The Invisible Voyageur
The Challenge
Paul Guilbault was born at Notre-Dame-de-Montréal on 23 April 1761 — one year before his brother Gabriel. They had the same parents: Gabriel Guilbault and Marie Charlotte Morin of L'Assomption. They grew up together on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, likely watching the same fur trade brigades depart each spring. And in 1820, they paddled the same trade routes for the same employer, side by side, in their late fifties.
None of this appears in any Quebec parish record bearing Paul's name.
A systematic review of every Quebec document touching Paul Guilbault père — baptism (1761), marriage (1783), nineteen children's baptisms (1783–1811), his children's marriage records, his own death record (1831) — yields a single occupation trajectory:
–
1821 [no Quebec record accounts for these years — the gap that only the HBCA fills]
The word voyageur does not appear once. In contrast, his brother Gabriel is identified as "voyageur et maintenant agriculteur" in a single 1798 baptism record — a dual designation that has guided researchers directly to the NWC archives ever since.
On 22 July 1820, Paul appeared before Notary Barthélémy Joliette at the village of Industry to render the guardianship accounts for the five orphaned children of his brother Louis Guilbault — who had died, along with his wife Josephe Deziel Labreche, within five days of each other in May 1813. Paul had served as their tutor for seven years, managing an estate of 1,442 livres, accounting for a farm sale, a grain sale, individual children's shares with interest. He rendered the final account when the eldest minor, Marguerite, came of age.
On the same day, his son Joseph Guilbault appeared and paid the balance of a debt he owed to his father: 79 livres and 12 sols. Father and son settling accounts on the same afternoon. Paul departed for the pays d'en haut shortly after. It was the last documented act of his Quebec life before the NWC account books open in his name.
Without the Hudson's Bay Company Archives, Paul Guilbault père is invisible to history as anything other than a mason-turned-farmer who was born, married, raised nineteen children, and died within twenty miles of L'Assomption. The five years he spent in the Athabasca department — working for the same company, at the same posts, alongside his brother — would be permanently erased. The NWC account books are not corroborating evidence of a known voyageur. They are the entire case.
The Breakthrough
To Sundries at Lac La Pluie — 16
1821 By Wages — 617.14
To Balance — 669.14 / 669.14
1821 By Balance — 617.14
SETTLED
The 100-livre credit "By Lieut Franklin" corresponds to Lieutenant John Franklin's First Polar Expedition, which recruited voyageurs at Fort Chipewyan in the spring of 1820 before departing north. Franklin's own Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea (1823) documents his recruitment of NWC men at the fort and the payments made on the Company's account. The "To Sundries at Lac La Pluie — 16" corroborates the F.4/32 Lac La Pluie account, independently confirming his presence at that post.
Paul's NWC wages: 617 livres and 14 sols, settled in 1821. His account was formally closed at the merger of the North West Company with the Hudson's Bay Company.
Probable corroboration; verification path documented
"By Lieut Franklin — 100" in Paul's NWC account is consistent with Franklin's documented activity at Fort Chipewyan in the spring of 1820. His Narrative, Chapter IV, records the recruitment of NWC voyageurs and payments made on the Company's account during this period. George Simpson's Journal of Occurrences in the Athabasca Department, 1820 and 1821 places Simpson in the same department during the same season, independently confirming the NWC operational context.
The entry is consistent with primary source evidence. It has not yet been independently verified through Admiralty records at the UK National Archives (ADM 1/2414) or Franklin's original field notebooks at the Scott Polar Research Institute (MS 248, Cambridge). This case study presents the connection as probable and honestly frames the verification status as pending.
The Result
Paul Guilbault père was employed by the North West Company in the Athabasca department during the 1820–1821 season. His wages were 617 livres and 14 sols. A 100-livre credit from Lieutenant John Franklin's expedition was applied to his account at Fort Chipewyan in the spring of 1820. His account was formally settled at the NWC–HBC merger in 1821. His presence at both Lac La Pluie and Athabasca is established by cross-reference between the debit entry "To Sundries at Lac La Pluie" and the Fort William transfer notation. The full employment period — including any service before 1820 — will be established when F.4/32 is retrieved from microfilm.
His brother Gabriel worked the same posts, for the same employer, at the same time. Both men were in their late fifties. Both had their accounts settled in 1821. The parallel — which would be invisible if only the Quebec parish records were consulted — becomes visible only through the HBCA archive.
Paul is documented in Joliette by April 1827 — at most six years after the NWC account was settled. The notarial record of that month is the beginning of a three-document financial portfolio that tells us exactly what he did with his NWC wages:
- April 1827: Joseph Lorion, cultivateur at Grand Ruisseau, received 228 livres from Paul and constituted a life annuity of 10 minots of wheat per year, secured by mortgage on his land in Kildare Township, 5th Rang. Both parties signed — both literate. Notary: Jean-Olivier Leblanc.
- June 1828: Pierre Lorion — almost certainly Joseph's brother, whose farm in Kildare Township adjoined François Lorion's — received 200 livres and constituted a life annuity of 4 minots of wheat per year, secured by mortgage on the Lorion farm. Paul signed; Pierre made a mark. Same notary: Leblanc.
- July 1832: After Paul's death in January 1831, his son Paul fils appeared before the same notary and received full repayment of the Joseph Lorion capital — 228 livres plus all outstanding rente — giving final discharge.
Total capital deployed from NWC wages: 428 livres. Annual grain income at peak: 14 minots of wheat from two secured farm loans. Both annuities were extinguished at Paul's death on 2 January 1831 — standard life annuity terms. His estate was settled by Paul fils, who was financially active in the same parish community through at least 1832.
Paul Guilbault père died on 2 January 1831, age 73. His burial register at St-Paul-de-Lavaltrie records him as cultivateur — farmer. His wife of forty-eight years, Marie Geneviève Olivier dit Mulot, survived him. The priest wrote: "Paul Guilbau décédé avant hier agé de soixante et treize ans, époux de Marie Olive Mulot, cultivateur."
No mention of the pays d'en haut. No mention of the Athabasca. No mention of the Lieutenant who paid him 100 livres at Fort Chipewyan. The parish record is complete and entirely silent on the most remarkable decade of his life.
Paul Guilbault's case is not unusual. It is the norm. The men who signed NWC and HBC contracts at interior posts — who paddled to the Athabasca and back, who spent winters in the pays d'en haut, who received wages in livres and pelts — returned to their Quebec parishes and resumed their farming identities. The priests who baptized their children and buried their bodies recorded what they saw: a farmer, a mason, a laborer. The canoe routes were invisible to the parish record system.
The implication for genealogical research is direct: a Quebec ancestor listed only as cultivateur or maçon in every surviving record is not thereby proven to have never been a voyageur. He is proven only to have been recorded as such in Quebec. The HBCA archive — 3,700 names in the NWC Name Index alone, accessible online — holds the possibility of a different answer.
Paul Guilbault père is the great-great-great-great-granduncle of the researcher — the brother of Gabriel Guilbault père, who is her 4th-great-grandfather through the line: Gabriel & Marie Josephte → Gabriel fils (1791) → Evangeliste (1845) → Elisabeth Emma Guilbault Gilbert (1883) → Thomas Eugene Hamall (1904) → Thomas Kenny Hamall (1932) → Researcher. The brothers' parallel NWC service connects two branches of the Guilbault family through the same five years in the pays d'en haut — a connection that would have been permanently invisible without the Hudson's Bay Company Archives.
Full Methodology
How to find a voyageur the parish records erased — the complete research process, from occupation gap to HBCA archive to post-return confirmation
The Central Question This Case Addresses
Standard genealogical practice calls for correlating evidence across multiple independent sources. But what do you do when the standard sources — parish records, census, notarial documents — are entirely consistent with each other, entirely silent on a specific chapter of a man's life, and wrong about the complete picture? Paul Guilbault's case illustrates the systematic use of negative evidence, occupational gap analysis, and institutional archive research to recover what the familiar record systems cannot show.
Identify the Occupational Gap
Paul Guilbault is listed as maçon in 1814 and cultivateur in 1819. A five-year gap between two adjacent occupation designations, with no supporting documentation — no census, no tax record, no parish event — is the first signal. It does not prove absence, but it raises a question worth pursuing.
The key analytical move is connecting the occupation gap (1814–1819) to Paul's documented life events on either side. In July 1820, he rendered the tutelle for his brother Louis's children — an act that required his physical presence in Joliette and that has the character of a final settlement before a prolonged absence. His son Joseph paid a debt on the same day. These are the actions of a man who is leaving.
The occupation gap framing only works if you already know roughly when to look. In Paul's case, the connection to Gabriel's documented NWC service (F.4/29, F.4/32, F.4/37) provided the chronological anchor. For an isolated ancestor with no such brother, the HBCA Name Index search would begin with the family surname alone and any approximate date range consistent with the documented life.
Access the HBCA Name Index
The Hudson's Bay Company Archives are held at the Archives of Manitoba, 130–200 Vaughan Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3C 1T5. The NWC Account Books Name Index is a searchable database covering over 3,700 employee names from the NWC period (F.4 series). It is accessible via the HBCA's Keystone online database and by direct inquiry to the Archives.
Search under all surname variants. Guilbault in the NWC records appears as Guilbeau, Guilban, Gilbian, Gibeault — phonetic approximations by English-language clerks rendering French-Canadian names. The index is searchable on partial strings: a search for "guilb" will return all variants. Record every hit and the series number it points to before evaluating identity.
For Paul, the Name Index returned two hits: F.4/37 (Athabasca general blotter) and F.4/32 (NWC general ledger). These are the access points that open the case.
Read the Account Book Entries
NWC account books are structured as double-entry ledgers: debit entries (charges against the employee's account) on the left, credit entries (wages, advances, and third-party payments) on the right. An employee's name typically appears at the top of the account with his post designation and year. Purchases — tobacco, capotes, rum, pemmican — appear as debits. Wages appear as credits. The final balance, marked "settled" or with an X, confirms the account was formally closed.
The pemmican entry on Paul's F.4/37, page 106 — "200 lb rendered fat pemmican, 40" (livres) — is not a random purchase. Pemmican was the travel food of the interior brigades. An employee buying 200 pounds at the Athabasca post was provisioning for a journey, not stocking a stationary household. This entry is behavioral evidence of active interior travel.
The "To A/C from Fort William" entry establishes that Paul's account began at the Fort William depot — the NWC's great inland hub where all Athabasca brigades assembled before the long push northwest. He arrived at Athabasca carrying a balance from Fort William. This is the standard account transfer pattern for men who traveled the full route from Montreal.
Confirm Identity Through Cross-Reference
In an archive of 3,700+ names with many surname variants and imprecise spellings, confirming that a specific ledger entry belongs to a specific individual requires something more than a name match. For Gabriel Guilbault, the linking balance — 188 livres appearing identically in F.4/29 and F.4/37 as the Lac La Pluie to Athabasca transfer — provided the cross-reference proof.
For Paul, the equivalent confirmation comes from the F.4/37 entry "To Sundries at Lac La Pluie — 16," which independently corroborates the F.4/32 Lac La Pluie account entry. The geographic progression — Lac La Pluie → Fort William → Athabasca — matches the documented NWC brigade route. The dates are consistent with Paul's tutelle in July 1820 and his reappearance in notarial records by April 1827.
The family connection to Gabriel, whose identity is independently confirmed through the 188-livre linking balance, provides an additional layer of corroboration. Two brothers working together at the same posts in the same years — each under a variant spelling of the same surname — is the expected pattern, not a coincidence requiring explanation.
Document the Post-Return Evidence
Return from the pays d'en haut was typically invisible in the Quebec record system unless a man appeared in a notarial act, a parish event, or a legal proceeding. For Paul, the reappearance is documented by the April 1827 Joseph Lorion annuity — a financial transaction that presupposes Paul's physical presence in Joliette and his possession of 228 livres in deployable capital.
The annuity portfolio is significant not just as proof of return but as proof of the economic consequence of NWC service. Paul did not come back empty-handed. He came back with capital sufficient to fund two secured grain annuities, to live as a financially independent cultivateur for four years, and to leave a settled estate for his son. The NWC wages (617 livres settled in 1821, plus the 100-livre Franklin credit) are the probable source of this capital.
Documenting the post-return period is a BCG standard requirement for a complete case: the evidence must not only establish the voyageur service but account for the subject's return to the documentary record in a manner consistent with the established facts.
Apply the Negative Evidence Standard
The BCG Genealogical Proof Standard requires that a thorough search include a systematic review of sources likely to contain relevant information — including sources that yielded no result. The absence of "voyageur" in Paul's Quebec records is meaningful evidence only if the search that failed to find it was thorough and appropriately documented.
This case study documents the systematic review of all Paul Guilbault records in the PRDH database (baptism, marriage, burial, 19 children's records, marriage records for each child), including the specific Quebec documents examined and the occupation designations found in each. The complete negative record — every document that calls him a mason or farmer, and none that calls him a voyageur — is as important to the evidentiary foundation as the positive NWC records. Without it, the case rests on the HBCA records alone. With it, the case demonstrates both what the Quebec records show and exactly why the HBCA records are necessary to complete the picture.
Document & Source Inventory
All primary sources consulted or cited in this case study, organized by record series. Squarespace image URLs are preserved in the companion research log.
NWC Account Books
Athabasca Blotter
1820
Athabasca Blotter
1820–1821
NWC General Ledger
1811–1821
Chapter IV
Champlain Society
UK National Archives
Cambridge
Baptism, 1761
Marriage, 1783
Burial, 1831
L'Assomption
St-Paul-de-Lavaltrie
1783–1831
24 Apr 1827
4 Jun 1828
22 Jul 1820
This case study is part of the Storyline Genealogy series on the Guilbault Line. The companion case study documents Gabriel Guilbault père's NWC service through the same archive — the record that makes Paul's invisible service visible by contrast.
The Voyageur Years: Gabriel Guilbault in the NWC Records → The Lieutenant and the Voyageurs → A Genealogist's Guide to NWC Records →