Merry Christmas from Brittania

The time has come that my long awaited DNA testing results are in. As mentioned before my Father didn't like his results but I've been reading more about that. As the Genetic Genealogist puts it "Everybody has two tree's!" So I expected the unexpected but also held fast to the fact that I probablly inherited the more obvious traits from my French line in my mother's tree and now a suspected grouping in my Father's. Much to my surprise I came up with results more like what my Father had expected for himself.

To the left is the snippet from my results placing me well into the Welsh/Irish and English inheritance both my parents carry. It was also looking at this that I realized some of the birth locations for my relatives in France must be formatted wrong because they aren't even on the map here. I assumed that I inherited the Scandinavian from my Dad but in relative finder we don't match there which is odd since he has a high percentage as well.


So this has led me into a bit of a History lesson. Having just watched the "Monarchy: UK" show on Netflix I was rather refreshed on some of the Norman conquest details from my supposed 'Stewart' connection. I used this to explain to my Father why his Central European was probably so high since Norman soldiers settled mostly in that area taking indigenous wives as did there sons for generations.

The southern European is my big surprise which also led to some historical research. I came across two theories besides of course a recent 'npe' (Non Paternity Event). The first is that recent studies have shown that Scottish stock was descended from a paleohispanic peoples called Iberians. Their fisherman it said crossed the bay of Biscay about 6,000 years ago into the Isles.

As an after thought it is also possible that a portion of my southern French families could have actually been Italians living abroad. The Boissil's (Boussey) and Grossejambe's both dead end about 1600.

Now more intresting is a more recent migration via conquest before the Normans. When Rome was at it's end as an empire around 300 AD it had just worked it's way into the British Isles. As the war period broke down the Military men settled in Britain, however it was for 200 years (since the winning of Britain), illegal for Roman men to marry local women. This meant that they shipped in women from other countries in the roman empire like Spain, Italy and France. So by the time the law was lifted there was a strong genetic group of Romans within the confines of Britain. This is why a distinct level of Roman survives today in people of British descent despite their lack of knowledge to it. I look forward to more detail being added to the algorithms in the future especially to uncover my 6% unknown which is twice the amount of my fathers. For now I will plug away trying to find this Italian or Hispanic connection I have.

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Read More about Iberians: Independent News/ Wikipedia
Rome in Britain: Surprising DNA

Habits and Coincidences

There is something funny about following family legends through quantitative data and that funny thing is seeing the unreported legacies we leave behind. My ancestry-DNA sample was finally received at the laboratory within the last week. I pray it hasn't decayed to much since it took about a month to be shipped thanks to the holiday seasons.  Hearing that I have 6-8 weeks before a major surprise I couldn't help but ponder once again over my Father's results of dominantly central European despite the family stories that he was distinctly Nordic-Celt. There are of course some holes within the maternal lines for him which I believe might fill many percentage gaps. Adding to the mystery is my hematologist's discovery that I have yet another inherited condition that is distinctly of Mediterranean descent lines. I just find it so darn humorous since genetics obviously does not lie. Thalassemia, my newest suspected diagnosis, does confirms my Fathers genetic testing results however.

My DNA results will most likely not match my Fathers at all, at least in percentage. Now I do know that within my maternal grandfather's line there is a influence from southern France. Most men of the Welsh and English descent chose French wives. In reverse of this having just worked on some of my more recent German ancestors I see that they favored English wives. In fact while they remain so proud of being German they carry almost no cultural influence from it in recent generations and no one speaks the language naturally. I might say this has something to do with the influx of English wives since they ran the household. There is also the matter of joining a culturally deficient religion in the recent years.

The French left their Catholicism and the Germans left Mennonite beliefs to join the Joseph Smith fad. My families on both sides are proud of being so involved generationaly with RLDS (Community of Christ), though its not as many as they assume. I however feel that its stolen away a lot of the traditions that are unique to earlier generations who practiced more classical religions. For the most part my family doesn't see their descent lines anymore. We divide ourselves as American or Canadian at this point. It's a shame to let go of so much yet with each generation we gain a lot. I gather at this point I've torn the threads of my history apart so far that's it hard to enjoy the fabric now as a unit. I have a feeling that my results from DNA sampling might inspire me to look elsewhere. As an example my Father thinks that our history might be boggled by assumptions past three generations above him. This brings up the possibility of a different heritage line stemming back to Italy and France...I can't help but see that it is reminiscent of his DNA results. What a coincidence..?!

Always Check Your Sources

For Thanksgiving I had initially created a post following the Swan family of Plymouth  Massachusetts back to the 11th Great Grand parents, Sarah Allerton and Degory Priest. This was quite a exciting find and I immediately started a blog post for the Thanksgiving Holiday about pilgrims. By happy accident when I was editing it with a disclaimer last night it was deleted.

While the initial research led the correct direction there was a oversight regarding the Swan and Swaine families that settled in Massachusetts  Both had daughters named Sarah born about 1665/70 with similar brood of children after marriage. The real key to discovering my unfortunate oversight was the marriage record of Sarah and her husband Joseph Norton which indicates the Swaine surname not swan as is seen for the Plymouth county records. Unfortunately the Swan woman from the Pratt(Priest/Allerton) and Swain  family convergence is often misspelled in her records as Swain.

Of course Pilgrim history is more exciting still this true family line seems to lead to fairly respectable people who immigrated to the US in roughly 1635 in the New Hampshire and Nantucket Bay area of Massachusetts. Nantucket had been sold by the Wompanoag people to Thomas Mayhew, one of the Plymouth Company owners, and it was not until he lost interest in the area and sold it that real colonization began there in earnest about 1659. Richard Swaine, of the correct line, was one of the purchasers who bought the land for "30 pounds and a beaver hat for Mayhew and his wife".

Grace Swaine, Daughter of Richard would later be accused of Witchcraft during the famous Salem Trials, along with her daughter eldest Mary Boulter. This finger pointing came after the death of a small child of John Godfrey died in 1680. Rachel Fuller originally accused of the crime gave many names under diress of questioning including Grace and Mary's. John Godfrey was apart of the Swan family from Plymouth by marriage. One of the motivations for accusing Grace and Mary is that they were the majority property holders of the Swain estate from Richard.

Ironically most of the Swaine family men went on to have thier hands in law and court. Further research will no doubt provide better details of the more current generations. Judgement errors like this both prove that I shouldn't mass record dive at night and that it is always important to check sources no matter how polished/legitimate the material looks.

Spitoons and Silver Spurs

The Ancestry DNA test arrived last week for me. I was expecting a cotton swab but unfortunately they need a larger sample. My father is excited to see the results which I must say makes me laugh to imagine it not connecting us as relations. What I'm really looking for is unknown's such as perhaps more Boussey relatives like Alyce or perhaps even a accidental finding of my mystery aunt who was adopted out of the Morford family.

I mentioned in a earlier post that a lot of my cousins I've been able to contact all specialize in a certain corner of the family. I was hoping to fill this niche by focusing on my part of the Jones's. I was able to get a freepage with Roots web for my own use. After framing it up it occurred to me that I may not truly have time to deal with this all considering I already have 3 blogs and am still going strong in school. I may reduce the page to something more direct such as the generational family listing I began in PDF.

Last of the Line

It's a very depressing thought to realize that in many ways your family will end with you. It occurred to me as I began the feat of typing up a new Jones family history and decendency list that I am the only record keeper that I know of for the Jones family. This of course may be a misnomer since I am removed from some of my Jones cousins and they may also be researching as well. I do have researching relatives that I just discovered for the Mills family through my Grandmother. These second cousins however are researching thier surnames Bryants and Mills as a main focus however. My Great Aunt Arvilla is also a genealogy hobbyist but she too is removed in her focus from me by being a child of the Wismer and Craig families. Recently she did show me a indirect relationship to the Jones but for the most part her research is Wismer centered. My cousin once removed follows his father's tree for the Kettlewell family.

David, my father and Joseph my grandfather had focused most of their energy strictly on the paternal line for Grant's so once my Father dies that will be it. I doubt it would do much good for me to pick up that research since the majority of it is taken up by Day and Morford researchers anyway, both popular families. In fact recently a Day family third cousin contacted me out of the blue for acquiring a photo of his grandfather. I must admit he was quite rude considering we haven't met. There is also the more personal side to this that I am the last of the Grant children carrying the Grant genetic line or more likely the Street family genetics. My Father once thought that neither my sister or I would have children and it truly broke his heart to think that he had failed to continue the family somehow.

Here I sit however the only researcher that I know looking into the Jones family. All of my Grandfathers generation has now past and most of the children are lost in time in my mothers age as well. I have yet to find a close relative my own age who researches which seems such a shame. In a way then I guess it is fate that I have such good instincts with the Jones/Boussey line since I might be the last to devote time to it.

Endless Discovery

Today I am off to Amherstburg, Canada to visit my Grandmother Lucienna. I intended to have many questions to ask her but the Wismer family is fairly well researched already so I have little need except to enjoy humorous tales. I do of course have some hope that she may have pictures of her maternal grandparents, the Mills, who don't seem to be researched anywhere else. This may be due to the fact that like my Grandfather Harvey Jones's family most of the generations have since passed on and what little grandchildren my age remain have no interest. I thoroughly enjoy collecting images on my family especially since I don't particularly match any living relatives that closely.

Yesterday I considered the idea of tracking down a history course on Canada that I could take. It seems most colleges do not offer it so I settled into a quick reading of the Wikipedia page. The word Acadian came up and I was curious enough to read through it wondering what background this cultural group had. It seems Acadian could be in both of my parents tree's with my Paternal lines in Maine and now it seems through so quick luck today I have my answer in my mother's tree.

It is no new knowledge that I greatly honor my grandfather's Metis heritage from his father and as it turns out his mother also had a metis heritage of her own. Within a maternal offshoot from the Boussey's to the LaPierre's I came across my 9th Great Grandmother, Anne Marie Fauconnier Dit Metisse, born between 1616-1631 at the Metis settlement in Port Royal, Nova Scotia. She had married a Acadian man named Rene Raimbault, whose daughter Jeanne married Francois LaPierre. Jeanne's grand daughter Angelique married Nicholas Boissy (Boussey) my 6th Great Grandfather. All of this is such an amazing find since I so recently stumbled upon the new knowledge of the Acadian's perhaps it is serendipitous.  It appears that Anne Marie may have been Micmac Indian and luckily she has more records than most Indian women of that time. Further research into both the Acadian's and the life of Anne Marie will of course be a new focus for me.

Importance of DNA

The consolidation is going well for those that read me regularly. At this time I am about 200 people short (mostly in the Day family) of incorporating all of my Father's currently discovered ancestors. The other day I received a surprising message on Ancestry.com from a professional Genealogist (Dee Dee King) looking to find the family of my 1st cousin thrice removed on the Jones side. Within a few minutes search I verified the identity of cousin Freddie and had expanded my general knowledge of him. In fact his name had only shown up on a single census so far when I researched his parents and had been referred to as Fred.

Dee Dee did not present a very pleasant picture at first since she did not tell me why she wanted to contact next of kin or if perhaps she was a "lazy genealogist" going to let me do all the research for her. My Grandfather experienced a bit of this when working with a 'professional' on our published family history, at least she sourced him. After a message back and forth I finally opened the link that Dee Dee gave me and discovered her purpose for researching Freddie was much more noble than just getting paid. Ms. King is under contract it seems with the US Navy to research the men who died aboard the USS Oklahoma that was sunk in Pearl Harbor. The Navy it seems is still hoping to identify the remains through DNA sampling from living relatives.

Freddie Jones, (MM1c) is not the first war hero that has been in my tree. Most of the men born at the turn of the century served in WWI and in fact one of them was even willing to serve in both WW's despite his old age. Unfortunately I am a hop and skip relation to Freddie myself and could only have at best a 3-5% match on the M-DNA. The grand-kids of Freddie's sister Grace Jones seem unwilling to help or at best haven't had time to respond to Ms. King. I'm sure within the week or so they will have gotten back to her since the female relations would match well.

Speaking of DNA, last week I talked a bit about the Street family. It seems that the Mental defects are X-linked for the most part. The men not having a second X to counteract the deletion/mutations suffer the worst. It seems my grandfather's family all suffered a degenerative condition; Dementia, Alzheimer's and Parkinsons, respectively by age. My father has made comments to my sister and I that we must get our bad health from his Mother's side because of a Uncle who suffers depression yet the evidence of inheritance says other words. Discovering Dementia and Alzhiemers so close to my generation is a recent development and no doubt a conversation I will have to have with my own Neurologist. This is especially pertinent since the degenerative diseases have shown up in at least 1 child each generation and my Aunt Debbie is the carrier in my Father's generation thus moreover proving the likelihood of a X-mutation.

Echoing the Past

A while back I decided to make separate ancestry trees for my parents respectively. I did this because I did not believe I could safely navigate anymore a populous list of over 4,000 relatives. I wanted to have details for each person and truly discover them as a form of respect.
Unfortunately I have not given my fathers lineage the attention it deserves. I updated my own file the other day only to realize that his tree needed duplicate entries that I would have to hand type again. This I feel takes away from valuable time I have to review censuses and data mine for long lost fellows.
Perhaps I have not mentioned them before but my fathers Grandmother was of the Street family in Missouri. After a horrible tragedy in the family involving a murder suicide they withdrew themselves from each other and in fact little records remain. I am having a similar experience in current time where I am both lacking resources to find data and have to deal with my fathers reluctance to share information. Geneology had been a hobby he shared with my grandfather and I don't think he could ever part with his many boxes of hand written notes.

Most recently he entrusted me with the published book following our Grant lines from the original Scottish ancestor who settled King George, Virginia. That data however has holes and many misgivings. My Grandfather Joseph was only interested in following his paternal line so any information gathered otherwise is most likely unsorted sitting in the boxes on my fathers attic floor. The crypto-Judaism line is also amoung that neglected work. While I do praise my dad's willingness to share stories by word of mouth I would love to see pictures and letters that I consider a real way to organically and emotionally connect. I of course cannot blame my fathers since I too have fallen pray to favoritism within my mothers tree, the Fillies du roi line and the Metis Dufour. I believe a rebinding is called for if only to realign my focus.

Finding Cousins

My sister Heather has been commenting that I spend too much of my research time on dead sources when we have plenty of living cousins to find. She is right of course that I have almost no focus on living relatives. This is mostly due to how proliferative my 'Wismer' family has been up in Canada. Cousins upon cousins.

After the Leitzke, Neitzke debacle last week I am slightly more interested in living relatives than I have been in the past. As a change I ended up diving into the Boussey (Boissy) line of my Maternal Grandfather's tree. This would be the famous 'Fillies du Roi' decendency for which I have considered putting in a application to the society. A lot of my data has come from a user named 'AlyceBoussy' on Ancestry and I was curious enough to track her line from our common ancestor down.

It was fairly exciting to see that for the most part she was in a similar family design as I was with one or two families marrying siblings doubling our genetic comparisons. Closer however to recent I find that while her Father was predominantly french he married a lovely Italian woman. Following my own tree you have a predominately French woman marrying a Welshman. The difference that these  derivatives might make was tantalizing. I began to wonder whether she would have a interest in conversing with me.

So as I found Alyce's information I found that she had unfortunately passed away about 4 years ago and the family had not taken down her work. Four years is when I began doing research and so I missed a chance to reach out to a cousin I didn't know I had and find a connection that I am missing to French culture. This is especially disheartening since it is my Grandfather's family that I have little to no knowledge of.  His mother had been a Boussey and so I am grateful to Alyce's family for not taking down her work. Yet here I sit still missing my contacts as well from the Jones family line for most of my Grandfather's brothers: Murray, Floyd, Henry, & Ralph all predeceased him. After my grandfather's death the families separated and the 'Jones & Sons, LTD' was dissolved.

As of now I have placed in over 1700 unique people into my tree and most of those in the past week are cousins that I am no longer willing to miss out on. Perhaps I will find the secret to the Jones' in the old reunion papers that my Grandmother Lucienna has sent to me through my mother.

Major Aggravations

This week I have come to a pass where it is no longer a coincidence that I seem to be missing fringe folks in my Tree's. I came across the reference to the Dybbuk Box to which the most recent owner has the surname Neitzke and is from the general area as a spouse I just added into my work recently. I made a note about the box as it is featured in the newest horror flick, "The Posession".

Yet coming back to my tree's to coordinate data I cannot find a Neitzke at all and their are whole chunks missing. I have yet to check my backup files but finding a cousin featured in the news and then losing the information to fact check is highly aggravating. This also comes along with the news that I have a rare genetic form of anemia requiring transfusions and the only other recorded cases are from a singular family line in the Island nation of Sardinia. Within my Father's genealogical work their is also a claim of Jewish ancestry though the family claimed to be Mennonites when they populated the United States.

Another note is that I received my invitation to Ancestry DNA but was unable to accept it in time. My Father had his results updated from the Y-DNA panel he had done to the new system. His results were interesting especially when searching for Jewish ancestry. DNA testing results for him list- 54% Central European, 35% British Isles, 8% Scandinavian, and 3% uncertain. According to the given information this counter balances the data which gives no notion of Jewish ancestry for the bulk of his tree. History of course shows that most families changed their names and locales to escape persecutions. As for now my Father jokingly claims that the 3% uncertain is due to a crumb that must have contaminated his swab from the snack he had before hand.

##Update##. I have located the confusion as a name scramble. My relative's surname was Lietzke but the records are still missing from my old backup and recent live files on Ancestry.com.

This Changes Everything

A while ago I asked my mother for a picture of her paternal grandmother. As a great surprise she also came up with a small package of the Jones family history. Within this envelope was a original copy of the 1966 article featuring my Great (x3) Grandmother Catharine Dufour. I had been given what I thought was a copy of this small article already. Turns out it was a full page spread in the Saginaw News.

From the article I was able to gleam most of a interview she gave to a historian named, James Sweinhart, in c. 1900. Intimate details that explain some of the timeline distortion are available in just these small glimpses of her interview that was included in the 1966 print about Jonesfield Township.

Beginning in her childhood Catherine reffers to her father as Peter who owned a strip of land across the river from the fort. She had a sister who may not have survived into adulthood and she was close to a paternal aunt.Her family watched from accross the bank in fear as French nationals as the fort was taken.

“One night in summer I and my sister in bed. My sister asleep, but I awake. I hear my mother call fadder to the door, Peter to the door. Someone knock, I think the Indian come and I cry. I hear great noise cross the river.” “Next morning I get up and look out the window. All the bank of Canada side lined with solider. My dear boy, how fine they all looked in their red suits. Six O’ Clock come. They draw up cannon and fire at the fort.”

“Then Fadder come pick us up and hurry to the woods. After a time the solider go away. Pretty soon they come back and go straight into the fort.” “The officer come out and talk a long while. A white flag is on the fort. Pretty soon they take it down and a red English flag is put up. Then the blue coats all march out and the red coats march in. Then Fadder tells us the fort is surrender and we stay no longer.”

Other notable information bits include her mother's death date within two years of the Fort being taken. Her father than passed her on to his mother who was too old to raise another child and gave her away to a local young couple. The name listed on Catherine's death record as her Father may in fact be this man who raised her in his household from 10-20 years of age.

“When I grow up I go back to Detroit. In those days there was a hotel named ‘The Eagle’ and I work dere as a cook. Den after a long time I get married. I 29 years old.” (All during her story to Sweinhart and reportedly all during her life, Catherine fondly referred to her husband as “Johnny”. He was also 29 when they married.)“My Fadder get married too same year and I never see him again. My man his name John Jones. He come over from England (actually Wales). In 1832 and two year later we get married.”

Perhaps Peter Dufour can be gleamed from the new information but regardless I have the joy of hearing my frontier ancestor talk about her life in a intimate way. Not everyone gets to enjoy the words of their ancestors so freely.

“After a time our cornmeal begin to get short and we have no flour. In wintertime I cannot go to Saginaw and back in a day. The Injun gone long while and left us alone and I afraid to leave children by themselves.” “Den, ah den, my child, we begin to listen for the footstep of da Fadder. Every day we watch da stream dat flow by our cabin and listen far into da night. One day da sun go down and all the sky was red as fire. Everything was dry, da tree an’ branches above and the twigs on da ground.” “A leetle snow was on da tree. We all watch da sun as he sink down to sleep in a blaze of red fire. As we look suddenly we hear far away as it was a hundred mile, a cry. ‘Yo-HO! Yo-Ho!’. My child, how da warm blood ran from ma ole heart. We listen.” “Again it come a leetle louder, leetle clearer. ‘Eagle’ say the baby (Thomas). ‘No’ say Edward, the oldest boy, ‘it’s fadder, fadder, fadder.’ An it was. When it come again, I answer and it come nearer and nearer. Da sun been down and hour and it twilight. We had the fire heaped high. Da fire shown bright and warm and made da spur on da evergreen glisten, and we all stand round da door as da dark night settle down. Soon we hear a step and in come da Fadder with flour and other things we wished for so long. ”

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Who is Henry Dupuis?

My Great (x3) Grandmother Catharine is a enigma. Upon her death in 1912 she had stated that she never left the great lakes in all her life. According to limited genealogical data her father was Peter Duforce of Fort Detroit, a Frenchman. Her death certificate written at a Nursing home in Big Rapids, Michigan tells a different story. (K)Catherine according to that document was daughter of Henry Dupuis, a Belgian immigrant. So who is this Henry Dupuis and how could he possibly be her father?

In searching the back story of Peter Dufour born of Bonvivant in New France (1754) one comes across the general consensus that Peter was a traveling man. Thinking back to the research shared with me by Guy Carpentier,of the Dufour Family organization, we have evidence that post revolution Peter traveled under assumed names between the lakes and river fronts. Peter eventually retook his name over time and it is here that we find him mentioned in the journal's of  John Baptiste Perrualt II, which are published in "Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections" in 1909". Perrault began traveling in 1783 with the local fur trade alliances down the Mississippi. His companions for this trip are named as Canadian men: Mr. Sacharit of Quebec;  St.Germain, Mr. Robert & Mr. Dupuis of Maskinong; Antoine & Francois Beauchemin, Manard, L.Lavalle of Sorel & Yamaska. Marchesseau sold all his goods in the trade to Chouteau, of St-Louis.
It is here that we have the first appearance of Dupuis alongside a trip that would fall headlong into a encounter with Peter Dufour (alias Dufaut).

"...Upon entering the river the next day and doubling the point of the little lake, we saw a wintering-house. It was that of Mr. Dufaut, come from Grand Portage, clerk for NW. and we stopped before his door. As Mr.Kay had perhaps taken only one drink he now took the second which made him ill-tempered so that instead of receiving politely Mr. Dufaut, who came down to meet him on the beach, he treated him rudely... "


At this time Dufour and children of related surnames began to be birthed in the area in which both Dupuis and Peter Dufour travelled. A Pierre Dufault for example appears in one of the areas know to be propagated by Pierre son of Bonvivant.

Pierre Dufault, Ojibwa Metis, b-1815 Sault Ste Marie son of Ojibwa Metis parents, listed March 28, 1836 treaty.

It was popular at the time for Frenchmen to have multiple families because the Catholic church did not always honor marriages between frenchmen and Indians. It is possible that Catherine's mother was never legally wed which explains the lack of documentation. However family story claims that there is a existing newspaper announcement from the times stating that Pierre Dufour had wed an indian woman. For now information like that remains a holy grail. Yet I cannot dismiss the existence of Henry Dupuis from Belgium.

A History Divided

As readers no doubt would know my focus on genealogy always seems to come back to the War of 1812 within the Detroit River area. At the time our nation was liberal and as such the peoples straddled lands that today are quite separate. While renewing my research interest I came to the realization that this division is a great hurdle to my record finding.

My maternal line consists of a strong influx of French and German Canadians all of who traveled quite often into Michigan. This creates a disparity between records. While I can easily search the Library of Canada's Genealogical supply I am limited in my findings due to coresidency or immigration. Sadly during this period not only were the first generational wave immigrants themselves, from France (or otherwise), but their children then became Canadian immigrants into the United States. 

Growing up in my day I have always visited my family still residing in Canada so I can understand how living so close in the Detroit River area one simply considers it a skip across the stream. Our Secretary of State would of course not agree since I have to hold a Enhanced license as supplement for a Passport. Historical Detroit's records are measly at best from what can be accessed online and I feel as if the States has failed me in this respect.

Yet new information always appears such as my stumbling upon a possible site for my Ancestors wedding site. I had been given the name "Eagle Hotel" in Detroit, Michigan to which nothing existed. However a pleasant surprise in my search today lead me to the Eagle Tavern of Greenfield Villiage.Possibility is high that this tavern was the site of my Great Grandparents wedding as the groom was a Ferryman for some years running the water trail from New York to Detroit originally. I can only look forward to what more study might bring and perhaps more records may open up here in Michigan.

Midnight Introductions aren't for Making Friends

When I began to have a strong interest in the information a close cousin passed down to me about my Great Grandmother Catherine Jones (Dufour) I took each element word for word. That is to say no independent fact checking before running head first into the Drouin Collection of records on the Dufour Family in Quebec.

Last night I received a response from the Vice-President of the Dufour families association of North America. He was nonetheless not to happy about a midnight message I had sent last year complaining about the merging of two first cousins into one record.

Mind you I was suffering Sepsis from a liver abscess and blocked gallbladder so I doubt I wrote my comments to the webmaster very tactfully.

According to Guy Charpentier, the Pierre Parfiat Dufour of St, Anne parish changed his name and relocated to Missouri where he married, twice.

Due to his actions during the American Revolution, in 1778, Parfait assumed temporarily a false identity, calling himself Antoine during the hostilities, most likely to avoid retaliation by the British against his siblings living in the Detroit area. Once the war of independence had ended, and Detroit had been handed over to the U.S.A., he reassumed his true Christian name - Parfait. He used indifferently or jointly the names of Antoine and Parfait thereafter.

Now while I should be incredibly happy with this since I have recently considered a generation younger to most likely contain Catherine's father by a son of Joahim Dufour... Mr. President states that through firsthand research he can find no document proving these men: Antonie Dufour born in Montreal and Pierre Parfiat born in Quebec are separate individuals.

The hilarity here is that with divided interest I recently filled out the siblings tree's looking for another Pierre Dufour who could have passed down the name. This led me to review the marriages of women into the Dufour family of which those attributed to Pierre incognito are clearly documented elsewhere with younger men. Now if Pierre Parfiat was my Grandmother's father then he would have been 51 when he conceived her. My Grandmother's obituary says that she never moved from the Detroit river region and her father was with her all of her youth.

"Jonesfield Township History Traced to 1812: Mrs. Edward Jones, A.ea's First Resident, Lived to be 107." "In Detroit August 16, 1812, American General William Hull ... gave up the fort...a 6 year old half French half Indian girl named Catherine DuForce ... was at the fort. She had been born September 15, 1805, the daughter of Peter DuForce and his Indian wife, and had lived all her life along the Detroit River." ~ through death "Catherine's death notice came in the Big Rapids Bulletin Herald September 6, 1912. She died September 5, just 10 days short of her 107th birthday. The notice said: "In the death yesterday afternoon at Mercy Hospital of Mrs. Katherine (Catherine) Jones, the State of Michigan lost its oldest Native inhabitant. She was 106 years, 11 months and 17 days (actually 20 days), and despite the ravages of time, she retained a remarkable physical vitality and a wonderfully clear memory. The body was shipped to Hungerford this afternoon and the funeral services will be held at the Hungerford Church. Internment will be in Hungerford." She was buried in Hunkleford Cemetery near Woodville, about seven miles west of Big Rapids."

Source: The Saginaw News, Sunday May 29, 1966 (section B, Page 3) & USGENWEB

Oh and Mr. president you are about to publish that Pierre Dufour Born April 1754 married his nephew's wife who was almost 30 years younger. Good luck with that...

Now onto the more interesting ideas. If Pierre did go into hiding in Missouri than that places him in the Red Reedies area to which another mystery Dufour/Dufault family exists. Therese Dufault maybe another child and lays creedence to the family tales of a mixed heritage. (Clues to ancestry of Therese Dufault)

If Pierre Dufour, Jr. did leave the Great lakes region than why is he listed as a founding member of Wayne County (Historical Publications of Wayne County)

Oh Pierre you Dirty Bird...!