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.

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!