French Naming Conventions

The Use of Last Names - In General

Until recent times in history, the 11th century, last names were not used. There were a lot less people and generally you were known as ‘John the baker’s son’ or Mary the seamstress from Orono.

The tradition of using a surname took hold among the nobility first, and then gradually, by the 14th century, most people started to adopt a last name.

Did you know?

Last names began to be used by commoners at different times throughout Europe. The practice came into fashion in France in the 13th century while it didn’t take hold in Germany until the 16th century. Last name usage was not compulsory in some Scandinavian countries until the 20th century. Today in Iceland and Norway last names are still not used by its Native population and even though non-Natives do have last names they do not use them in day-to-day dealings. I recently was on vacation in Iceland and took a look at their telephone book. People are listed by their first names first and then by their last names. So, in order to find someone in the telephone book you first look-up the person by their first name and then follow down the list until you find their last name.

Last name usage in the beginning, by our standards, was somewhat confusing. A person could be called Sam Taylor because he sewed and his daughter could be named Sandra Atwood, because she lived near the woods. If you came to a town you had never been to before then you would not know that Sandra Atwood was Sam Taylor’s daughter.

It was not until the 15th century that surnames began to be inherited rather than to be taken from one’s appearance, job, town and a whole host of other possibilities.

Please keep in mind that this is a very general look at how last names came into being and how they were formed. Last name usage was and still is a very complex subject and varies immensely through-out the world.

Saint’s Names

In 1703 the Rituel du Diocèse de Québec was written. This book set out the rules, which the church and its people were to follow, including the names one was allowed to choose when naming their child.

“The Church forbids Priests from allowing profane or ridiculous names to be given to the child, such as Apollon, Diane, etc. But it commands that the child be given the name of a male or female Saint, depending on its sex, so that it can imitate the virtues and feel the effects of God’s protection.”¹

The list includes 1,251 acceptable names for boys and 373 for girls.¹

The Structure of French-Canadian First Name

Up until the mid-1900s French-Canadian first names given at the time of baptism had a certain structure. Usually, not always, the child was given three names. The first name, often Marie or Joseph indicated the sex of the baby. The second name was often the name of the sex appropriate God-parent. The third was the name the child was called.

Sometimes the child’s baptism record may only show one or two of the names, usually the first and second but not the name the child was called. Sometimes the child was baptized with only one name but the family bible shows the three names. For instance, my Grandfather, Adelard, was baptized as Napoleon, period. When I asked my Grandmother what my grandfather’s full name had been she said Joseph Napoleon Adelard; however, I had never seen the name Joseph associated with him. Never-the-less, my Grandfather is known to have had all three names. As an aside - Napoleon was not my grandfather’s Godfather’s name - there is always an exception to the rule.

Another example is my grandmother. She was baptized as Marie Anna Anastasia Yvonne Tremblay. She was called, in everyday life, Yvonne.

Baptismal Names

Often times, especially in small rural towns, two or more children born roughly at the same time but to different parts of the extended family will have the same names. It was, up until the late 1800s, usual when baptizing a child to give it the sex appropriate name of the godparent. For instance, a man named Ignace Lafrance has two brothers: one named Jean-Baptiste and the other Jean-Paul. Jean-Baptiste and his wife have a baby one month before his brother Jean-Paul and his wife have their baby. Jean-Baptiste’s baby is a boy and so they ask Ignace if he would act as the godfather. The baby is baptized with the name Ignace. One month later Jean-Paul and his wife have their baby and it too is a boy. They also ask Ignace if he would be their child’s godfather. Now you have three people named Ignace Lafrance in one small town, two of whom are roughly the same age. It can make determining kinships a bit tricky.

Sometimes gender specific names were given to the opposite sex but almost always appear as the second name, such as Marie Joseph for a female or Jean Marie for a male.

Some names that now-a-days are gender specific were earlier also gender specific but for the opposite gender, such as Phillipe which was historically a female name but now is a male name, or the name Anne which was a male name but now almost exclusively a female name.

Reuse of First Names

It is extremely common to find, in the French-Canadian family, all boys and all girls being given the same sex appropriate first name such as Jean for the boys or Marie for the girls. A family’s naming profile might look like this: Marie-Louise, Marie-Angélique, Marie, Marie-Josephe, Jean-Louis, Jean-Baptiste and Jean-Paul. The child in question would be called by the second name most often but it is also common to see for instance Marie-Louise documented on her marriage certificate simply as Marie making it impossible without other documentation to tell the difference between her and her sister who only carries the name Marie.

Many times one will find huge errors in the genealogical record due to mistaking one person for another because of the practice of giving the same first name to more than one child. An example of this can be found with the person for whom our first Catudal to come to New France worked. His name was François Duplessis dit Faber (1689-1762); his brother’s name was François Antoine Duplessis dit Faber (1703-1733). Some very reputable researchers have interchanged the two brothers without realizing it because the second brother often was simply called François. Both brothers were in the New France military. One of the two brothers died in 1733 during a battle between the Renard (Fox), the Sauk Indians and the French. The other brother upon retiring went to France to spend out his final days. It is the latter François Duplessis dit Faber (1689-1762) for whom our Jean-Baptiste Catudal dit St-Jean worked.

Another practice, which was very common amongst our French ancestors, was to re-use the name of a child who had died. This practice was used up until around the early 1930s after which it seems to have gone out of favour.

A practice which has been a major stumbling block to some people researching family history is the practice of re-naming a child the same name as one of the children in the same family who did not die. Although this is rare, and I have to admit I do not understand the dynamics, it did occur or at least that is what the records show. I am not referring to the practise I discussed above where-by all boys and all girls in one family would all be given the same sex appropriate first name, usually Marie and Joseph, but would be called something else in everyday life. I mean that some families show two children with identical names who grow-up and get married and have their own children all the while using the same first name.

French-Canadian Women Kept/Keep Their Maiden Names

French-Canadian women living in Québec today keep their maiden name and are known by that name in religious, administrative and legal documents; not by their husband’s names. It has always been so; even when present day Québec was a part of New France.

As a part of the civil law system found only in Québec, the rest of Canada follows the British common law system; women in present day Québec continue to use their maiden name for all things official.

The present day French-Canadian women living in Québec may be introduced as Mrs. Chabot wife of Mr. Chabot at a gathering but for all things outside of a social gathering she is referred to by her maiden name.

When the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763 bringing an end to French rule and to New France, the present day province of Québec was formed albeit quite different in land mass as we know of it today. It was only a thin strip of land that lay on the North shore of the St. Lawrence River. However, what had been New France territory until then still housed a large number of French speaking people who still practiced the French ways. This included women who often times kept their maiden names

Once British rule began and a border between the United States and Canada was established, Canada came under British rule. Those who strayed outside of Québec, although allowed to maintain their traditions, often found it easier to conform to the British common law system. By the late 1800s one can see some of our relatives start to move out of Québec to other parts of Canada, mostly Ontario but also to Alberta and to the USA. The further a-field they went the more likely they were to adopt the naming conventions of the British.

French-Canadian women of the next generation outside of Québec started to take their husband’s name much more readily. This trend started to change in and around the early 1970s and early 1980s when it became a cry from the women’s liberation camps that women should be allowed and encouraged to keep their maiden name.

Today it is fairly common to see women throughout The United States and Canada using their maiden names in favour of the option to adopt their husband’s name. In most parts of Western Europe, women are known under their husband’s name – that part of women’s liberation never quite caught on in Europe.

Alterations by Personal Choice

A common phenomenon which started upon immigration to the new world was that people changed their own names for any number of reasons: to sound less ethnic, to be more pronounceable in English, to change a surname which had unpleasant connotations associated with it, or maybe simply to be able to hide. Often times the names were direct translations of their original names, Schneider to Taylor or Schwarz to Black.

First name alterations were also fairly common and can often be seen when French Canadians went to the States in search of work in the late 1800s. You often see simple alterations such as someone changing a first name from Jean to John or François to Frank and the like. Sometimes our relatives changed their names completely, so much so that the new name might not have resembled their birth name at all as in the case of two brothers, Dominique Catudal (1827-) [2643] and Jean-Marie Catudal (1831-After 1880) [2654] who both moved to Vermont in the late 1850s. Once there they changed their names to John St. John; both of them. They lived in the same town and both took the same name.

In present day Canada the Change of Name Act, R.S.O 1990, c. C.7 Section (2) states that if one changes their name then as a matter of confidentiality the following will happen:

(a) the application shall be sealed and filed in the office of the Registrar General;

(b) no notice of the change of name shall be published in The Ontario Gazette and no notice of the application or of the change of name shall be given to the Ministry of the Solicitor General or any person;

(c) if the person’s birth was registered in Ontario, the original registration shall be withdrawn from the registration files and sealed in a separate file, and a new birth registration showing the new name shall be made; and

(d) the change of name shall not be entered in the change of name index or noted under section 31 of the Vital Statistics Act . R.S.O. 1990, c. C.7, s. 8 (2); 1997, c. 17, s. 4 (4, 5); 2006, c. 19, Sched. B, s. 3.

God help the genealogists who come after us, they do not stand a chance of finding someone who decides to change his or her name.

Not only is it possible in present day Canada to change your last name but also your first and or middle names as well. I once worked with Bridget. Bridget was her third attempt at finding a first name that she felt suited her; she had always kept her last name intact though.

Alterations Not By Personal Choice — “Do You Ear What I Ear^[1]”

Anthropology is made up of four disciplines: Social Anthropology – the study of cultures, Archaeology – the study of artifacts  Physical or Biological Anthropology and Linguistics – the study of language. While majoring in Anthropology I remember sitting in my first year class of Linguistics and the professor saying uhungry? wachyaeet? Most understood him to mean ‘are you hungry? what did you eat?’ and that was indeed what he had said. He had just speeded up the words and cut off the endings of the words as we might do when talking to friends. He used to like doing this at the beginning of class; a sort of attention-getter and many times we did not have a clue what he had said. I learnt that particularly across cultures that one might think they are hearing one thing but without the experience or benefit of the other’s language or culture we can make some amazing errors in judgment about what we hear.

When an English speaking enumerator took the census in a predominantly French speaking area, often times the French names were spelt the best way he could make out from the sound of the name. Often times the English enumerator just did not care to be accurate. There has always existed a tension between the French and English parts of Canada and we see many interesting adulterations of French names because of this.

Other problems occurred such as a person being asked their name, misunderstanding the question because they spoke another language and then answering the assumed question. Rather than understanding the question “What is your name?” they may have thought they were being asked “Where do you come from?” So an answer of Les Cèdres instead of Massias would cause the official to put down something like Cedar. From then on the person would be known as Mr. or Mrs. Cedar.

During a census it was not uncommon for the person answering the door to be a child who sometimes mispronounced their last name so that the census taker might have documented Lafrance for Lafrain or Tompay for Tremblay.

When depending on someone else’s memory to ascertain a third party’s surname it can often times be falsely recounted. For instance, you ask your grandfather the married name of his Aunt who has been dead for 20 years and who was never really welcomed in the family after her marriage to the rotten so-and-so. He might remember her married name as Laspé when in reality it was Lapres. After not having used or referred to a particular surname for a long time people can easily mix it up just enough so that the name they say no longer has any relationship to what the actual name had been.

Spelling and Standardized Spellings

How many times have you given your name to someone only to have him or her ask you “how do you spell that?” It is assumed that you can answer the question. It was not always so.

Once last names came into use the next problem occurred and that was how to spell the last name. Most people did not read or write so it was left to the person recording an event to write the name the best way they could. Perhaps at another event the person’s name would be written down by someone else. Sometimes in both occurrences the name was spelled the same; many times this did not happen. I have seen records referencing the same person, documented by the very same priest over the course of some years with different spellings of the person’s last name.

A big obstacle when searching records for a certain name is that there are no standardized spellings of first or last names. This means that a name can be spelt many different ways, without making a spelling error, but sound identical to one another: Case in point, Audet, Audette, Odet and Odette or the German name Myer, Maier and Meier.

Bad Handwriting and Faded Records

As you know, very few people in the history of our Country and consequently our family could read and write. Those who could sometimes wrote just beautifully. They were in the minority. Handwriting can be so sloppy that it makes the record useless to anyone. Now with the use of computers the problem of misspelling is becoming rarer but the transcription of the old documents into various databases by well meaning people who do not document when there is a question regarding spelling and make a ‘best guess’ is now becoming a fairly big problem. There are standardized methods people should employ when copying data from old records and that includes copying exactly what is there even if it does not make sense. One can always make a note about what one thinks about what was documented but it is only an opinion. Many people are now putting their guesses into a growing number of databases.

Consistency of Last Name Usages

For some unknown reason many of our relatives oscillated between their last name and their dit name without apparent rhyme or reason. Often records of our Catudal relatives suddenly have them documented as St-Jean and back again. I have found no consistencies in this phenomenon.

Soundex

In Genealogy all names can be sound coded in order that one can look for all possible sound-alikes and this ‘sound coding’ is called soundex.

<algorithm, text> An algorithm for encoding a word so that similar sounding words encode the same.

The first letter is copied unchanged then subsequent letters are encoded as follows:
bfpv  = “1”
cgjkqsxzç  = “2”
dt = “3”
l = “4”
mnñ = “5”
r = “6”

Other characters are ignored and repeated; characters are encoded as though they were a single character. Encoding stops when the resulting string is four characters long, adding trailing “0”s if it is shorter. For example, “SMITH” or “SMYTHE” would both be encoded as “S530”.⁷

The name Catudal has a soundex code of C334, which means that the names Cautal, Cottel, Catadal and 50 other names must be considered when searching for Catudal. This covers only sound-alikes.

The Meaning of  the Name Catudal

The name Catudal comes from the Breton language. Catudal comes from the name Caduudal which is first seen in the record from 840 to 847 and from the name Cadodal which appears in 1060. The prefix Cat, in the ancient Breton language, means combat. ^11,12 ‘Uuo’ is a preposition and a prefix meaning ‘enough’. The ending ‘Tal’ means ‘to have value’ or ‘to make payment’. Therefore, the name Catudal means something a kin to, ‘to be good at battle’.

Please keep in mind that although the Catudal name can be traced to the 800s, it does not mean that we have any relationship to those who may have carried that name because, as mentioned above, last name usage did not start until the 11th century among royalty and the 14th century for the rest of the population of France, and it was not until the 15th century that last names were handed down from father to child. Just because someone was known as he who is good in battle does not mean that we are related to him. It does not mean that we are not related but rather that we cannot assume that to be the case.

The dit name of St-Jean has both habitational and religious roots. Many places in France carry this name. The place names were given as a dedication to Saint John the Baptist.

Be Very Flexible

I remember one of the first people I entered in my database was my great grandfather Alfred Tremblay. I had some trouble finding a record of him because someone had gone and spelt his name as Fred Trembly. Well! I thought. What is wrong with them! I recounted this experience to a member of the Nipissing branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society looking for sympathy. She started to laugh. She said, “Is that all?” Now some ten years later I often look back on that time with a wistful gaze and think to myself “If only it were that easy all of the time.”


Dit Names

A very important aspect to French Canadian naming conventions is 'dit' name usage. For an in-depth discussion of dit name usage please see my blog http://www.catudals.com/2011/05/dit-dite-names.html. 

Sources — Specific

1.         Electronic Source; Montréal, PRDH-Programme de recherche en démographie historique Université de. First and Last Names. In,

2.         Electronic Source; 2005, Musée de la civilisation. Men of Faith and Action. In, http://www.mcq.org/seminaire/english/chap2/photos/22-7-7_pcouv.htm

3.         Electronic Source; Couture, Patrick. La Nouvelle-France-New France Map. In, http://www.republiquelibre.org/cousture/images6/AAACARTE.GIF - On page 57.

4.         Book; Goodridge, Alberta: Goodridge Social and Agricultural Society. Harvest of Memories: A History of the Districts of Beaverton, Goodridge, Larkin, Maloy, Truman and White Rat, 1999.

5.         Book; Society, Forgotten Echoes Historical. Forgotten Echoes: A History of Blackfoot and Surrounding Area, 1982.

6.         Electronic Journal; MyFamily.com. “Do You Ear What I Ear.”

7.         Electronic Journal; die.net. “Definition: Soundex.”

8.         Electronic Source; Wikipedia. Genealogy. In, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogy

9.         Electronic Source; Ancestry.com. Name History and Origin For. In, http://www.ancestry.com/learn/factsfact.aspx?fid=10&ln=

10.      Electronic Journal; Wikipedia. “Image: Bretagen Map.Png.”

11.      Loth, J. M. (1884). Vocabulaire vieux-breton. Paris,, F. Vieweg.

12.      Loth, J. M. (1890). Chrestomathie bretonne. Paris,, É. Bouillon.

Sources — General

Luc Lépine, The Military Roots of the ‘dit’ Names (From December 2002 Connections ©2002 QFHS – Québec Family History Society)

Linda W. Jones, Genealogy: Acadian & French-Canadian Style

Bob Quintin, The “dit” Name in Franco-American Genealogy

Rev. Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles Canadiennes, Volume 7

André Corvisier, L’Armée française de la fin du XVIIe siècle au ministère Choiseul: le soldat, Paris, 1964, 2 volumes.

Robert J. Quintin, The “Dit” Name: French-Canadian Surnames, Aliases, Adulterations and Anglicizations.

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^[1]          Neil, Michael John. Ancestry Daily News article. 27 July 1999.h ttp://www.rootdig.com/adn/earwhatiear.html

How Do You Pronounce The Name Catudal?

Many names have more than one possibility on how one can pronounce them but the variations on the pronunciation of the name Catudal runs the gambit of possibilities.

I posted the question on the Internet asking those who have the Catudal name or come from a Catudal family to tell me how they pronounce their name. Here are the answers:

Ca-Da-Dal, Cat-U-Dal, Ca-Tu Dal, Catch-U-Dal, Cat-Uh-Dal, Cat-Sue-Dal, Ca-Tu-Del, Ka-too-dul, Cat-ah-dal and Cat-a-dell.

A cousin of mine, Michel Catudal, told me that the French do not pronounce the ‘u’ in Catudal like ‘oo’ but rather more like a ‘ü‘ which does not have an English equivalent.

Laurie Catudal Campbell, told me that as she grew up she did not like all the mispronunciations. She said that “Cat-oodle“ was a common mispronunciation. She also endured a lot of teasing in the form of children asking “if we had caught our doll yet“.

Donald E. Catudal said that he dreaded the first day of school each year because “The teacher would always butcher our name and everyone would laugh. I think they would say Ka-too-dul and laughs ensued.”

Two people who responded were adamant that how they pronounced the Catudal name was the ‘right’ way; both, however, pronounced the name different from one another.

So the answer to how the name Catudal is or should be pronounced is to pronounce it the way you do. Whichever way that you do pronounce Catudal, one thing is for sure; you will be asked to spell it.

The Plot Thickens - Jacques Catudal and the Rebellion of 1837-1838

Some time ago I posted a bit about how Jacques Catudal (1794-1873) moved his family from St-Jean-Baptiste de Rouville to Napierville seemingly to get away from his family. The move happened sometime between 1827 and 1829. After the move there was no further involvement between Jacques and the other Catudals, except for a very short contact period with Jacques’ brother Honoré some 20 years later. By no contact I mean that Jacques did not appear on any baptism, marriage or burial record as a witness for any of his siblings or cousins and they did not appear on any of his or his children’s records after the move.

Jacques created a story that he passed on to his children and their children and that was that he had been born in France and that a close relative, presumably his brother, Georges Cadoudal had been tried and convicted of treason and had faced the gallows. The rest of the family had been given the options to either face the same fate or leave France. They chose the latter and came to Canada.

In my book The Families Catudal I tell the story of why I believed that Jacques moved away and made up this elaborate story – in short here: During the Rebellion of 1837/38 Jacques' family seem to have been heavily involved as Patriots of the movement; in fact, Jacques’ brother Gabriel was killed at the battle of St-Charles on 25 November 1837 (the books say it was Jacques brother Louis who was killed but the priest presiding over the burial of the fallen man mixed up the names of the two brothers and it was actually Louis’ and Jacques’ brother Gabriel who was killed – I have very strong circumstantial proof to substantiate this claim and if you want the proof just e-mail me at catudal@gmx.net and I’ll be happy to show you). Jacques on the other hand was a Loyalist and fought on the side of the English during the Rebellion. I thought that was reason enough for the split in family relations but recently I found out a bit more...

Recently I had the good fortune to come into contact with Richard Brown who is the retired Head of History and Citizenship at Manshead School (England) who has among other accomplishments written many books one of which caught my eye and that was My Three Rebellions: Canada 1837-1838, South Wales 1839 and Victoria, Australia 1854. I contacted Richard and we corresponded back and forth. I told him about my research regarding distant family members and how they fought on opposing sides. He sent me a link for the site Les Patriotes de 1837@1838, Les Rébellions de Bas-Canada. Richard told me that he recognized the name Catudal and the link is where he had come across that name in association with the Rebellion.

The site has some java problems!!!  You can do a search for the name Catudal on the site and it will come back with the results but if you try to see any of the documents then, if your system is like mine, it brings back an error and I have to do a CTRL ALT DEL to kill my browser session before I can use my browser after that or I have to reboot, so be careful – I have written to the admin of the site but he has not replied. Anyhow, it isn’t necessary to retrieve the documents in order to see the big picture.

The break between Jacques and the rest of the Catudal family probably did not happen between the years 1827 and 1829 but rather most likely after July of 1836 and definitely over a difference in political ideologies. You see, Jacques Catudal was a Patriot and not only attended Patriot meetings, he was an organizer. As late as 1836 he is shown as having started a petition with others encouraging people to join the movement. He actively participated in meetings as can be seen in July of 1836 by him moving a motion and seconding another in one of the meetings.

That means that Jacques Catudal, for whatever reason switched sides mid-Rebellion. He was a turncoat! That sure would have been quite a blow to the rest of the family and it may not have been only Jacques' wish to distance himself from the Catudal clan but just as much the wish of the rest of the family that he stay away.

Richard Brown told me that it wasn't completely unknown for Patriots to change sides. Richard wrote "It’s one of the great imponderables of the rebellions in Lower Canada why many people who had been Patriotes in the mid-1830s chose not to support the rebels and, as in Jacques’ case, actively supported the authorities."

Another Catudal Mystery

Update - the updated information is in red within this blog post:

Recently a cousin of mine wrote to me to ask me if I knew anything about some stories that had been told to him by his father who had, in turn, been told the stories to by his father. The line of Catudals that the story comes from is the line starting at Magloire Catudal (1831-1891), my direct line in fact. Before commenting let me tell you what was passed on to me:

My cousin said that his grandfather had told his father that some of our ancestors had fled from France to Ireland to escape the Revolution. Marie Antoinette’s name had some sort of significance to the story as well but what, is not known.

He said that the Catudal family was loyal to France’s nobility and when the French Revolution was gaining power the Catudal family fled to Ireland where they stayed hidden. Some made their passage to the New World along with some Irish immigrants.

The story goes on: Apparently one of our great uncles went to France to fight for a heritage claim.

“We were the closest family line that should have received the heritage. The story is that financial resources were collected inside my family to send one of our family members to represent us in court in Europe (France?) for a court dispute. The dispute in court went for so long that our ancestor ran out of money and had no choice but to abandon and to come back in North America.”

The amount laid claim to was worth 100,000,000.00 (One hundred million!) – Dollars or Francs, the denomination was not known.

That is one heck of a story! Is it true? Have any of you heard anything about a Catudal connection to Ireland? to a legacy that had such a huge value?? A couple of days ago I was watching an episode of Genealogy Roadshow and someone had a story quite similar to the one above. The professional Genealogist told her about a fairly common practice in the late 1800's and early 1900's and that was how some Genealogists would scam unsuspecting families by telling them that they were related to an influential person and that they had a claim against that said person's estate. The amount, the lady on the show was told, apparently owed to her family was in excess of 70,000,000.

What the Genealogist would do is make-up a story about the family line, leading to a person of some importance, where none existed. They would ask the family for money to send a lawyer overseas to fight to have the fortune transferred to the family. The family would invariably pay. The amount would only go so far and the family would be asked to send more money and more and more until there was no more money to send. Of course, there never was a court hearing the case, nor a bank holding the money.

It's sort of the same concept that we now have with the e-mails we get saying that we are entitled to millions because a family in some remote part of the world all died in a plane crash. We're asked to help 'launder' the money as such and for our trouble we'll receive some millions in return.

That is why I could find no records of any connection to a Catudal family in Ireland, nor could I find any ship's list entry for a Catudal from this particular branch travelling to Ireland nor to Europe for that matter.

I think we can safely say, case closed.

An addendum:
The most famous scammer of them all was Gustav Anjour who wrote some 150 family history books which he then presented to various families 'proving' their connection to someone of worth. He then swindled those families out of as much money as he could get. I checked the list of families he did this to and Catudal/St-Jean/St. John were not among the names. Like I said, there were quite a few charlatans operating this scam at the time.

Here are a few links for further reading - this isn't the only scam that some so called Genealogist have pulled and are still pulling!!

http://www.genealogytoday.com/columns/everyday/020606.html
http://hughw36.blogspot.de/2008/03/fake-genealogy.html
http://www.geni.com/projects/Gustav-Anjou-Fraudulent-Genealogist/4449

There are a ton of sites on the subject. And to think, I didn't know about any of this until a couple days ago. Thankfully, I've never relied on other people's genealogies when I've done my research - always looking for proof about what someone claims.

This story has a number of parallels to the story created by Jacques Catudal (1794-1873) to distance himself from his Catudal relatives; the story that said that he came from the Georges Cadoudal line and when Georges was beheaded for having tried to assassinate Napoleon this line of Catudals was given the option to either leave France or face the same fate as Georges. They left and came to the safety of Canada. This story is a total fabrication; however, here are the parallels between my cousins story and the Catudal/Cadoudal legend:

• The setting for both stories is the French Revolution
• Georges Cadoudal was a rebel in that he was devoutly loyal to the French nobility. Napoleon on the other hand was a radical Republican. In fact in 1791 he was the president of the local Jacobin club whose mission was to wipe out aristocrats and bishops. The parallel - the story from my cousin states that our Catudal line in France was loyal to the monarchy.
• The year 1793 was significant to Marie Antoinette, Napoleon Bonaparte and Georges Cadoudal. Marie Antoinette was tried and executed in October 1793. Napoleon’s first noteworthy military action was when he managed to take back Toulon from the rebel forces in November 1793.  It was in 1793 that Georges Cadoudal, a Chouannerie (royalist uprising), started the western rebellion of France in Vendee, Bretagne against the Revolution. The parallel - the story from my cousin mentions the French Revolution.
• Georges Cadoudal did flee to England a number of times to escape when the French forces got too close to capturing him. The parallel - the story from my cousins mentions the apparent need of our Catudal family members having had to flee to Ireland because of the French Revolution.

Inconsistencies between the legend of a Catudal/Cadoudal connection and the story from my cousin:

• The biggest discrepancy is that the name of Georges Cadoudal is not a part of the story from my cousin but does play a major role in the legend of a Catudal/Cadoudal connection.
• There is an inheritance in my cousin’s story and no mention of one in the Georges Cadoudal legend. In fact Georges wasn’t particularly well off at all nor did he come from an affluent family.
• Georges went to England to avoid capture while the story from my cousin has Ireland as the country.
• Although not terribly significant, one of the differences between the two stories is that I have never heard of this new story before. I have spent more than 8 years intensely researching all things Catudal and have written 2 very large volumes on the topic and till now have never heard a mention of anything like this. What is also strange is that this story comes from my direct line: Magloire was my great great grandfather.
• Something else rather strange is that the story or legend of the Catudal/Cadoudal connection was told to me by several people, all of whom come from the line starting at Jacques Catudal (1794-1873). It was Jacques who made up the story to distance himself and his children from the rest of the Canadian Catudals. My line of Catudals, the line with this new story, does not cross paths with Jacques' line. In fact you have to go all the way back to the first Catudal in New France before there is a connection between the two.

My cousin does not know which person went to Europe, presumably France, to fight for this huge inheritance but his understanding is that it was one of Magloire Catudal’s sons.

So my question is have you heard of this new Catudal mystery? If you have could you please e-mail me at catudal@gmx.net It would be great to be able to find out if this new story is in fact a true story or if somehow it is a variation on the Catudal/Cadoudal legend.

Just as an aside, I have checked ship’s passenger lists showing passengers coming from Europe to Canada and the States and have not found anyone with the name Catudal, or one of its variants /adulterations /dit forms /misspellings, on any list that cannot be accounted for. I mean that every Catudal on every ship that I have been able to find were Canadian or American Catudals travelling to and fro either for work or pleasure. There were no stray Catudals on those lists. Please keep in mind, that isn't conclusive proof at all; it just means that all sources I am aware of holding such data have no record of Catudals from Ireland or France as having immigrated to Canada or the States.

UPDATE: British Home Children and a Catudal Connection

The update is written in red below

Have you heard of the British Home Children? It seems to be one of the very best open secrets of the 19^th and 20^th centuries. It was a scheme devised to alleviate the financial burden on Britain of its poor or impoverished children. Rather than look after their own, they sent poor children whether orphaned or not to their colonies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa in the form of cheap child labour.

There were a number of organizations responsible for the emigration (read deportation) such as: Barnardo’s, Annie Macpherson, Maria Rye, Fegan Homes, Dr. Stephenson, the National Children’s Home and so on

There were well in excess of 100,000 children taken from Great Britain between 1833 and 1939. Their ages usually ranged between 6 and 15 years of age but some were as young as 3 and they were simply known as “The Home Children”

Often the agencies responsible for these “Waifs and Strays” changed dates of birth and last names of the children so that they could never trace where they themselves came from. It is as if they were simply thrown away not even with the dignity of a past or identity to hold onto.

This wasn’t the only time that Britain engaged in this practice but it was the last.

The majority of the children were sent to Canada. They were set-up on farms as indentured servants working until the age of 18 without pay or the right to medical care and they were not allowed to go to school.

As part of my research for my book, The Families Catudal. I came across a 1911 census that struck me as kind of odd.

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Under the entry of Barthelemy Catudal’s family was an “adopted” daughter name Sara (sic) Clarke. The entry noted that she was 17 years of age and had come to Canada in 1904 at the age of 10 at which time, presumably, she had gone to live with Barthelemy’s family. What was strange is that I never heard of her at all - Barthelemy was my great grandfather. My grandfather would have been 11 years old at the time of the 1911 census and old enough to have remembered her but he nor my great aunts and uncles never once mentioned her. I tried to find out what had become of her but could never find any information on her, until recently.

Also of note in the above census is the fact that all of the school aged children were shown to have attended 10 months of school for the year 1910 but not Sarah. As I said, the British Home Children were not allowed to go to school; they were on these farms to work, period.

I managed to find Sarah on a passenger list along with 75 other children on the ship The Bremen. They had set sail from Liverpool, England on 18 February 1904 and had arrived in Halifax on the 27^th. One child was being sent on to Sturgeon Falls, Ontario another to Barrie, Ontario and the rest were all headed to Knowlton, Québec from whence they would be distributed to various farms in Québec as child labourers.

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I was really dumbfounded when I saw her name on a passenger list carrying so many children sailing all alone. It occurred to me that she and the rest must have something to do with The Home Children and started to look deeper into this often times horrible legacy. This is when I came into contact with Perry Snow who’s own father had been one of these outcasts. He has spent many years developing a comprehensive database of British Home Children: the database has over 57,000 British Home Children records, in order to make sure that these children would not be forgotten, to show that they mattered, that they were someone and so that their names would live on.

I submitted Sarah Ann Clarke’s name to Mr. Snow to be entered into his database, along with the vital record details I have to date uncovered such as, her entry on the Passenger List from 1904, the 1911 Census, her marriage record, the 1920 USA Census entry and the 1930 USA Census entry. Sarah now will live on. She did exist and she did matter!

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A little bit about Sarah: She was a Methodist and was married on 29 October 1915 in the Lawrenceville Methodist Church. At the time of her marriage she had been living in Bedford Village. Her husband, Alex J. Bresette, who was a fair bit older than she, had been living in South Durham prior to their marriage. On the 1920 Oxford, Maine census it states that she and her husband had moved to the States in 1915 (shortly after their marriage), that they were not American Citizens and that Sarah came from the coastal town of Margate, England, about 75 miles Southeast from London. It was a stroke of luck that the enumerator had entered the town rather than just England. He had struck out the town’s name and left the word England on that line but it is clear to see the name below the crossed out line.

The Census states that Sarah’s mother had been born in Wales and her father Australia. Alex’s father had been born in Canada while his mother had been born in the States. He is shown as being employed on a farm.

The Census also shows that both Sarah and her husband could read and write but neither had attended school. They owned their own home but it had a mortgage.

On the 1930 Census it shows that the couple had moved about 10 miles away from where they had lived in 1920 to Mechanic Falls, Maine and that they no longer owned their own home but rather rented for $16.00 a month. This time they stated that they had immigrated not in 1915 but rather in 1924 and were still not American Citizens. Alex did odd job while Sarah kept house.

Sarah and her husband do not appear to have had any children.

I have yet to be able to find more on Sarah but will continue to search. Well, perseverance does pay off. Today I found Sarah's death information as well as her husband's. After having lived all those years in Maine, she and her husband moved back to the same town where she had been 'placed' in 1904. She died on 17 December 1949 in Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada. He death record, which I found through Généalogie Québec - Institut généalogique Drouin, had her birth date as having been 3 July 1891.

Her husband Alexander John Bresette died on 3 April 1957 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. I'm so please that we now know where she is. Now, I will try to find her grave marker, if there was one and if it survived...

Now that I have a possible town where she was born and know that she and her husband probably lived out their lives in Maine I am sure that I will be able to put together a more complete picture of this, until now, forgotten soul.

If ever you would like to know more about the British Home Children then I highly recommend Perry Snow’s book Neither Waif nor Stray which can also be purchased as a PDF book. It chronicles his father’s search for his identity only to be met with brink walls at every turn. After Perry’s father’s death, Perry began a mission to put to rest, once and for all, the question his father so much wished and had tried to have answered in his lifetime and that was “who am I”. Perry’s father, Frederick George Snow (1909-1994), would have been so proud of his son if he could have seen what Perry discovered. As I read Perry’s book I could see that the passion he had that sustained him through the stonewalling and incompetence of the ‘system’ was turning into not only a quest to solve the riddles about his father and where he came from but had broadened to include all such souls. The quest became one of making sure that all BHC would find their rightful place in history, Sarah Ann Clarke being one of them.

Perry writes on page 8 and 9 about what it felt like for someone who fell under the umbrella of the Home Children:

If I asked you to identify yourself, how would you answer? Invariably, you would volunteer your name. Although many others might have the same name, it is the first step in identifying yourself apart from others. Next, you might tell me your date of birth, because although many others might have an identical name, few others would have been born on the same day. Then you might tell me your Parents’ names. Many others might have your name. A few might have been born on the

same day, but no one -- apart from your siblings -- could have your Parents. You can only have one biological Father and Mother, and your moment of birth is unique to you alone. You might then specify where you were born. No one else on earth could have been born with your name, to your Parents, at a specific time, and in a specific place. You

might produce a Birth Certificate to validate your claim to be who you say you are.

My Father was riddled with doubts every time he identified himself. All he could say was what his caretakers led him to believe was true. When he said, “My name is Fred G. Snow,” he thought to himself, “I think.” When he said, “I was born on Larch Road, Balham, London on September 17, 1909,” he thought, “I have no birth certificate to prove this.” When he said, “My Parents were John George Snow and Annie Gifford/Snow,” he thought, “at least that is what they told me.”

Your identity allows you to value yourself as a unique person of some worth. The absence of an identity contributes to your devaluing yourself as a useless thing. If you know who you are, you feel like a “somebody.” If you do not know who you are, you feel like a “nobody.” The majority of the British Home Children were labelled as worthless, and believed they were worthless.

What Sources Might Help Us Learn About What Life Was Like in New France in the 1600s

Have you ever wondered what life was like in New France in the early days of colonization? Well there is a movie which gives an excellent depiction of life in New France circa the 1630s and 1640s, The Black Robe Screenplay by Brian Moor (Canadain Author), Directed by Bruce Beresford (1991).

There is a book by Suzanne Desrochers entitled Bride of New France which takes the reader on a journey by a couple of women from France to New France in the mid 1600s. It is a work of fiction based on fact and an excellent read.

The film The Last of the Mohicans, which is set in and around 1757 during the French and Indian War, is an excellent look at what life was like at that time as well as a true to life account of that war.

Another source that can give you an accurate, albeit biased, look at life during the early days of New France is the Jesuit Relations - also known as The Relations des Jesuites de la Nouvelle-France. These documents where written by the Jesuit missionaries starting in 1611 and were basically reports which the Jesuits sent back to France telling of the conditions and concerns of New France. These documents span almost 200 years. You can see these documents by going to http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/relations/

Another avenue is to look at the art work done at the time. For the 1600s there is only one Canadian work of art that I was able to find and that is Lady with a Dog from around 1679 (unknown Québec Artist):

However, if you look at French painters from the 1600s I would bet that most of the styles of clothing worn then were similar to what was seen in New France. Also the furniture and food would have been somewhat similar. If you go to the National Gallery of Canada's Search page at http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/search.php and search for French Artists with a date of between 1600 and 1699 you'll see many paintings created by French Artists during that time-frame. In this way you can also get a glimpse into what life looked like during the early days of New France.

UPDATE - The Families Catudal Book is Finished

UPDATE - Since posting the blog The Families Catudal Book is Finished I have added another 10 pages. This is the way with a genealogical study; it never really ends. I have now stopped, promise! adding anything new. Well, actually the new additions were a result of having come into contact with a St-Jean family who's current family history information had, to date, eluded me. I put a short but important halt on the book production in order to add all the new information to my book. Now I'm back on track.


Also, for those of you who do not have a PayPal account not to worry. I am going to setup my account so that I can receive payments via credit card. I will let you know how to go about making a credit card payment  when the book is ready.


Double Also, I have received the Proof and there are a number of format issues and many of the pictures need to be adjusted; many are printing a bit darker than what would be optimal. I will work on this in the next few days and hope that it won't mess up the timing too much. I still expect the book to go to press no later than the last week in November and be ready to ship at the latest the first week of December. I'm hoping that all of this can be done even quicker. Better to be careful and thorough I say.


The Families Catudal book is finished. I have sent the book to the printers and they are going to do a proof for me. I’ll then check the proof to make sure that the book looks the way I want it to making any necessary changes and then I will publish it.

The Families Catudal book is an in-depth study of as many Catudal family members as I could find in the public record, meaning in baptism, marriage, burial and census records; in books, newspaper accounts, oral histories, archival documents, headstones, and, well, just about every sort of place records or information can be found. This includes records from Canada, the USA and France and covers all time-frames where those records existed and I could find them.

My initial focus eight years ago when I started researching Catudal family history was on pre-1940s records but I soon expanded that focus to include everything I could find. I managed to document a little over 6,500 people, most of who are Catudals or who are related to a Catudal. The Canadian and USA Catudals covers a span of 10 generations, not including Jean-Baptiste Catudal dit St-Jean himself. The Catudals from France starts at the year 1589 and includes approximately 250 family members.

I discuss in-depth the name ‘Catudal’ and its place in history as well as give a detailed look at Jean-Baptiste Catudal dit St-Jean (Abt. 1705-1775), the first Catudal to come to New France (Canada).

I also discuss people who we are descendants of  but who themselves may not have been Catudals, such as Marie Marguerite Le Prevost (Abt. 155-1732) who was a 'King's daughter' (a fille du roi) and to whom all Catudals are related. Or "The Hero of New France” Guillaume Couture (1618-1701) to whom some Catudals are related. I discuss The Great Recruitment of 1653 and how, if it hadn’t happened, 1,217 of us would not be here today. There are many, many such stories.

There are more light hearted stories such as how someone tried to swindle a Catudal and paid the price, how a Catudal Member of Parliament’s wife left him to elope with another man, of musical and artistic Catudals, athletic Catudals and inspirational Catudals. There were and are many talented Catudals. There are or were many Catudals were it not for their sacrifices and achievements we would not be here today. I’ve tried my best to document as many of them as I could find.

There is a legend that talks of a line of Catudals in Canada and the States who come from Georges Cadoudal, who played a part in the French Revolution. In the chapter entitled Tidbits I look at and discuss this legend extensively. In the chapter entitled Famous/Infamous Relatives I also have Georges Cadoudal’s detailed family history. To my knowledge no one has documented his specific family history to this extent before.

The Families Catudal book will be a very large book. It will have an A4 layout, just like my first book for those of you who purchased a copy. It will have a red leather finish with gold embossing and will have 797 807 pages of which 200 have colour. That means that all colour pictures will be printed in colour. The pictures which had a patina but where not in colour, per se, will also be in colour so that you can see those pictures as they looked originally. The book will weigh about 8 pounds. To see what my last book The Extended Catudal Family History looked like please go to my blog http://www.catudals.com/2011/05/update-families-catudal-is-now-in.html. This next book will be very similar in size if not colour. The Family Catudal is being printed and bound by the same company which bound my first book.

To give you a better idea of the layout of the book here are the chapter headings in my book:

Acknowledgements

Table of Contents

Table of Illustrations

List of Abbreviations and Terms

Introduction

Names and Naming Conventions

The Name Catudal

Jean-Baptiste Catudal dit St-Jean (Abt. 1705-1775)

Tidbits

Famous/Infamous Relatives

The Delubac Catudals

Catudals from France

Catudals from Canada and the United States – First Generation

Second Generation

Third Generation

Fourth Generation

Fifth Generation

Sixth Generation

Seventh Generation

Eighth Generation

Ninth Generation

Tenth Generation

Pictures of Unknowns – Possibly Catudals

How to Determine Relationships

Sources

Bibliography

Index

Notes (At the end of the book I have added some blank pages so that you can use that space to add notes and hopefully update your family history information as things change.)

There are a little over 350 pictures and illustrations as well.

The publishing cost to me to produce each book will be $185.00 Canadian, a little less than my last book. I am not selling this book for profit. If you wish to purchase a copy I ask only that you pay me what the book cost me to produce and that you pay for the shipping – there will also be a small charge for the box the book will be shipped in. I will be shipping the book from Canada and not from Germany because that would just not be economically feasible. I am hoping to be able to have them ready to ship by middle to late November.

If you would like a copy then I ask that you let me know ASAP because I am only going to have a small run done, just enough to cover the orders. Please note that several Archives, some libraries, some universities and the LDS Library had indicated, at the time they purchased my last book, that if I write another book they wish to purchase it as well, so I will include those in this run. Otherwise, I don’t plan on printing any extra as then I would have to pay $185.00 out of pocket for each unsold book.

If you want to purchase a copy of The Families Catudal then please e-mail me at judy@catudals.com  to let me know. I need your complete mailing address as well. I will let you know when the book is ready to be shipped and then, and only then, I will ask you to pay the amount using Paypal. I am only going to accept payment through Paypal. If you don’t have a Paypal account yet then please open up one. It is a very safe way to pay for purchases and now-a-days it is often the only way to pay online for something. I have my Paypal account set-up so that they charge my credit card for purchases automatically. I used to have it set-up so that I had to put money on my Paypal account before I could purchase something but that was just too cumbersome.

To give you an idea of the cost of postage from Toronto to a few of the places I know some of you live in and around I have made a short list. When your book is ready I will let you know the current cost of mailing it at that time but here are some charges as of today:

Toronto to Alberta: $22.50

Toronto to New York: $25.00

Toronto to California: $31.50

The box to ship the book in will cost a few dollars; I’m not sure how much just yet.

There is a flat rate box from Canada Post but it is too small. I’m looking into other ways to ship which would be more economical. If any of you have any ideas please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Here are some pictures of several pages from my book randomly selected so that you can get an idea of the book’s content and layout. Please click on the pictures to enlarge - please note these are pictures converted from the pdf file and as such the quality is not as good. If you would like to see the pdf pages just let me know and give me your e-mail address and I'll send it to you:

Please let me know as soon as possible if you want to purchase a copy.