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.
No comments:
Post a Comment