I am very pleased that The Drouin Collection of (mostly) French-Canadian vital records is now indexed and searchable. My Ancestry.com subscription runs out on Friday, which means that I'll have to put off sleeping, eating and bathing until the weekend.
The question sounds so much better in French: "Avez-vous eu un ancêtre décapité pendant la Révolution?"
Les Guillotinés offers the most complete online list yet established of the French Revolution’s victims and invites users to discover the answer to a terrible question: “Do you have an ancestor who was decapitated?” Hundreds of thousands of people have consulted the death base, created by Raymond Combes, a computer programmer and amateur genealogist.
Many more are likely to follow suit. According to one estimate, up to five million French people are descended from victims of La Révolution. [Link]
The Drouin Collection will be free to view at Ancestry.com through the end of March.
The Drouin Collection represents the largest and most valuable French-Canadian family history resources available, including an impressive collection of Quebec vital records. The collection ranges from the beginning of European settlement to the 1940s, including the nearly 12 million records which marked the history of Quebec families over three centuries.There's no name index, so you'd better have your high-school French teacher on speed dial. I was able to find the marriage record of my 3rd-great-grandparents Martial Laplante and Marie Parent in Van Buren, Maine, in about three minutes—but only because I already knew it was there.
Bryant Johnson's Scottish kilt shop in Montreal has thrived for 60 years—despite being located in Montreal.
"A lot of my contemporaries in Toronto say, 'How does a guy sell kilts in Montreal?'" Johnson, the proprietor and son in Chas Johnson and Son, told Canadian Press.
"The truth is that there's a lot of French-Canadians who have Scottish heritage going back to the Hudson's Bay Company," Johnson said in a recent interview.
"They don't speak English, but they'll be walking by the door and they'll see scarves with their name on it," Johnson said.
"They'll come in, make inquiries, and go home to La Tuque or whatever. But they always come back." [Link]
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette shares this anecdote concerning Jeanne Calment of France, who died in 1997 at age 122.
Madame Calment was quite the bon vivant right up through 120 or so, singing songs and rapping and the like. She had ridden a bike until age 100. A young journalist supposedly asked her on her 120th birthday whether she could count on seeing Madame Calment the following year.
"I don't see why not; you look pretty healthy to me," responded the woman who'd had 12 decades to hone her comic timing. [Link]
Gerry Houle contributed a family photo to 24-7 Family History Circle depicting his French-Canadian grandfather, Donat Houle. According to an article in Wikipedia, someone with that name born today in St. Guillaume, Quebec, might be given the nickname "Timbit," though if he lived in Donat's adopted hometown of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, the moniker "Munchkin" would be more likely.
From This is Guernsey, posted Dec. 3, 2005:
Priaulx cool on snub
Motor Sport
by Aaron Scoones
FANS of World Touring Car Champion Andy Priaulx have criticised the BBC for snubbing their man at its annual gala sports personality night.
But the champion was quite relaxed over the affair.
Having just flown back into the island from London where he attended the live television event, Priaulx said: "I can't say I was surprised.
[snip]
"The problem is my surname doesn't sound English and people think I'm French."
[snip]
[Read the whole story]
