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.

Please Click on Image to Enlarge

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.

Do we as Catudals have a Native Indian heritage or not?

The answer is yes and no. If the question is directed as such: Is the Catudal line Native in any way? then the answer is no. If you follow the pure male line back to Jean-Baptiste Catudal dit St-Jean who came to New France in and around 1721 from France then it is clear in the genealogical record that the pure male line of Catudals is not Native.

The next question is did any child born a Catudal (or one of its dit names of St-Jean or St. John) marry a Native Indian or have children with a Native Indian? The answer again – as far as the historical record uncovered to date shows – is no. There is nothing in the historical record to indicate that anyone born a Catudal married a Native Indian. That is not to say that they didn’t. It is only to say that there is no baptismal record, no marriage record, no land claim, no Census record, nor any other records where this is seen to be the case.

We have to keep in mind though that pre-1900’s people did not openly admit to being a Native Indian or being a ‘half-breed’ or acknowledging on a Census that they were ‘Red’ if they didn’t have to. Now-a-days we have a romantic idea of what it is or was to be Native. Our forefathers thought different and they knew the harsh realities that came with being considered a ‘sauvage’.

There are DNA tests available, which can give conclusive proof of Native blood. The problems with those tests are that they can’t tell from which line or from how far back the Native blood is from.

The reason is that one of the genetic markers, which indicates whether one has Native blood or not, is either passed down from mother to child unchanged (but only the female child will pass this marker down to her children) or from father to son unchanged. This means that it cannot be determined from which generation the Native blood came from. The Indian bloodline could be from 2 generations back or from 1,000 years ago. There is nothing, to date, that can make that distinction.

A person who has both Native Indian blood and European blood is called a Métis. Each Métis Association and each area these Associations fall in, all have their own criterion as to when a person is considered a Métis. Generally, the main criteria is that you can prove a link to a Métis or to a Native Indian. That means that you must have primary documents, ie. Baptism records, for each generation, starting from you, back to the person who is Native. Métis status is recognized regardless of whether the Native blood comes from the paternal or maternal line.

There is DNA evidence to support and to also call into question a Native Indian tie-in for the Catudal family line. Firstly, not in support of a Native tie-in: Jean-François St-Jean ( Mélanie St-Jean’s father – another genealogist doing Catudal research) had a Y-DNA test done, which only looks at the pure male line, The results showed that his heritage is European without any Native blood. To be specific, his test showed that his paternal haplogroup is R1b.

Secondly, Michel Catudal (another researcher) wrote this in the group ‘Catudal’ on Facebook regarding us having a possible Native tie-in:

“My son, wife and myself went thru some genetic tests at McGill university when I was working on an engineering contract in Montréal and we were told that we have some genetic hearing loss traits only found so far among Iroquois. The only native information I have found in the Catudal family is in the Acadian branch of the family. As for my wife she is half Cherokee half Amish. I was told that we have Mohawks ancestors but didn't find anything to prove it. As for the hearing loss genetic traits, they were both identical in my wife, my son and I and the experts at McGill told us that they have found these only among Iroquois until they met us. Both Cherokees and Mohawks are of Iroquois descent. I do not know about the Abenakis, maybe they have common ancestors also.”

It isn’t clear exactly what tests Michel had but it does show that there is a possibility that he has some Native tie-in but from what line, paternal or maternal, is not clear.

Having said all of that, there are indirect Native Indian connections to some of the Catudal lines and here are two examples of those connections:

One of the Catudal tie-in lines to Native Indian starts at Marie Abenaquie who was a Micmac Indian , her daughter was Edmee Lajoie Briard LeJeune, her daughter was Marie Françoise Louise Gauterot, her daughter was Madeleine Terriot, her son was Pierre Robichaud, his daughter was Marie Françoise Leborgne Belisle, her daughter was Marguerite Robichaud, her daughter was Marie Josephte Pepin Lachance, her son was Pierre Chabot, his daughter was Philomene Chabot who was married to Maglorie Catudal.

The other line that has Native blood in it starts at Jean-Vincent Saint-Castin who married Marie Mathilde Pidiwamiska (also known under the name Mataconando and or Pidianske) in 1684. Their daughter was Anastasie Saint-Castine, her daughter was Marie Françoise Leborgne Belisle, her daughter was Marguerite Robichaud, her daughter was Marie-Josephte Pepin-Lachance, her son was Amable Chabot, his daughter was Philomene Chabot and her son was Barthelemy Catudal.

There are some Catudal families who have grown up with the common understanding that they have Native blood through the Catudal line, which on face value, begs the question “why would that sort of information have been passed down if it weren’t true?” Good question. I would like to give an example of how it is not always the case that what is passed down regarding Native heritage is true.

My grandmother Yvonne Catudal (née Tremblay) grew up knowing that her grandmother, Sophie Godard dit Lapointe was a Native Indian. All the grandkids grew up also having this information about our Native heritage. Close to seven years ago I met a cousin whose great great grandmother was also Sophie. She too grew up with the same information. She put me in touch with yet another cousin from another side of the family who also could trace themselves to Sophie and they too grew up with this information. So here we were, three people who had come from this particular line but who had grown up without contact to the others and all of us had been given the same information. You can imagine how surprised we were when I took a mt-DNA test, the one that tests the pure female line, and received the results showing that I did not have a Native tie-in. My Mitochondrial haplogroup is H, which means that my pure female line is European. Those people who have Native blood belong to Haplogroup A, B, C, D or X only. The story about Sophie being Native Indian is not true, at least it isn’t if the genetics can be believed.

The story could have originated because Sophie looked Native. She even had the nickname ‘Squaw’. Maybe the only reason she had this nickname was because she looked Native and not because she was.

I have come to learn that this phenomenon, of being under the impression or understanding that one has a Native heritage when in reality there is nothing to support the claim, is rather common.

Did you know?
Many people believe that having Métis status is the same as having Indian Status. It is not. The term Métis was the term given to the children who were the product of the early French fur trappers or other Europeans and Native Indian women.
If you obtain Métis status then, depending on where you are in Canada or the States, you may be allowed certain rights such as special fishing or hunting rights or perhaps be given an advantage when being considered for government grants but nothing much else. Métis do not have treaty rights – there are a few exceptions where some Métis bands have treaty rights but those are exceptions.

I Learned a Very Good Lesson Today

In one of my blogs I had posted a picture of three soldiers saying that I thought that the middle person was Armand Donat Lucien Catudal (1919-1997). Here is that picture:

Well, after some discussion with Bettyann, Donat's daughter-in-law, I realized that the old photo that I found in my Grandmother's old photo album was of someone else, but who? There was only one other person that I thought that it could be and that was my Grandmother's brother, Jean Joseph Tremblay.


My cousin Michelle Eber told me that I should send this picture to a mutual cousin Joanne Turcotte (née Tremblay) to see if she could identify her grandfather. I sent the picture to Joanne and asked her if she recognized anyone in the picture. She wrote back saying that, yes it was a picture of her grandfather and that this picture was taken of him while in Canada.


I thought, "Bingo" I knew it had to be of someone in our immediate family and because he, at least to me, looked so much like Donat, I had falsely thought it was of him.


Then I got a second e-mail from Joanne saying that by-the-way, her grandfather was the person on the left. I had spent so much time fixated on the man in the middle that it never for a moment occurred to me that the person of interest would be anyone but the man in the middle. This is a great lesson! I really do try not to get fixated or blind-sighted and most of the time I think I manage but obviously I need to work on it.

The man on the left in the above picture was my great uncle and he was baptized as Joseph Joachim Emery Tremblay (1904-1987).  He was known as Jean to his immediate family (children and grandchildren) and as Joe to the rest of us. Why? I don't know.

Another puzzle solved.