Burlinton, VT City Clerk's Office

Good news about this City Clerk's Office from Peter Bouyea, one of our members. He writes:

The Burlington, VT City Clerk allows anyone to go through the records. All certificates are encased in plastic and can easily be removed to make copies for $2 each if you go in yourself. Everything is indexed and easy to find.

Don't you wish more offices were like that?

More information about this office can be found at:

http://www.ci.burlington.vt.us/ct/vitalrecords/

Thank You Mr. Boulé

Milton Boulé, one of our most persistent researchers, has decided to share his family findings with us. He is descended from Robert Boulé and his wife, Francoise Garnier. The couple settled in Ste. Famille on L'Ile d'Orleans in 1663.

Some of his ancestors also walked with Champlain. He'll receive his button for being able to claim his connection to that exclusive society. You can see the Noel Langlois/Milton Boulé descendant tree at http://www.nnyacgs.com/files/Langlois_Boule.pdf

The file folder with Milton's research can be found in the filing cabinet that contains the file folders on local families located near the windows in our library.

He remembers his uncle who was a hobo in the 1930s. He only saw him twice. He has stories of family members who drowned by falling through the ice while riding their sleighs. Some of his family members escaped the British impress gangs near Quebec City and had descendants who came to the United States. Others emigrated to Wisconsin. Milton met his wife, Rose Fasanella, a first-generation American with Italian parents, while working in New Jersey during World War II.

Thank you, Mr. Boulé, for sharing your story.

Champlain Quadricentennial in Clinton County, NY

Preparations are starting to gel for the Quadricentennial of Champlain's arrival to New York. Meetings are being held, plans are being made and finances are being distributed.

NNYACGS is inviting other genealogical societies around the Champlain-Richilieu Valley to join us in our celebrations. People have already started to send us descendant trees of their ancestors who walked with Champlain. See them at http://www.nnyacgs.com/descendant.html.

You'll see that even though the lines started out with French names, they may end up with Polish, English, Spanish or Scottish names. What an American mosaic. We'd like to find as many cousins and cousines as possible. Add your own descendant tree by sending them to dunott@aol.com.

Donations and Volunteers and Quad

This week our library has been offered some shelving that is going to be discarded by a local library. It will be a lifesaver because our Betty Bellinger Bateman Collection is ready for a permanent home. We'll have to rearrange our rooms a little to make our use of space more efficient.

While searching in some drawers, I found some microfiche that had been donated, including DAR records and some Quebec births and burials from Terrebonne and Montmorency Counties among others. You may find something of interest there.

We're bringing a new librarian on board - Teresa Whitaker, from Keeseville. She is a long-time member and has extensive knowledge of local families. Gloria Pratt, our President and one of our major researchers, has decided to be a volunteer librarian again. Thanks to both of you.

There is a meeting on June 14th at St. Michael's College in Burlington to discuss the Quadricentennial. http://www.celebratechamplain.org/news.html There is a large contingent of Clinton County folks going including Celine Paquette, one of our local legislators. The breakout session we're interested in is the one on French Heritage in the Champlain Corridor. Over 40% of people in Clinton County have French-Canadian ancestors.

Our Society is partnering with the Vermont French-Canadian Genealogical Society in "They Walked With Champlain" Descendant Tree Project.

Exciting genealogical times.

Google Books

Have you ever wanted to know more about the history surrounding your early French-Canadian ancestors? Try going to "Google Books" for more information. Many early history books have been scanned and you can find them in the original French, many with English translations and also in English.

To get to "Google Books" go to Google and look for "More" at the top of the screen. Click on "More" and choose "Books" from the drop-down menu. You can do your keyword searches from there. Once you are in a book, you can search in it for other keywords.

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You'll find books such as, Francoix Xavier's Garneau's "History of Canada - From the Time of Its Discovery Till the Union Year (1840-1)" translated into English at http://books.google.com/books?id=ZyS9g_mTN-oC&pg=PR3&dq=%22histoire+du+canada%22+garneau+translation&ie=ISO-8859-1; Champlain's Voyages by Samuel de Champlain at http://books.google.com/books?id=7u0ErQ0xWDEC&pg=PA3&dq=champlain&ie=ISO-8859-1; and William Charles Colby's book on personalities in early Quebec, "Canadian Types of the Old Regime: 1608-1698" at http://books.google.com/books?id=I48dAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=william+charles+colby&ie=ISO-8859-1. Just click on the underlined URL to take you to the site.

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Explore Google Books - you'll enjoy the experience.

Getting Ready for 2009

NNYACGS is excited about the up-coming celebrations for the Quadricentennial of Champlain's entrance into Lake Champlain in 1609.

There have been many meeting of the Quadricentennial Commitee and activities have been suggested to the Clinton County, NY Coordinator, Celine Paquette.

Our Society is partnering with the Vermont French-Canadian Genealogical Society in our project - They Walked With Champlain. We are going to research our family histories to discover which of our ancestors actually did walk with Samuel de Champlain in Acadia and Quebec. We will publish pdf versions of the trees on our website. For a list of original settlers go to our website at http://www.nnyacgs.com/quebecwalk.html. Each line contains the correct page from Tanguay showing the couple's marriage.

Our Society is also thinking about a heritage walk from church to church from Montreal down the Richilieu - the route of many of our ancestors.

So many ideas and so little time - only two years to go!

Opening of the Library for the 2007 Season

The last couple of weeks have been very busy at the library getting ready for the new season. We received a major bequest of over 200 books from the family of Betty Bellinger Bateman who was a life-long genealogist.

Betty had family connections in Pennsylvania and New York including Palatine ancestors. She had ancestors from Union County and the Susquehanna and Buffalo Valleys in Pennsylvania. In New York her ancestors were from the Mohawk Valley and Jefferson and St. Lawrence Counties. You can view her gift at http://www.nnyacgs.com/files/BATEMAN2.pdf . Betty's research will be available in our Family Section.

The library bought or had donated to us many books this year. We bought protestant church records from southern Quebec. Donations included Vermont military records of those who fought in various wars, Chazy, NY church records and several Acadian descendant books. View the list at http://www.nnyacgs.com/newmaterial.html . The new books will be on display in Room 2 until November. We are going to need a lot of new shelving for our new aquisitions and so are saving money toward that end. It should be a great year.