I’ve been trying to trace my great-uncles’ family ever since my great aunt told me that everyone, except his older brother Raymond, moved back from Michigan after Charlie’s dad lost his job in the depression.

According to his Ontario birth certificate, my great-uncle Jean Charles Horace Mathieu was born to Charles Mathieu and Mary in Fort William, Ontario on April 24, 1911,[1] so that’s where my research began.

Ten years later, the family had moved to 500 Aylmer Avenue in Windsor, Ontario, where they were renting a six-bedroom house. Both parents were 51 years old by then. His father Charles worked as a carpenter. His wife, who was born Marie Agnès Proulx, was then called Agnes. (She went by Mary and/or Agnes depending on the documents.)

Jean Charles had two older brothers, Arthur (16) and Raymond (14), an older sister Fernanda (12) and two younger brothers, Lawrence (8) and George Albert (6). [2]

There’s no hint of the family from then until 1932. There is one person who has a family tree on Ancestry who indicates that a Fernanda Mathieu crossed into Canada in 1924. That may have been John Charles’ sister, but it isn’t confirmed.

I wasn’t able to find the family on the 1930 U.S. Census.

By using Steve Morse’s search engine to search Lovells directory, I was able to find a carpenter named Charles Mathieu living at 6760 St. Denis in 1932[3]. I don’t know whether this was Charlies’ family or not.

If it was, they left Montreal again, because there are no listings for carpenters named Mathieu between 1933 and 1939.

Their next appearance in Lovells is 1940 when a carpenter named Mathieu lived at 3286 St. Antoine.[4]

That’s definitely them. I have an undated newspaper clipping about Aircraftman J.C.H. Mathieu between injured in a flying accident that says his parents lived at 3286 St. Antoine. [5] That clipping is undated, but I know that Jean Charles Mathieu lived in Montreal when he volunteered for the Royal Canadian Air Force in Montreal on August 8, 1940.

My original question remains unanswered.

——————————————

[1] Photocopy of Province of Ontario pocket birth certificate issued at Toronto on November 10, 1947, registered in April 24, 1911 in Fort William, Thunder Bay District by Geo. H Dunbar, Registrar Dunbar.

[2] 1921 Canadian Census, Province of Ontario, District of Essex North, Roger West Minard Subdistrict, Number 47, June 13, 1921, B, Page 20, derivative source.

[3] Lovvell’s Montreal Alphabetical Directory, 1932, p1456

[4] Lovell’s Montreal Alphabetical Directory, 1940, p1771.

[5] “Airman Injured,” Montreal Gazette, undated clipping, author’s collection.

The old Edmonton newspaper clipping doesn’t include a clear date, but was written sometime well after January 1942 and prior to September 27, 1944.

Its title “Airman Shot Down Twice But ‘Nothing Much to Tell’ emphasizes the key point of the story.

The nutgraph reads “Like nearly all of the fighting men who return after serving in battle, WO. Hurtubise had little to say about his adventures in the air.” It goes on to say:

The airman had been shot down over friendly territory. He crashlanded both times. He admitted he had been wounded slightly but said “it was nothing at all. You’d never know it now.” [1]

The soldier of few words was a distant cousin—the son of my great-grandfather’s brother and my great grandmother’s sister. His name was Paul Emile Hurtubise. At the time of the newspaper article quoted above, he served as a Warrant Officer and pilot in the Royal Air Force.

Hurtubise was interviewed for the story at his 99 Avenue home in Edmonton (address 111204). The unnamed newspaper reporter writes that Hurtubise was shot down twice in North Africa and also served in raids over Sicily and Italy.

His father Gus was still alive at the time of the article, but his mother Ida died sometime prior to the article date, but after the 1921 census .[2] There was one mention on an ancestry family tree that she died in 1922, when he was only three years old, but that isn’t yet confirmed. Another newspaper clipping in French from an unnamed and undated source cites the family as formerly living in Peace River, Alberta.

Hurtubise attended Jesuit College in Edmonton and enlisted with the air force in January 1941. After training with the air force in Ontario, he got his wings in Dunnville, Ontario and went overseas in January 1942.

At the time of the article, he had returned to Canada to serve as a flying instructor, but at some point, he went back to the front.

On September 27, 1944, he crashed a third time in a Spitfire NH while serving with 412 Squadron.

The third time, he died. His remains are buried in plot 2B12 in the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery in Germany.[3]  He is listed as a pilot officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Service Files of the Second World War Dead.[4] He’s also commemorated on page 341 in the Second World War Book of Remembrance.

——————————————–

[1] “Airman Shot Down Twice But ‘Nothing Much to Tell’,” Edmonton Journal or Bulletin in its Forty-First Year, but the article describes January 1942 as the distant past.

[2] Alberta Province, Bow River District #2,Enumerated subdistrict 25, uncategorized district 218, section number 7, township 22, range 21, meridian 4, lines 28 to 31, family #69, page 5, Sixth Census of Canada, 1921. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Library and Archives Canada, 2013. Series RG31. Statistics Canada Fonds.

[3] Canadian Virtual War Memorial by Veterans Affairs Canada. (n.d.). Retrieved February 24, 2015, from http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/canadian-virtual-war-memorial/detail/2055721.

[4] Library and Archives Canada, Service Files of the Second World War – War Dead, 1939-1947, RG 24, Volume 27803, Item 16884, Service number J45927.

Great news for family history writers. Lynn Palermo, the creator behind the Armchair Genealogist and the annual Family History Writing Challenge has created a virtual website for all of us.

The Simcoe Ontario-based genealogist and author has just launched The Family History Writing Studio, a multi-media website with workbooks, webinars, and personal coaching from Palermo.

One can spend a lot of time floundering around trying to sort it all out,” Palermo wrote in a press release distributed earlier today. “Our goal is to help writers break it down into manageable tasks. We also want to help take the fear out of writing and provide family historians with knowledge and self-confidence.”

Her popular newsletter, “Storylines” will be relaunched as part of the Studio next month.

It will have a fresh look but with the same great how-to articles along with tips and tools to help you become a more efficient family history writer,” says the press release. “The new Storylines will reflect the popular Daily Dose newsletter from The Family History Writing Challenge. Storylines will also keep members up to date on all the newest workshops, webinars and courses coming out of the FHWriting Studio.

A series of writing courses will be launched from the studio next September.

Here is how Palermo describes the many products that form part of her studio:

Workbooks –  A series of Family History Writing e-Workbooks designed to build on one another. Each ebook looks at one aspect of writing a family history narrative. Filled with worksheets, they will help writers apply the various elements of creative nonfiction to narratives.

Webinars – On-demand webinars are designed to complement the workbooks. Lynn personally guides writers through exercises and examples to expand on the workbook content. These on-demand webinars are designed to watch over and again at your convenience.

Courses – Coming this September, a variety of online courses,  designed for writers who want to take a more in-depth look at a particular aspect of writing in a more intimate setting will begin. Lessons are delivered in a variety of formats including downloadable worksheets, workbooks, and videos. All courses include private groups and forums to bring the class together for discussions and critiques with the teacher. Classes are small to provide a more personal learning environment.

Personal Coaching – If you’re nervous about sharing in a group environment then personal coaching might be more your style. In the personal coaching section, Lynn offers a couple of options to work privately together, whether it be to brainstorm your stories or book or for a critique of your written narrative.

Writing Groups – The Family History Writing Studio is designed to meet the needs of individuals and writing groups. The Studio offers options  for small genealogical societies that cannot afford an in-house speaker or the cost of a webinar. Information for writing groups and societies can be found here.

Click here, to learn more about the inspiration behind The Family History Writing Studio.

When asked to express why she decided to launch the studio now, Palermo wrote:

Genealogists come to family history writing with a variety of skills and generally with an overwhelming fear of writing. Because there are multiple aspects to writing stories and producing a family history book, we saw a need to create educational tools to address genealogist’s  individual needs on their journey to becoming a writer.

“We also wanted to provide flexibility, because we understand that we all have busy lives and finding time to write is not an easy task to add to one’s schedule,” continued Palermo.

As one of the 1000 genealogists who participate in Palermo’s annual writing challenge, I’m very happy that she’s developing this new tool for all of us.

Congratulations on producing another great resource, Lynn.

She celebrated the beginning of her 53^rd year carefully describing her family to a census taker.

Francis McCullough arrived at their farm first thing on Monday, after her birthday the Saturday before. Surely they talked about her birthday as he carefully marked her age and date of birth?

He also marked the date of his visit, April 21, 1901. A major snowstorm that weekend brought bad weather to almost the entire continent, but if Ontario was hit, no mention appears on the census. Nor is there any break between the farms surveyed. The page began with the Taylors on Thursday and continues with the Jons, the Diottes and the Birches prior to the Hurtubises. No break appears in his trip from farm to farm day by day.

At the Hurtubise farm, McCullough took the time necessary to hand-write the dates of births for everyone. Anne Josephe and Damase housed six children then: Gustave, who was 17; Josephine, who was 15; Juliette, 13; Jean Baptiste, 12; Marie-Louise, 10 and François, the youngest at seven years old. [1]

Unfortunately, most of the pieces of paper carefully completed by McCullough were destroyed in 1955 after the Dominion Bureau of Statistics microfilmed them. Only two remain. Sometimes guesses have to be made.

Anne Joseph’s arrival in Canada, for instance, might be 1871, but the “7” isn’t clear.

Luckily, her family shows up on passenger lists for that year. Her name then was Anne Josephe Gourdine. She was 22 years old.

Her journey from Belgium to Canada began in a carriage. A train and boat trip also took place before she and her family caught the Scandinavian, a Montreal Ocean Steamship Company ship.

Anne Josephe was among 318 immigrants described in a Canadian report compiled the following year:

Mr. Berns, Canadian Government Agent, at Antwerp, in Belgium, registered 318 emigrants for Canada during the last year. The Official Reports for the past year only mention 85…Belgium emigration to Canada is by way of Antwerp, Grimsby and Liverpool. The price of passage from Antwerp to Quebec was 160 francs.[2]

There were already passengers from Ireland onboard by the time she got on in Liverpool, England. The ship sailed on August 10, but the journey was quick. It only took two weeks to arrive in Quebec City, Quebec.[3]

Anne Josephe travelled with her family to the Parish of Sainte-Angélique in Papineauville, Quebec. That’s where she met her future husband, Damase Hurtubese. They married on May 3, 1880.[4]

They were still there, in house 229 with their 2-month old daughter Marie-Louise, when the 1881 Census taker arrived.[5]

[1] Data from the Fourth Census of Canada 1901, Cumberland, page 3 from subdistrict d2, Russell, Ontario microfilm T-6494, line 21.

[2] “Immigrants to Canada.” – Report of 1872. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. http://jubilation.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/reports/report1872.html, note: Report begins with statement “this information is taken from the Sessional Papers, 36 Victoria 1873.“

[3] Passenger Lists, 1865-1922, Library and Archives Canada, list number 77.

[4] Plaque from information compiled by Paul-André Langelier in 2000.

[5] Data from the 1881 Census, Province of Quebec, County of Mattawa, p 63.

On a summer day in 1971, Michael Stern Hart typed the U.S. Declaration of Independence into his computer and shared it freely online via the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

That moment was the beginning of Project Gutenberg.

As of today, Project Gutenberg contains 44,847 books and texts in the public domain that can be searched via keyword, title or author. I’ve already written about finding a book mentioning one of my ancestors. This is a great way to find out context about various time periods or simply find some great texts to download to your electronic book reader.

Visit the site for your own searches at http://www.gutenberg.org/.

According to his Ontario birth certificate, my great-uncle Jean Charles Horace Mathieu was born to Charles Mathieu and Mary Agnes Proulx in Fort William, Ontario on April 24, 1911.[1]

Ten years later, the family had moved to 500 Aylmer Avenue in Windsor, Ontario, where they were renting a six-bedroom house. Both parents were 51 years old. His father Charles worked as a carpenter. His wife, who was born Marie Agnès Proulx, was then called Agnes. (She went by Mary and/or Agnes depending on the documents.)  Jean Charles had two older brothers, Arthur (16) and Raymond (14), an older sister Fernanda (12) and two younger brothers, Lawrence (8) and George Albert (6). [2]

My great aunt told me that most of the family, except for Raymond, moved back to Canada from Michigan after his dad lost his job in the depression.

I wasn’t able to find them on the 1930 U.S. Census, so if they did go to the States and returned, the entire experience probably happened between 1921 and 1930. There is one person who has a family tree on Ancestry who indicates that a Fernanda Mathieu crossed into Canada in 1924. That may have been John Charles’ sister, but it isn’t confirmed.

They were back in Montreal by August 8, 1940, when Jean Charles volunteered for the Royal Canadian Air Force.

To find out their address, I used Steve Morse’s search engine at Steve Morse’s website to search Lovells directories. I found carpenters named Charles Mathieu living at 6760 St. Denis in 1932[3], and at 3286 St. Antoine in 1940[4]. There were no listings for carpenters of that name from 1933 until 1939. Also, I don’t have anything to say whether these listings actually represent Charlie’s family.

My original question remains a brick wall.