Charles Simard

Charles Seymour, my great great grandfather, was the first Seymour in my family to come to the US.  He was also my first brick wall.

I knew about what year he was born, and I had found his Michigan marriage record, but I didn't know where was born or who his parents were.  The marriage record named him as Simard instead of Seymour, so I started searching Canadian census records for Charles Simard.  It appears that Charles Simard was a very common name in the late 1800's.

My main source of information was the Canadian census. I searched the 1851 and 1861 censuses for all the Charles Simards I could find and made note of their family members and ages.  Once I had a potential Charles, I could research baptism and marriage dates.  Another major source of information in Canada is the records that were kept by the Catholic church, the Drouin Collection.  Luckily my ancestors were Catholic.

So you may think this would have been simpler than it was, knowing his birth date.  The problem was that exact birth dates didn't seem to be important to people in that time period.  From one census to the next their age could vary by two years or more.  I had to rule our a couple different Charles Simards before I found the right one.

My Charles Simard was born in 1851.  Here is his first census.

The record is in French, but most or the categories are easy to figure out. His father and mother are lines 41 and 42.  Notice that Charles' mother, Ide, is listed with her last name from birth and not her husband's last name.  Charles is on line 49.  Note the age; he was 15 days old.  Lines 43-47 are Charles's half siblings from Joachim's (his father) first marriage.  Line 48 is his older brother Willifred.

Not shown in the picture of the record is their location.  They are living in Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec. This is the same town that Noel Simard founded in the 1600's

For 1861, I found this:

Not shown in the part I have pictured, it says there are 3 families living together. Line 23 and 24 are Ide's parents, and she is line 25. I confirmed they are her parents because their names are listed on her marriage record. Theophile, Narcisse, Josephine and Celina are children of Benjamin and Adelaide.  On line 39 Cesaire Boivin is Theophile's wife, and Thomas, Alphrodine and Elmira are their kids. Charles and his brother Wilfrid are last.  Joachim Simard is missing, so I searched for records in his name.

Charles' father, Joachim died in 1852, and the cause is not listed.

Here's where the time line gets tricky.  I'm pretty sure this 1871 census record is Charles.  He appears to be living as a servant with the family of his half brother Adolphe.

Charles' first hint in the United States was his marriage to Charlotte Robert in 1874

This had been my lead before I started searching in Canada. 

I looked for a Clarksburgh near Marquette and only found a Clarksburg Cemetery near a Main Street with a group of houses.  The town doesn't appear to exist anymore. 

The marriage record was the last thing I've found that listed his last name as Simard instead of Seymour.

Here are Charles (Simard) Seymour's ancestors.
Paternal Side:

Note that Honore's father (Charles Simard, not shown) is the son of Noel Simard of 1664.  In other words there is one generation not shown in my trees of the Simards.

Maternal Side:

There may be some siblings missing from Ida's Tree.  I haven't spent much time looking into that part of the family.

As a historical note, the American Civil War was from 1861-1865.  The American Civil War seems to have led to the British Territories forming Canada as a Dominion.  This means they were a self governed British colony.  They was fear that the United States would try to expand north, and the Civil War helped influence the Canadian Constitution. Canada was formed July 1, 1867.

Finding all of this information would have been almost impossible without electronic records.  I can just search the records and I get back a list with everything that has that person's name.  Before electronic records, I would have had to travel to where the records were held.  Even then I would have had to physically read every page until I found what I was looking for.