to his father are an indication.



During the voyage, the missionary was frequently shocked by the behaviour of the crew. Unable to quiet them, or to ensure the use of more acceptable language, he complained to the captain. He was sturdy, but, hampered by his timidity, he was unable to enforce respect from those who provoked him. This timidity was to be construed as pride when Thibault, feeling ill at ease with the employees, later refused the hospitality offered at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s trading posts. He arrived at Saint-Boniface in June 1833, and began to study the Cree and Chippewa languages. On 8 September he was ordained priest by Bishop Joseph-Norbert Provencher.

Two years later, in the bishop’s absence, Thibault showed himself to be a wise and skilful administrator of the western missions. The building of the cathedral at Saint-Boniface progressed, and the yield from the farm belonging to the mission increased. Thibault proved to be a good preacher, without being too verbose. Above all, he was good at expounding; this quality was appreciated by Bishop Provencher, who considered that Christianity should be brought to the Indians by persuasion, and not “in the Protestant fashion” by gifts. In such a manner the ministers of the different faiths accused each other of trading in souls.


In 1842, therefore, at the request of the Indians and Métis, Bishop Provencher sent Thibault as a missionary across the prairies to the Rocky Mountains. The bishop made this decision unknown to the HBC, which had refused to approve his plan; Thibault, however, met the preference of the company for Canadian rather than French missionaries. His first journey lasted six months, during which, prudently, he travelled on horseback across the plains as far as Edmonton House – the first Catholic or Protestant missionary to adopt this form of transportation. Delighted with the politeness and cordial welcome extended to him by the commandants of the company’s forts, he preached the gospel to all the Canadiens, Indians, and Métis who came to him. He welcomed the Blackfeet, whom he described thus: “These Indians . . . are very clean, and very well-disposed towards the whites; but their number, their warlike qualities, and particularly their rapacity make them the terror of their redskin enemies. They have only a very imperfect idea of the divinity.” This journey, the prelude to the diffusion of Catholicism throughout the American northwest, bore fruit: Thibault conducted 353 baptisms and celebrated 20 marriages, in addition to acquiring a better knowledge of the religious needs of this vast region.


For 10 years the missionary worked discreetly, without displaying excessive zeal, and visited the meeting-places of the Indians and Métis. Thibault was probably the first Catholic missionary to make his way to several of the HBC posts and to several places where the Oblates were later to establish missions [see Eynard; Reynard]. However, only one foundation is acknowledged unanimously as his, the Lake St Anne mission. Crees were accustomed to stay in this spot, which they called Devil’s Lake; Thibault substituted the name of St Anne. He stayed there in 1842 and 1843, but it was only in the summer of 1844 that a house was built for the missionary.


In 1852, acting on Thibault’s request to return to Quebec, Bishop Provencher recalled him to Red River. When Thibault reached Saint-Boniface, however, Provencher asked him to stay there, as there was no one to minister to the region. Thibault did so, and did not return to the diocese of Quebec until 1868.


While at Quebec in the autumn of 1869, Thibault was visited by Hector-Louis Langevin, who asked him to go to Red River as a representative of the Canadian government. Thibault was believed to have a great influence over the Métis. Some of them had just refused to allow William McDougall, who had been appointed lieutenant governor of the North-West Territories by the Canadian government, to enter the settlement. By this action the Métis and their leader, Louis Riel, meant to force the federal government to negotiate with them the terms of their union with Canada. Conjointly with Charles-René-Léonidas d’Irumberry de Salaberry, Thibault was to reassure them that Ottawa intended to respect their rights and not to treat them as a conquered people, and to convince them to lay down their arms [see Sir John Young]. A third delegate, Donald Alexander Smith, was for his part to set at rest the minds of the company’s directors, and to discuss with all “the people of Red River” the conditions of their entry into the dominion. The prime minister, John A. Macdonald, judging Thibault to be “a sensible old French Canadian” and “a shrewd and at the same time a kindly old gentleman,” was of the opinion that, if he accomplished nothing in particular, at least he would not commit any blunders since he knew the region and supported the Canadian government. A reserved and prudent man, Thibault was content to remain in the background, and this was where circumstances kept him during his governmental mission.


Salaberry having remained at Pembina, Thibault, on 25 December, arrived in the west alone. By order of the recently proclaimed provisional government, Thibault was escorted to the bishop’s palace at Saint-Boniface, where he was kept under surveillance so that he would not meddle in political affairs. On 6 Jan. 1870 Louis Riel and his council received Thibault and also Salaberry, who had just arrived. “Immediately we communicated our instructions to the president [Riel] and his council,” Thibault recounted, “and they took them under consideration.” However, no comment was received, and four days later Thibault wrote to the provisional government to ask about the conditions required by the colony in the event of its union with Canada, “in order that we can submit them,” he said, “to the examination of the government that sent us.” The next day the council replied to him that the documents Thibault and Salaberry had submitted did not confer on them the necessary powers to conclude an agreement. On 13 January the council expressed this opinion to Thibault and Salaberry by word of mouth. According to the commissioner D. A. Smith, Thibault ceased to be useful from then on. In general, historians agree that he had no influence on the course of events. But Smith wrote that had it not been for the steps Thibault took during the night of 19–20 January, he himself would have succeeded in settling everything at this time. During that night, as Smith has it, Thibault contributed to a closing of the ranks of the demonstrators, who that day had held public meetings which Smith’s money and promises had managed to break up. Subsequently Riel’s position grew stronger, and he became formally president of the provisional government, whose bases were enlarged. Then delegates were sent to Ottawa to negotiate the entry of the Red River colony into confederation [see John Black]. Was Thibault partly responsible for this sudden change? In his report, he said that he had had “to reason with the leaders, and with the people; always, however, by conversations with single individuals, as that seemed to me the best . . . way of effecting any good result.”


Thibault stayed two more years at Red River, ministering to the parish of Saint-François-Xavier; then in 1871 he accepted the post of vicar general of the diocese. The following autumn he returned to the east for good, and was successively in charge of the parishes of Sainte-Louise (L’Islet County) and Saint-Denis-de-la-Bouteillerie.




http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?BioId=39413

Jean-Baptist is our 4th cousin 5x removed.

Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault (Anatole France)

Born: 16-Apr-1844

Birthplace: Paris, France

Died: 13-Oct-1924

Anatole France, pseudonym for Jacques Anatole Thibault (1844-1924), was the son of a Paris book dealer.  He was French poet, journalist, and novelist.   Born in Paris he died in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters. He was a member of the Académie française, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Anatole France began his career as a poet and a journalist. In 1869, Le Parnasse Contemporain published one of his poems, La Part de Madeleine. In 1875, he sat on the committee which was in charge of the third Parnasse Contemporain compilation. He moved Paul Verlaine and Mallarmé aside of this Parnasse. As a journalist, from 1867, he wrote a lot of articles and notices. He became famous with the novel Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard (1881). Its protagonist, skeptical old scholar Sylvester Bonnard, embodied France's own personality. The novel was praised for its elegant prose and won him a prize from the French Academy. In La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque (1893) Anatole France ridiculed belief in the occult; and in Les Opinions de Jerome Coignard (1893), France captured the atmosphere of the fin de siècle.

He was elected to the Académie française in 1896.

France took an important part in the Dreyfus Affair. He signed Emile Zola's manifesto supporting Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer who had been falsely convicted of espionage. France wrote about the affair in his 1901 novel Monsieur Bergeret.

France's later works include L'Île des Pingouins (1908) which satirizes human nature by depicting the transformation of penguins into humans - after the animals have been baptized in error by the nearsighted Abbot Mael. La Revolte des Anges (1914) is often considered France's most profound novel. It tells the story of Arcade, the guardian angel of Maurice d'Esparvieu. Arcade falls in love, joins the revolutionary movement of angels, and towards the end realizes that the overthrow of God is meaningless unless "in ourselves and in ourselves alone we attack and destroy Ialdabaoth."

In 1922, France's entire works were put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Prohibited Books Index) of the Roman Catholic Church.[2] This Index was abolished in 1966.

Remember Our Veterans

Dad in Okinawa, Japan
Korean War

Thibault Fire Trucks

Contributed by Marilyn Thibault

The history of the Canadian fire truck industry and the name Thibault go hand in hand. From humble beginnings in rural Quebec, the Thibault family created a dynasty in fire truck manufacture in the province. Although Pierre Thibault Fire Trucks is no longer in operation today, the name Thibault is still found throughout fire departments across Canada and around the world.








In 1908, Charles Thibault started building hand pumps in Saint-Robert Quebec. After a few years, he moved his operation to the nearby city of Sorel, where he built a variety of horse-drawn apparatus, some mounted on sleighs for winter use in small communities in Quebec. In 1918, he built his first motorised unit, a Ford for Campbellton, New Brunswick. The twenties were apparently a quiet time for the company and the Great Depression didn't help matters. In 1938, Charles' son Pierre took over the operation and moved it to Pierreville, Quebec.






During the Second World War, the company was extremely busy building crash tenders, trailer pumps and hose fittings for the Canadian government. After the war ended, the company expanded its efforts in selling fire trucks to municipalities. It started building its own line of pumps, similar to Hale pumps. In 1950, Thibault introduced a custom chassis (known as the WIT - likely an acronym) and the first unit, a pumper, was sold to Valleyfield, Quebec. A cab-forward version (the AWIT - the "A" may stand for "avant," French for "forward") came in 1957 or 1958. In 1960, an aerial ladder was introduced. In a 1963 ad, Thibault boasted of the strength of its aerial by hanging a sling containing a Volkswagen Beetle from the tip. Fire departments appreciated this feature and this new product became very popular. In addition to aerial trucks built by the company in Pierreville, many aerial assemblies were supplied to American builders where they became part of new ladder trucks for communities large and small. For many years, Thibault was one of the few, if not only, Canadian company that could claim the complete manufacture of vehicles from start to finish - pumps, chassis and aerial ladders. Most Canadian apparatus manufacturers tend to assemble components purchased elsewhere. By the end of the 1950s, Thibault apparatus was spread across Canada. The 60s saw considerable expansion into the U.S. market and some sales in the Caribbean and Latin America. http://thibault-fire-engines.com/

We are related to these Thibault's through Guillaume Thibault and  Marie-Madeleine Lefrancois,  ancestors of Delia Beaulieu.

Le Grand Dérangement

In 1755, almost 10,000 French settlers were expelled from the Acadia area of Canada because they refused to take an oath of allegiance to the British government. I do not know if any of these people were our ancestors but I do know that many of the names involved are in our tree. 

This area, it seems, had been in conflict from the day it was born, passing back and forth between France and England. Here the French catholic immigrants settled and, despite a lack of farming experience, flourished. The soil was rich, the summers warm, and crops grew. These people had a distinct culture and language.



When the area again came under British rule, the government looked closely at these people. They were of French descent and Catholic. Where would their allegiance lie in times of war? It was decided to demand an oath of allegiance to Britain.  The Acadians objected and the government, at that time, didn't enforce it, and for some time the issue was forgotten, at least by the French.

In 1755, Britain again looked to Acadia. The French population, with no oath of allegiance, had rapidly expanded and, to make matters worse, the Native population, especially the Huron, sided with the French.   Again, the government demanded that the oath of allegiance be signed by the French settlers, and this time the law had grown teeth. Those who did not sign would be expelled from the country.

Many, happy with their lives and the good living they had in the New World, did sign the oath hoping that there would never be a reason it would be in effect. Others fled to other parts of Canada.  For those who refused to sign, expulsion was the answer. They were loaded onto ships and sailed out of the country. This was a time of real hardship. Families were split up, possessions had to be left behind, and, worst of all, they were sailing off to unfamiliar territory.  Some returned to France. Many settled in the New England States.  About 300 Acadians settled in Louisiana which already had a large French population.   A few, for some strange reason, sailed to England. Homes and crops left behind were burned to the ground. This was to discourage any hopes the people might have of returning. There was nothing left to return to; however, some did return.

Additional readings:

Acadia and the Acadians
The Acadian Expulsion
THE SHIPS OF THE ACADIAN EXPULSION

In Literature - Evangeline

This lengthy narrative poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is based on a tale of hearsay (which the poet heard from a friend of Hawthorne, who had it from an Acadian woman). It is told against the historical background of the British expulsion in 1755 of the French-speaking Acadians from their lands along the shores of the Bay of Fundy—le grand dérangement (as the Acadians still call it), which had to do with the end of a 150-year struggle between France and England for possession of what is now Nova Scotia. Evangeline tells the story of an Acadian girl who is separated from her betrothed at the time of the expulsion and wanders in search of him throughout the American Midwest and the Atlantic states, only to find him years later on his deathbed. After he dies in her arms, Evangeline too dies, released from a life of exile and steadfast loyalty that has received no reward on earth.