The Storyline
Real families. Real discoveries. Real stories.
The Hidden Years
Pierre Guilbault appeared before a notary on April 13, 1693, to sign a marriage contract with 20-year-old Jeanne Morin. It was the same day his wife Louise died. The shocking timing—documented in colonial records—reveals the tensions that had been building in a marriage that survived separation, reconciliation, and 26 years of frontier life, only to end in a family war over Louise's estate.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Uncovering the extraordinary stories hidden in ordinary family histories, one ancestor at a time.
Commemorative Poem: The Woman Who Was Remembered
Before Canada was a nation, she was born. Marie Louise Soulière married a voyageur who paddled away and never came back. She crossed the border with three small children, built a life in Chicago, buried two husbands, and lived to ninety-one. At ninety, she fished in the Florida sun beside a grandson too young to know her story—but he remembered her, told his daughter, and now we know. A commemorative poem from the Tranchemontagne documentary biography series.
From the Storyline Genealogy series: A Commemorative Poem for Marie Louise Soulière (1854-1945)
Legacy Keepsake: Evangeliste Guilbault Letter
You descend from a man the records call journalier. Day laborer. Four times the documents say it. Not voyageur—though that word clings to the family story, borrowed perhaps from his father, who earned it. Gabriel Guilbault was a voyageur. His son Evangeliste was five years old in 1851, too young to understand that the world his father knew was already disappearing. By the time he was old enough to work, there was nothing left to paddle.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Legacy Keepsakes From Research to Story