#52Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #20 Adolphus Tourville (1836-1877)

You may remember having read on this blog a few months ago about Adelia Tourville Pelky Ouimette claiming a pension for her late husband, Adolphus Tourville, who was a soldier in the New York 96th Infantry Regiment, Company F.

I considered very interesting the fact that the witness in the following testimony is Prisk Pelky, brother of Adelia’s second husband, Andrew. Here how it goes : Continue reading

#52Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #19 Josephte Cantin (1799-1857)

The burial register of Montréal’s Notre-Dame Church contains very laconic entries. However, sometimes, we are in for a surprise, such as the reading of the one of July 3, 1857 regarding Josephte Cantin. Continue reading

#52Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #18 Octave Tourville (1826-1902)

Spending so many years investigating about Mathieu Hubou’s descendents, I certainly came across some people who clearly stand out from the others. Octave Tourville is one of them. Continue reading

#52Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #17 Jean-Baptiste Hubou dit Deslongchamps (1654-1697)

Ever since I have started working on my Hubou-Tourville family tree, I have always read that Jean-Baptiste Hubou dit Deslongchamps, son of Mathieu Hubou, died on a military expedition between 1696 and 1699. You may have guessed how frustrating this was for me. Continue reading

#52Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #16 Tourville Dance Pavilion (1929-?)

There are still some loose ends regarding the life of Peter Tourville (1809-1891) that I will look more closely at while at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City later this fall. But let’s put aside the man for now and rather write about the tract of land that he owned in Jersey County, Illinois. Continue reading

My American Cousins: #52Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #15 Delima Lanoville Betournay (1877-1956)

As far as I can remember, while looking at our family’s old photo albums with my mother, I remember asking:

“Who are these people?”

“My American cousins, from Cohoes, New York”, would reply my mother. “During the summer, we would travel down there by car to pay them a visit. In the early days, my grandparents would come along as well.” Continue reading

#52Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #14 Anonymous Tourville (1822-1822)

Since Thomas MacEntee announced his Genealogy Do-Over earlier this year, I’ve been glancing through his articles and told myself it could indeed be a good idea to start all over again. Continue reading

#52Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #13 Restaurant Tourville (1955-1960)

After being kept away for months from this challenge, it is now time to get back on track and to write about, not an ancestor this time, but about a restaurant instead once owned by Eugène and Stéphanie Tourville’s family. Continue reading

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #12 Charles Tourville (1818-1847)

The advantage of doing one of your ancestors’ descending genealogy is that you get to learn about people you would have never heard of precisely because they didn’t have any descendants. Then, why write about them? So many reasons I think. To get the whole picture. To have everyone accounted for. And to learn about history. History and the family history.

Charles Tourville is one of those persons. His burial record dated July 19, 1847 (found under the name of Courville) states that he died at age 29 in Montreal and that he was a policeman.

I was digging in La Minerve newspaper recently and Charles Tourville came back to my mind. I thought, and what if he died in the line of duty?

I was looking up for an entry after July 18, date of his death, and though I couldn’t come up with anything, I kept reading articles about the immigrants, the Sheds, and sick people. A quick check at the dictionary made me realize that 1847 was also the year of the typhus epidemic in Montreal brought by the Irish emigrating to Canada. Unlike the 1832 cholera epidemic, the civil population was not affected by the typhus so much but the immigrants living in the Sheds, the religious community members taking care of them, and the policemen on the front line were victims of it.

1847 Typhus

Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, La Minerve, Thursday, July 22, 1847 — TRANSLATION: A fourth member of the Grey Nuns Congregation died last night. Sister Marie Rosalie Barbeau, known as Sister Marie, passed away at midnight at the age of 44 years, 7 months and 18 days old. Sisters Bruyère and Caron are most likely to die and 16 other nuns are still bedridden. Another policeman died Monday and eleven others are off work owing to illness. More than 1500 immigrants are close to death in the Sheds but as reported by the Ministry confident that all this is nothing but business as usual: “Everything will be fine”.

Charles Tourville’s name does not appear in the newspaper but it has to be him. That Charles Courville is surely « our » Charles Tourville as he died only six months after his marriage to Sophie Lemire, dite Marsolais, on January 11, 1847 at Notre-Dame Church of Montreal, and that Sophie gave birth to a son, Charles (hereafter for ease of reference, “Charles Jr.”), on October 30, 1847, in Montreal. The baby is said to be the son of the « late » Charles Tourville, carter of Montreal. When Charles [Jr.] died on January 31, 1849, he is once again identified as the late Charles Tourville’s son, carter of Montreal. At the time of his marriage  Charles Tourville was a carter from the parish of Montreal, like his own father.

Being born on January 18, 1818 in Mascouche from Charles Tourville and Marie Pauzé, he was indeed 29 years old at the time of his death in 1847. Furthermore, I couldn’t find any Charles Courville born near the date of 1818. A lot of Tourvilles are identified as Courvilles in the church records; sometimes the « T » looks like a « C », sometimes it might be the priest who made a mistake.

According to the newspapers, the Montreal Police was recruiting hoping to prevent the spread of the epidemic. Was Charles hired before the disease got out of hand? Was he out of work as a carter? From what I have read, the Police was implemented in the City in 1843. I doubt I can get anything as I am not sure a paper trail still exists. Nonetheless, during my summer vacations, I do plan to go to the Archives of Montréal to see if I can discover anything on policemen working for the city in 1847. I think it’s worth a try.

To learn more on the 1847 typhus epidemic, click here and here.

52ancestors-2015

When looking on the next page matters!

Some of you may have read my 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #11 post on Adelia, wife of Adolphus Tourville, that was published a few days ago.

I was looking at the 1871 Canadian census for another family and I just found out that Adolphus is listed in the household of his brother Honoré in Hochelaga (Montréal). Their father Charles was living with Honoré, that I already knew, but on the next page are listed Adolphe Tourville, painter (so he is the right one), and his sister Ezilda (of whom I had lost track because she went to the States as well).

Remember what Adelia told us: “My husband always followed painting”.

1871 Tourville Adolphe page 1

Year: 1871; Census Place: Montreal, Hochelaga, Quebec; Roll: C-10049; Page: 97; Family No: 375 – Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1871 Census of Canada [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009.

1871 Tourville Adolphe page 2

Year: 1871; Census Place: Montreal, Hochelaga, Quebec; Roll: C-10049; Page: 98; Family No: 375 – Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1871 Census of Canada [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009.