French Canadian medieval ancestry in 2007

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French Canadian medieval ancestry in 2007

Legg inn av Gjest » 04 mai 2007 12:34:34

Good Day everyone,
Is it possible to change the mentalities?
On Apr 19 I quoted this sentence saying it applied to French Canadian
medieval ancestry: "For there is nothing covered that will be
revealed; nor hidden that will not be known" luke, 12, 2 I meant that
nothing new will be uncovered from already published books, and
research in the archives was now necessary.
More than one readers of this forum sent me an email privately,
finding this quote funny. But it seems to me that readers
concentrated on the source of the sentence and not on the content.
I received an email yesterday, hence this public reply without
mentioning any name, of someone who found a quote in a book published
in the XIXth Century and say, hey, I am on something. I replied that
this was considered over 60 years ago, and the theory was rejected as
chronologically impossible.
As it seems my message on this forum was a "Vox clamat in deserto", I
reiterate that old mentalities have to be changed.
North American genealogists whose origins are from New France have to
change their mentalities, and stop to search for books published over
a Century ago and believe THEY were the first to think about this book
and THEY will find a scoop in it (or they believe that their ancestors
must be somewhere in any printed genealogy of a family having the same
family name, and they spend time making tons of theories, instead of
spending time at the archives).
It is not in 2007 that, using these books that everybody knows for
decades, that the wheel will be reinvented. Books in libraries have
been indexed for centuries. It is over a century that very competent
genealogists from the Province of Quebec (and outside, in North
America) have been looking at all possible published sources and many
and many articles have been published based on these sources.
Moreover, Father Archange Godbout, founder of the Société généalogique
canadienne-française, spent years in France and in the Fonds d'Hozier
having with him the names of all "nobles" French Canadians, and did
also published many articles and left his notes with the said
Société.
In 2007, people interested in finding more generations in France,
Scotland, etc. have to make the research or pay someone to do it, in
the Archives of these European countries. The rest is mostly a lost
of time, if we talk about doing genealogy: finding new generations to
our ancestors in Europe. Posting questions: "I am looking for the
parents of settler X in France" (as if someone would abandon all
his(her) occupations to rush to the Archives and spend weeks there for
free for a pure stranger) and having replies "Ah, me too", and
continuing this conversation for hours might be an interesting hobby,
or putting names on Google from the comfort of one's basement and
waiting that someone, one day, will post the answer, might be also an
interesting hobby but it does not make any progress in genealogy.
In 2007, we have to consider how we can organize research in European
archives.
But change in mentalities should not stop here: anyone that goes to
the Archives Nationales du Québec will find a huge quantity of indexes
and databases. It is not the case in Europe. The researchers have to
be ready to spend many weeks, or months, before they might wish to
complete their searches.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear...The whole, humbly submitted.
Yours very truly, R.-Yves Gagné

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