Looking for husband's great grandparents' names-Died while immigrating to America
So we have hit a hard roadblock in my husband's family tree and am hoping some of the expertise here can help us! We are looking for the family of his maternal grandmother. Here is what we know:
Her adopted name was Blanche Gervais, she was possibly born Mary Roper or Rooper (not confirmed) between 1885-1886 in Ireland.
The family story is that her parents died on a ship from Ireland while immigrating to Canada somewhere around 1885-1886. Blanche was possibly a newborn or born during the journey (no clue).
She was adopted most likely in 1886 in Quebec City by Pierre Gervais and Corrine Cardinal. Wondering if there are lists of passengers that died on a ship or is it possible to access adoption records from that period. She may have ended up in an orphanage for a time.
I have found her on the 1891 census at 4 years old, but would love to find her birth parents names so that we can open up that line. Her daughter, now 96, had done DNA testing and we have a list of relatives that match her maternal haplogroup, but no one with the Roper or Rooper last name (which could be completely wrong) and no way of finding the connection as they are all 4th-distant cousins.
Thank you for any help!!
Tara
Answers
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Wonder if you have checked the immigration records or passenger list for that time frame?
https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/search/Pages/ancestors-search.aspx
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Husband has been on that site all morning! He's found a couple of names that fit the timeline but the traveling companions don't quite fit husband, wife, and infant, so we don't feel like it's them. Again the Roper and Rooper names could be wrong. It's also possible that Blanche came over as an orphan. We just don't have any info from the time before she was adopted, just family lore that may or may not be accurate. Hoping we can find something on her adoption or a list of passengers that passed away on a ship. Not sure if either would still exist, especially adoption records from 1886.
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You could contact the Quebec adoption services & see if they have records from back then
If she was born before the trip she could have been treated as an orphan
Does family lore say where the family came from in Ireland ?
I am not sure if Ireland had children in the HOME CHILDREN scheme would not hurt to check that list as well
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look for the connection in matches trees ... find the common ancestor. I had similar issue to yours with the name, my grandfather was supposedly born with the surname “Long”, or at least that’s what the newspaper article about his adoption said and also matched the info that the orphanage had on file; but after testing my dna, a wonderful volunteer here by the name of @JeffreyBryant1 JeffreyBryant1 Helped me figure it all out by finding the common ancestor from Matches trees... which was surname Thompson... I’m still trying to figure out where/when/how and why the “Long” name came into play. I hope you’re able to get the Answers for your grandmother! Im going to share this with the @Canada ~ Events & Research Group; they may be able to help you with finding out where to look for the Canadian records. Good luck!
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@LucDesnoyers LucDesnoyers Can you share the PID for this person and also a link to the 1891 census page if you can please ?
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You may have already checked this site, but in case you didn’t , here’s the link: https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/immigration/history-ethnic-cultural/Pages/irish.aspx
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Wow so many research options here !
https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/immigration/Pages/introduction.aspx
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