Tuesday 26 October 2010

Picture Identified

Here is another picture from my book The Extended Catudal Family History that I have been able to identify thanks to my cousin Michel Catudal son of Joseph Léonidas Eusèbe and Simone Laplante.

Front left to right: Marie Louise Catudal (1901-1987) daughter of Barthélémy Catudal She was a nun who went by the name Sister (Soeur) Berthelimili. She lived at the Sacre Coeur convent in Magog, Québec, Canadal; Hermina Catudal (1898-1965), daughter of Adélard Catudal.

Back left to right: Adélard Catudal (1900-1983) - my grandfather - son of Barthélémy Catudal, Georges Catudal (1900-1984), son of Pierre Catudal and Guy Catudal (1899-1974), son of Pierre Catudal

Wednesday 20 October 2010

Did You Know?

In my first book I had added a number of 'did you knows'.  I've added some of them here for interest sake. I'll be adding these along with many, many, Catudal specific 'did you knows' to my next book, The Families Catudal.

Did you know?

New France was the name given to all the territory in North America held by France from the 1520’s until 1763.

The Name “New France” was first used by Giovanni da Verrazzano who was an explorer sent by King François I of France to look for a passage through North America. Although Verrazzano did not find the passage he did explore the east coast of North America giving the whole area the name of New France.

Did you know? (This entry followed an in-depth discussion about what a dit name is and how it was used by our French forefathers, and mothers)

dit is used for masculine names, dite for feminine. The word dit is used to reference non-gender specific dit names. The word dite is only used with-in the proper name of a female.

Did you know?

That at its peak, New France’s territory went from Newfoundland to Lake Superior and north from the Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico.

Did you know? (I had this entry under a discussion about what it was like for people from France to come over by ship in the 17th and 18th century)

The drinking water aboard ship was kept in wooden casks. The water in these casks soon went bad. Sometimes by the time people got to the end of the cask there were more maggots than water.

Below deck “the stench -- ripe and acrid from rat droppings mixed with mildew, rot and the odours of never-washed bodies -- was so strong that scientists of the day speculated that it was a violent explosion of these shipboard vapours that created ball lightning.”

Did you know?

That raising a white flag did not always mean a wish to surrender but actually the opposite. During the 17th century if one raised a white flag it meant that one wanted to start or join a battle.

Did you know?

Descendants of Coureurs des Bois and First Nations women became a new nation, the Métis.

Did you know?

François Duplessis Faber (1689-1762) is almost always mistaken for his brother François Antoine Duplessis Faber (1703-1733). François Antoine was killed in a well documented battle between the French and the Sauk and Renard (Fox) Indians at Green Bay, present day Wisconsin. His older brother, François, was a well known and celebrated officer in his own right. In fact the Library and Archives of Canada’s Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online has a biography on François.It is François Duplessis Faber (1689-1762) for whom our first Catudal to come to New France worked.

Did you know?

In 1615 France sent the Recollect Friars to convert the Indians. Jean Dolbeau 1586 – 1652 landed in Québec in May of 1615 and was the first person to hold a Mass in the new World.

Did you know?

That until the 1960’s divorce was not recognized in Canada. If you had wanted a divorce prior to that time in history then you would have had to apply to the Canadian Senate who then would carryout an investigation. If, after the investigation, you were to have been granted the right to divorce then the whole matter would have had to be presented in the form of a private members’ bill. If the Private member’s bill passed then your marriage would be dissolved.

Did you know?

Liquid shampoo was first introduced in 1927.

Did you know?

Urban legend has it that the ‘points’ on a Hudson Bay blanket (the thin black stripes), originally were used to denote the cost of the blanket in beaver pelts. Four stripes would have meant that the blanket cost 4 beaver pelts. This is not the reason for the ‘points’ on a Hudson Bay blanket.

The points reference the size of the blanket. The sizes range from 2.5 to 8; with the most common sizes being 3.5 (Twin), 4 (Double), 6 (Queen) and 8 (King).

Did you know?

Death by drowning was very common in the 17th and 18th centuries. People often used the waterways to travel between towns and cities due to the lack of roads. Traveling over frozen lakes and rivers was quite dangerous with many people reportedly falling through thin ice.

Did you know?

That there were only four doctors in New France during the whole of the French regime, which lasted from 1534 with Jacques Cartier’s discovery of Canada and ended February 10, 1763, when the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the Seven Year War between England and France (known as the French and Indian War in North America)

On the other hand, surgeons were common. Up until 1743 they shared a “single occupational guild: that of the barber-surgeons!”

The reason surgeons and barbers were grouped under one umbrella was due to the common practice of bleeding people. One only had to know where to find a vein (surgeon) and then cut it open (barber). The common element of a cutting instrument is what bound the two professions together.

Did you know?

The first shaving razors came into use in about 3,000 BC and were made of copper and were commonly found in both India and Egypt.117 Before that time, and even in some parts of the world today, sea shells are used to remove hair.

Saturday 16 October 2010

Legacy Software Programmers are working on it...

Just heard back from the techie from Legacy and was told that the programmers are working on the issue of the software messing up my sources when trying to export my data and that no time-frame for a fix can be given or even guessed at. So, I will finish the desktop publishing work on the rest of the book and then will try to find a workaround. Worse case is that I may have to use another genealogy software to get the job done. That would be a last resort solution because not all genealogy software packages are created equal; they all have their own quirks. I am used to the very quirky Legacy genealogy software. Anyhow before I end up having a pity party over this, I'll get right back at finishing what I can and then find a workable solution, with or without Legacy.

Friday 15 October 2010

The Families Catudal hits a glitch

I am in the process of getting The Families Catudal ready for publication but have run into a couple significant Genealogy Software bugs which need to be addressed before I can go forward. The worst of which is that my Legacy Deluxe Edition Version 7, the genealogy software I use, is not printing my sources correctly. I have forwarded the issue to Legacy and they are trying to work out a solution. As soon as they do I will be able to import the data into my desktop publishing software, InDesign. Then it is a matter of a few more months of work to dp the book and create an index - the most time-consuming part of the whole process. At least all the other chapters have been, for the most part, written and it is only a matter of incorporating the details from my database. I sure hope Legacy doesn't tell me that I'll have to wait for a software update. That could take months...

Tuesday 12 October 2010

A couple of pictures from The Extended Catudal Family History have been Identified, sort of

The first photo identification - the one that is not 100% is in regards to the photo at the bottom of page 541 from The Extended Catudal Family History which is a tin reproduction and is almost certainly of Barthelemy Catudal (1864-1937). I say almost because I have others of him and have compared them and to me it can be no other. Saying this, I do not conclusive evidence. But here are two pictures side by side. On the left is the tin photo from the book, the one to the right is another picture which I know positively to be Barthelemy.



The next picture is from the book on page 542. It is a picture of Delphis St-Germain, the husband of Agnès Catudal dite St-Jean (1869-1926). It was taken two years before his death; Delphis died in 1948. Here is that picture...

Corrections to The Extended Catudal Family History

If you purchased a copy of The Extended Catudal Family History then this post will be of particular interest to you. On page 164-165 is the story entitled The Canadian Catudal Lineages. It talks of two distinct Catudal men who came over from France and started families in New France/Québec. I have found out that this is not the case and here is what happened...

When Médéric Catudal became the MP for Napierville, Québec in 1878 a bibliography concerning his family's background was published in The Canadian Parliamentary Guide, 1885. Pages 100-101. The bibliography described how his family had come from La Vendée, France. They had been expelled by order of Napoleon presumably because a close relative, Georges Cadoudal, had tried to assassinate Napoleon. They were given the option to stay in France and face Georges' fate, the gallows, or go to Canada.

As I had never been able to find this particular line of Catudals going back beyond Médéric's father, Toussaint, I published what the guide had documented. I was wrong.

I eventually did find the connection between this line and the original Catudal to come to New France in and about 1721, Jean-Baptiste Catudal dit St-Jean. The story about Napoleon was made up by his great grandson Jacques Catudal (1794-1873) when between 1827 and 1829 a split between he and the other Catudals in Québec occurred. I don't know what the cause was but I have found the necessary documentation proving the lie and showing a split of family ties between this side of the Catudals and the rest. I have fully documented this in my next book The Families Catudal.

Moral of the story, don't believe something just because you find it in a book, even if it is a government document.

Starting Information

I have started this blog in order to do a few things: I want to have a spot where I can post corrections and updates to my first book The Extended Catudal Family History, which I published in 2008. I also wanted to have a central site where people can ask family history questions about their Catudal heritage and hopefully be able to answer those questions or in the least be able to guide them to a source for the answer. I also started this blog so that I could update those interested in my upcoming book, The Families Catudal. And, finally, I wanted a place where those who have one or more of my books can post comments, corrections or suggestions.