The Storyline
Real families. Real discoveries. Real stories.
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
Researching Prince Edward Island
Tracing Irish families who settled in Prince Edward Island requires navigating a unique set of records, repositories, and research strategies. This companion piece to the Kenny-Connors documentary biography series shares the methodologies developed over years of research—from the 1863 Lake Map to PEIGS cemetery transcripts—techniques applicable to any PEI genealogy project.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story
“Voyageur et Agriculture”: The Dual Lives of French-Canadian Paddlers
A single phrase in a 1798 baptism record—"voyageur et agriculture"—reveals what the romantic mythology often obscures: most voyageurs were seasonal workers who returned to their farms each autumn. They weren't footloose adventurers who abandoned civilization. They were habitants who paddled. This post explores the rise and fall of the fur trade, the economics of the canoe brigades, and what the primary sources actually say about these men who lived between two worlds.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy French-Canadian Research series: Understanding the records, the context, and the lives they document.
When Newspapers Tell the Whole Story
No birth record. No marriage record. No official death record. For Terrence O'Brien, the newspapers told the whole story — his rise, his troubles, his secrets, and his death. A case study in what happens when traditional genealogy sources fail.
A Storyline Genealogy Case Study: Research Methodology From Research to Story
Scattered Stones Prologue: The Land They Left
Scattered Stones: Prologue
To understand why a family left, you must first understand what they left behind.
In the heart of Clan Robertson territory, where the Highlands meet the Lowlands, lies the parish of Bendochy—one of the oldest ecclesiastical sites in Scotland. Its parish registers begin in 1642. Two miles away, the market town of Blairgowrie sits at the edge of Strathmore valley, where rivers carve through ancient rock and the name Robertson appears in one of every twenty households.
Before we follow Duncan Robertson's descendants across the Atlantic—through Brooklyn and Georgia and New Jersey, across six generations—we must begin where they began.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies
When the American Dream Reversed: The Panic of 1873
In the 1870s, thousands of Scottish immigrants made an unexpected choice: they went home. The Panic of 1873—America's first Great Depression—triggered mass unemployment while Scotland's coal and iron industries boomed. New research from the 1881 Scottish census reveals over 1,100 return migrants, including families like the Robertsons of our Scattered Stones series. This is the story of when the tide turned both ways.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Scattered Stones: The Robertson Family of Blairgowrie