Monday, March 22, 2010

Madness Monday - Pierre Robillard: Parents Unknown

Using the relatively new FamilySearch.org pilot site, I was finally able to locate a death record for our ancestor Peter (Pierre) Robillard.


We now have a date and cause of death, but, much to our dismay, his parents are listed as unknown! He married Philomena Ducharme c. 1856 and had several children - one of which was his oldest son, Charles, the informant on the death record.  Apparently Peter did not speak much about his family since Charles did not know his grandparents names.
What we did get from the record is a date of birth  - but even this cannot be taken as absolute fact, since the date of birth conflicts with ages sited in census records...a fairly common problem for researchers.  But at least it is another point of reference when researching baptism records.  In any case I am still on the hunt for his parentage.

4 comments:

Sanjay Maharaj said...

Great to see you get resutls and the information you needed by using the internet and th efamil search website. Isnt' technology great

Martin said...

Suggestions: locate Pierre in the 1910 or 1900 census and see if he became a citizen of the U.S. If so, his naturalization papers are at the National Archives in Waltham, mass. (not online) that will list his birthplace in Canada. Then use the Drouin Collection to locate his baptism and parents.

TCasteel said...

Martin - Thank you so much for your comments and suggestions. I did find Pierre in both the 1900 & 1910 census records and he is recorded as an alien. We do believe he is from Quebec, so slowly but surely I am getting closer to discovering his parents.

Martin said...

Then I would definitely pursue Catholic church records. Burial records have been known to list parents.

Pierre seems to listed first in 1880 in Warwick, R.I. perhaps a church there has records of him becoming a member and from where.