52 Ancestors Week 3: Out of Place

 Week 3

The theme for Week 3 is "Out of Place." Have you ever found an ancestor in an unexpected location? What about finding a record someplace that surprised you? Or what about that one great-great-uncle who moved out West when everyone else in the family stayed put? This is a good week to write about them.

Haverhill in 1876, huh? Judging by the holes, some things
remain the same.

    Many people often talk about their ancestor or relative who went west to seek his or her fortune. That's not really the case with me. Sure, I've got ancestors who traversed the ocean from Europe and you could call that "going west" since they crossed the Atlantic to reach North America. However, I don't think they were going for the same reason some guy in the 1840s was going to California. If they had gold nuggets as big as your fist, would they really be sailing to North America in the first place?

    Instead of anyone going west, I have a strange case of someone going SOUTHEAST when everyone in her family(Aside from her parents) went to Anoka and Ramsey county, Minnesota. Ladies, gentlemen and others, I present my third great-grandmother Marie Eulalie Bibeau. I might have talked about her before. It bears repeating that she seemed to be the odd one out in her family. I know I shouldn't complain because I'm here and so are the countless other people who descend from her and her husband, Pierre Cadran. 

Off to Haverhill with you!

    Marie is a daughter of Jean-Baptiste Bibeau and Therese Laroche and she was born in Saint Francois-du-Lac, Québec on February 28th, 1830. She was one of twelve children born to that couple and even had an older half-sister who shared her name! The other Marie Eulalie lived to be eighty-eight years old and married her future brother-in-law Pierre's father, Noel. Talk about awkward. Your half-sister is also your mother-in-law! Jerry Springer would have had a field day! Then again this probably was a good enough of an incentive to get out of Dodge. Er...Saint. Francois-du-Lac.

     Out of her twelve siblings, five of them went to Minnesota while the rest either died young or ultimately decided to stay in Canada. Pierre and Marie ended up moving as far away from their family as they could and ended up in the city of Haverhill. You might ask yourself what brought two Canadians all the way to New England and so very far from anyone they knew. Well, think about it logically. Pierre likely heard about the mills up and down the Merrimack river looking for skilled workers and likely wanted a piece of that pie.

Psst. Hey, Josie. Got a pic of
your parents?

    I would say that a reason she moved to Haverhill could have been to be close to their children and grandchildren. The problem is that the logistics are all over the map. Quite literally. Their daughter Josephine was supposedly born in Massachusetts in 1861. I say "supposedly" because I can't find her birth document and various censuses say she was either born in Massachusetts OR Canada! The same thing happened with their daughter, Marie who was born in 1863. By the mid 1860s. two more children were born. This time it was back in Québec! One more child was added to the family in 1873 and she was born in Montreal.

    Their daughter, Lucie married Antoine Legault in 1874 in Québec. Pierre and Marie would later be living with them in the 1880 census in Haverhill. By that point, I suspect Pierre and Marie were quite tired of running back and forth from Massachusetts and Québec. Something had to give and so they decided to finally drop anchor in the Queen slipper city on the banks of the mighty Merrimack. Very poetic, I know. I still wouldn't recommend swimming in there. It'd take a LONG time for that river to be cleaned and even then....would you really swim in it? Be honest.

    While Marie and Pierre were running to and from Massachusetts, her brothers and sisters established very large families in Minnesota. Here's an example of how large they were. Marie's sister, Henrietta married a man named Jean Baptiste Morrissette in 1837 when my third great-grandmother was just seven years old. They moved to Minnesota and ultimately had eleven children between 1838 and 1856. Many of the other Bibeau families also had a TON of children. There's even a group on Facebook dedicated to the descendants of Jean Baptiste Bibeau and Therese Laroche. That's so helpful because my mother has over one hundred DNA matches who descend from those two!

    

Packed in one house in 1880!

    Back in Haverhill, things were going pretty well. I mean Pierre Marie also had a large family to take care of and she apparently made a name for herself. According to her obituary in 1907, she was a member of Saint Anne's Society and was well known in French circles in the city. Not bad for a French-Canadian immigrant, right? She moved to Haverhill and made a life for herself far from her family.

    So, why is she "out of place"?  She made a great life for herself in the city and raised a large family herself. Well, it just seemed odd to me that she moved to Haverhill while everyone in her family moved to Minnesota. What was the reasoning behind it?  Did she stay in contact with relatives in Minnesota?  Did they visit her? You know me. I could make up a story of why she and her husband moved to Haverhill. 

Why would you go through
Montréal to get to NH?

    I'll probably never get the answers to those questions unless I somehow get access to a ouija board or something. That's fine because it's fun to think about. I did ask my friend and fellow comic afficionado, Lewis "Linkara" Lovhaug of Atop the Fourth Wall why they would move to Minnesota since he lives in the land of a thousand lakes. He said "Why wouldn't you want to move here?! Plenty of great fishing!"

    Lewis might have a point because Minnesota is known for fishing and all kinds of interesting activities. What's really interesting is how the families didn't all stay in Minnesota. I've done some descendency research and found that some cousins went to the Dakotas, Montana, Iowa and even as far south as the Chicagoland area. Everyone just sort of spread out and as I've done research, I've collected amazing photos as hints. I can't share them here for obvious reasons. But, it got me thinking. Did they know about family in Massachusetts? Did they stay in touch with Marie? Did she stay in touch with them? I know I have a ton of questions. Can you blame me? There's a story here and I wish I could learn about it and so far I just have bits and pieces of what is no doubt an epic tale.

    Trying to explain all of this to DNA matches is interesting to say the least and I try not to be that awkward.  If my mother or I get a DNA match who clearly descends from Jean Baptiste Bibeau and Therese Laroche, I try to explain everything to the match as clearly as possible. I say that I descend from the daughter who decided Haverhill, Massachusetts was the place to be. Well, not in so many words. But, it's close. I think it's well understood that there's one daughter who moved to Haverhill because Marie is on a LOT of trees on Ancestry and they show her as living in that city. Plus having her on WikiTree makes for fantastic cousin bait!

    Marie Eulalie Bibeau and Pierre Cadran may have been the odd ones out because they moved so far from home and everyone they knew. However, I doubt they felt really bad about their situation since they clearly made a life for themselves here in the Merrimack valley.  Their children grew up likely hearing about the family in Minnesota and sadly those stories probably faded with time. Still, I can't help but wonder about their connections. Did they stay in touch? With the power of the Internet at our disposal, we can probably reconnect with those "long lost" cousins. For now all I can do is keep researching the descendants of my 4th great-grandparents and just wonder why they made that move.

See ya next time!

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