The Storyline
Real families. Real discoveries. Real stories.
The Munnick Annotations:Reading Harriet Duncan Munnick
Harriet Duncan Munnick spent decades turning sparse sacramental registers into something no single archive could produce on its own — a record of who the people of French Prairie actually were, where they came from, and what happened to them. The Catholic Church Records of the Pacific Northwest are the essential finding tool for fur trade genealogy in the Oregon Country. This post is a practical guide to reading them: how the B-, M-, S-, and A- annotation system works, how to use transcription and annotation as separate evidentiary layers, how to track a name through its phonetic variants, and where Munnick can be wrong — and why knowing that makes the resource more useful, not less.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: The Guilbault Line: Voyageurs of the Pays d'en Haut — and the Oregon Country
When the Research Comes Full Circle
I thought I was checking a single fact in a published case study. I ended up finding a third Guilbault voyageur, untangling two men named Paul across two generations, and arriving — by a completely different research path — in the same Oregon archive where I had been working for weeks on an entirely different family. The pays d'en haut and French Prairie turned out to be the same story, told from opposite ends.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: The Guilbault Line: Voyageurs of the Pays d'en Haut — and the Oregon Country
Geneviève Abitakijikokwe: Eleven Name Variants
Her name was written ten different ways across thirty-eight years of Oka Mission registers. The woman behind those names — Geneviève Abitakijikokwe, wife of the Algonquin war chief Kitchiwabisi — appears in eleven primary records between 1786 and 1824. Identifying her required going beyond the published indexes to the original manuscript. What I found there changed the entire shape of the problem.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: The Guilbault Line: At the Lake of Two Mountains
Two Mothers at Oka: Identifying Catherine Messinabikwe
On April 4, 1801, a priest at the Oka mission buried a two-year-old boy named François. Two witnesses were present: the boy's ten-year-old brother, and a woman the priest recorded as Catherine mesepik8e. She was not identified as a relative. She was simply there. Tracing her Algonquian name across five colonial spellings — Mador, Mabre, Missinebi8e, mesepik8e, Messinabikwe — revealed an Ottawa woman from Michilimackinac who had buried her own daughter in the same cemetery two years earlier.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: The Guilbault Line: At the Lake of Two Mountains
The Brothers Guilbault
Gabriel Guilbault's 1798 baptism record calls him "voyageur et maintenant agriculteur." His brother Paul's records never use that word — not once, in any document, across a lifetime of parish records. Yet both men worked for the North West Company at the same posts, in the same years. What two pages in a Winnipeg archive reveal about a man the Quebec parish system completely erased.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: The Guilbault Line: Voyageurs of the Pays d'en Haut
Finding Gabriel Guilbaut in the North West Company Records
When I searched the North West Company Account Books Name Index for "Guilb," I found Gabriel Guilbault in three separate records spanning five years—1816, 1820, and 1821. The actual documents reveal exactly what Gabriel purchased from the company store, his wages, and the moment his account was marked "Settled" when the NWC merged with the Hudson's Bay Company. A case study in fur trade genealogy.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series : A Research Journey From the Index to the Account Book
The Other Pierre Morin: Disambiguation
Two men named Pierre Morin served in the Carignan-Salières Regiment. The 1668 muster roll lists them in different companies, seven pages apart. One became a founding ancestor. The other disappeared from history. This research note documents the primary-source evidence that separates them.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: From Research to Story
How to Prove Carignan-Salières Service With or Without a Muster Roll
None of Pierre Morin's personal documents call him a soldier. Five converging lines of evidence built the case for Carignan-Salières service — and then the 1668 muster roll confirmed what the evidence already proved. This step-by-step methodology shows how to identify a Carignan-Salières ancestor using timeline analysis, geographic origin, marriage contract witnesses, census patterns, and four independent authority sources.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Carignan-Salières — From Soldiers to Settlers
Finding an Italian Ancestor in French-Canadian Research
When you're deep in French-Canadian genealogy, the last thing you expect to find is an Italian. But a dit name—Lepiedmontois, "the Piedmontese"—revealed a soldier from Racconigi, Italy, hiding in plain sight among 10,000 French settlers. Out of the founding immigrants of New France, over 95 percent were French. Italian permanent settlers were among the rarest of the rare. This is the story of how one dit name unraveled the assumption of a purely French founding population—and what it means for your research.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: French-Canadian Genealogy — From Research to Story
Hidden Protestants: Huguenot Women Among the Filles à Marier
Among the first women who settled Quebec were hidden Protestants—Huguenots forced to convert to Catholicism to survive. Learn how to trace their buried heritage through temple registers and abjuration records.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Filles du Roi & Filles à Marier — The Women Who Built New France
When One Ancestor Appears Twice: Catherine Lemesle
How does the same woman become your 8th great-grandmother twice? Discover pedigree collapse through Catherine Lemesle, a Fille du Roi whose descendants married each other 85 years later—and what this common phenomenon means for your French-Canadian research.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Filles du Roi & Filles à Marier — The Women Who Built New France
Following the Canoe Routes: How the Fur Trade Families Moved Between the Interior and Quebec
Genealogists researching French-Canadian voyageurs often encounter a puzzling pattern: a man appears in Quebec records, disappears for years, then resurfaces—sometimes with a wife and children who seem to have materialized from nowhere. The explanation lies in the geography of the fur trade. Understanding how these families traveled helps you know where to look for records.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy Series: A Storyline Genealogy Research Guide
The North West Company: A Genealogist’s Guide to the “Pedlars from Quebec”
From 1779 to 1821, the North West Company employed thousands of French-Canadian men as voyageurs, paddlers, and laborers across a network stretching from Montreal to the Pacific. Their records survive—and they can tell you where your ancestor worked, what he earned, what he purchased, and who he may have married in the pays d'en haut.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy Series: A Storyline Genealogy Research Guide
The Interconnected Families of Numancia
A distant cousin DNA match led to common ancestors through the Martelino line, launching an investigation that revealed six interconnected families in Numancia, Aklan Province. Using FamilySearch Full Text Search—a 2024 technology breakthrough that reads actual document text—eight primary documents spanning 35 years (1927–1962) documented the Roldan, Gonzales, Quimpo, Tamayo, Isturis, and Martelino families. The June 1927 Pacto de Retro sale provided the first proof that Fortunato Roldan was married to Margarita Isturis—a discovery that unlocked generations of family connections. This companion piece demonstrates professional Philippine genealogy research methodology.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story
Marriage à la façon du pays: The Unions That Built a Nation
During the 1700s and 1800s, marriages between French fur traders and Indigenous women were fundamental social and economic institutions in North America. These unions—called mariage à la façon du pays—created strategic alliances that facilitated the fur trade and led to the emergence of the distinct Métis culture. Learn where to find these families in the records, from Hudson's Bay Company Archives to Métis Scrip.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documenting the lives of our earliest ancestors through primary sources.
Irish Genealogy Challenges
Irish genealogy is widely considered among the most challenging in the world—and for good reason. Census records destroyed, parish registers that start too late, dozens of people with the same name in one parish, and DNA complicated by endogamy. After seven years researching my Hamall family from County Monaghan, I've encountered every obstacle the records can throw at a researcher. Here's what you're up against—and what you can do about it.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: From Research to Story
The Hamills of Donaghmoyne: Parish Churches of County Monaghan
Four marriages. Four DNA connections. One parish name on every record: Donaghmoyne. This comprehensive guide explores the overlapping parishes, surviving records, and cemetery evidence that help trace the Hamill families of south Monaghan—from the townlands of Dian, Drumaconvern, and Edengilrevy to descendants scattered across two continents.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series : Sacred Places
One Parish, Five Destinations
DNA doesn't lie, but it doesn't always explain itself either. As I've worked to untangle the Hamill families of Donaghmoyne parish in County Monaghan, I keep encountering the same puzzle: distinct clusters of DNA matches pointing to relatives scattered across five American destinations—Chicago, Wisconsin, Joliet, St. Louis, and Montana. These matches trace back to ancestors who were married in the same small Irish parish between 1841 and 1858. The geographic spread raises a fundamental research question: How do we prove that families who emigrated decades apart were actually connected back in Ireland?
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: From Research to Story
The 1850 Hickey Map: The Montgomery Estate on Lot 34
Before the 1863 Lake Map placed "L. Kenny" and "H. Connors" on the commercial record, another document had already captured their presence on Lot 34. Daniel Hickey's 1850 cadastral survey—"A Plan of Township No. 34, The Property of Sir Graham Montgomery & Brothers"—is a landlord's inventory of his tenants, recording each family by parcel number, name, and acreage. Lawrence Kenny appears at No. 19 with 50 acres; Hugh Connors at No. 236 with 84 acres. They were neighbors sixteen years before their children's weddings began.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story
The 1863 Lake Map: A Cartographic Treasure
For genealogists researching Prince Edward Island, the 1863 Lake Map represents a holy grail: the first time individual tenant farmers were recorded by name on a commercial map. When I located "L. Kenny" and "H. Connors" on neighboring properties in Lot 34, I was looking at documentary proof of what the parish registers had suggested—these families lived close enough to walk to each other's farms. This companion piece explores the map's creation, significance, and how to use it for your own research.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story