One of the problems of searching the native families is that they didn't always use the same name and the clergy didn't always record the name the same way each time. Hence Barra is sometimes Barry, Berra, Burra etc.

Fur trade society developed its own marriage rite, marriage à la façon du pays (after the custom of the country), which combined both First Nations and European marriage customs.

During the 1800s and into well into the 1900s, there was social stigma attached to anyone with Native ancestry.  A prime example of the sentiment of the time is contained in a letter found at the BC Archives (MS 0182 - Yale or Reel # A01658). It's referenced as 'no 11,' a letter to James Murray Yale from a friend, Mary Julia Mechtler.  On page 2, she writes:

"Continue to keep your good resolutions of not taking an Indian wife, on account of yourself as well as of the dreadful fate that generally awaits the Bois Brule offspring of such a connection.  Reflect what every man owes himself.  What apology can a white man make to his children for mixing and polluting his pure blood with that of a savage.  How dare such a person pretend to principle and feeling!  Fie upon him for a selfish monster!  I hope, my dear James, you will never have such a reproach to make to your conscience."

Reviewing the history of The Black Church in Canada, Denise Gillard, a recent McMaster graduate and Baptist pastor, provides a valuable summary of the Black Church experience both in New France and under the subsequent British regime (particularly in Nova Scotia and what would later become Ontario). By way of conclusion, she identifies key metaphors for interpreting the difficulties, as well as the achievements of that experience from an Afro-centric perspective.