How to use the St-Charles-des-Mines BMD Database

 

Example case : You have in your personal notes that Françoise Gautrot (Claude & Marguerite Landry) had married someone named Jean Pierre Thémançon in Grand-Pré the 9 October 1747. However you cannot find this marriage in the Les Amis-de-Grand-Pré compilation. You decide to interrogate the database to understand why.

 

 

When you click the database link on the Dossiers page of Les Amis-de-Grand-Pré web site you get this:

1. You could type the surname or surname and «,» and the given name to find the desired person.
But if you personal notes spell the surname differently than the database does, the search will fail.

2. You could click on the [List] button to get all the surname listed. That is surely a very long list to browse.

3. By clicking the first letter of the surname you get the list of surnames beginning with this letter.

Following the example case you would click on «G» the first letter of Gautrot.

You then get this screen :

informing you that there are 86 occurrences of the surname Gautrot.

By clicking on [GAUTROT] you get the list of all Gautrot.
Luckily in this case there is only one occurrence of the searched given name: Gautrot, Francoise.

By clicking on Francoise Gautrot, you get this file:

The coincidence of the same marriage date and the given name of the spouse as in you personal notes is intriguing enough that you want to learn more about this "Clemenceau"
.
Clicking on [Jean Pierre CLEMENCEAU] you get:

The note of this file tells you that
1. the Diocese of Baton-Rouge transcription misread Clemenceau as « Thémançon» (probably the source of your personal notes).
2. Placide Gaudet had, in 1895, given the date as 6 October instead of 9 October as in the original.
3. Stephen White (DGFA-1), does not explain the difference with the record, and give also the 6 October.
4. This Jean Pierre was not the biological son of Jean Clémenceau.

 

Not satisfied you want to see the source, you take note of the image number "RGP-3,89". You run to the national historic site of Grand-Pré and do request that they show you the 89th image of the third register of Grand-Pré.

See for yourself:.

Contrary to Placide Gaudet you do read « L'an mil sept cent quarante sept et le neuf octobre.. ».
Contrary to DoBR you do read « Jean Pierre Clemançon ».

(note: the rest of the record is on the next register page (no 90)

 

 

You can also check the Placide Gaudet (1895) transcription , available on line by subscription: (DrouinInstitute.com and ancestry.ca)

Here it is:

 

Finally you could open the page 363 of Stephen White DGFA-1 (Dictionnaire Généalogique des Familles Acadiennes)

 

 

Roger Hétu