[FCHSM] New index to Drouin files on Ancestry.ca or Ancestry.com

[Suzanne Sommerville]

Here are my initial responses to the new index now available on ancestry.ca for the Drouin Collection. I've filed versions of these with the Quebec-Research RootsWeb list (but I've corrected one blooper of my own, correcting 1923 to 1925).
   
  First observation:
  I played with the index at the Drouin Collection on ancestry.ca, trying to see whether the Early U. S. Records for what became Detroit are now also searchable. Well, some seem to be, but.....
 
Someone read
 
Dun Enfant Lamotte
 
as a proper name!
 
It's a burial at Assomption (now Windsor, Ontario, across the river from Detroit) 1811-1824 of a child, d'un enfant in French, with the last name of Lamotte but with no first name given!  The record does pop up to be verified, but what a glitch in reading the record. 
 
Users be aware that any index depends on the reading skills of its compilers.
   
  I'm sure this index will be of value, but watch for bloopers like this one made by a reader who obviously cannot read French. It will be interesting to see how someone read the Native American names.
 
Haven't found Marie Therese de Lamothe Cadillac yet, the first baptismal entry in the Ste. Anne de Detroit register 1704, although I tried a few combinations.

   
  Second observation:
  Be advised that the access to the Early U. S. records has changed.
 
Now you get:
 
Please choose a state: 
   
A  H  P  
C  J  S  
D  L  V  
F  M   
 
 
 Selecting M gets:
  Early U.S. French Catholic Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1695-1954Original Images
This database contains images of original records.
 
  Please choose a city/town in M: 
Makinac, Ste-Anne  
Makinac, Ste-Anne; Copie Wisconsin Historical  
Makinac, Ste-Anne; Missions St-François-Xavier et Fort Vincenne  
Mobile  
 
You have to choose D to get Detroit, which is not a State.  [A later search found that all of the files available in this section are alphabetized by the first word in the name, a word that is most often not a State.]
 
I haven't explored whether the other Drouin Collection files also have a different set up to select records.
 
  Third observation:
  I have searched in vain, so far, for any indexing of the births and burials for the earliest years of Ste. Anne de Detroit. This morning, I did find the following marriages for the Fafard name, but indexed under L'Assomption de Sandwich de Windsor, a parish across the Detroit River from Detroit.
 
Early U.S. French Catholic Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1695-1954 
about Michel Bisaillon 
Name: Michel Bisaillon 
Spouse: Marguerite Fafard
[Margueritte Fafard (their addition)]  
Event Year: 1710-1801  [marriage in 1710, my addition]
Religion: Catholique  
Place: Détroit, L`Assomption de Sandwich de Windsor  
State: Michigan  
 
  
View Image  
Source Information:
Ancestry.com. Early U.S. French Catholic Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1695-1954 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2007. Original data: Gabriel Drouin, comp. Drouin Collection. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin.

  My comment: 
Actually, this marriage took place at Fort Pontchartrain, in what became the parish of Ste. Anne de Detroit, now Detroit, Michigan. The item entry is, however, taken from a transcription index found in the Sandwich, modern-day Windsor, Ontario, records.
 
The following entries are similarly in error for the Fafard/Fafart name:
   
  Margaret {sic, English spelling, my addition} Fafard  Mariage  1710-1801  Catholique  Détroit, L`Assomption de Sandwich de Windsor  Michigan   
View Record
 
 Marguerite Fafard  Mariage  1710-1801  Catholique  Détroit, L`Assomption de Sandwich de Windsor  Michigan   
View Record
 
 Jean Baptiste Turpin  Mariage  1710-1801  Catholique  Détroit, L`Assomption de Sandwich de Windsor  Michigan   
View Record
 
 Veuf {widower, my addition} De Marie Magdelen Tobin {sic, my addition, should be Jobin} Francois Fafart Dit Delorme Mariage  1710-1801  Catholique  Détroit, L`Assomption de Sandwich de Windsor  Michigan  
  Barbe Loisel Mariage  1710-1801  Catholique  Détroit, L`Assomption de Sandwich de Windsor  Michigan  
 
It appears that the original Ste. Anne de Detroit registers for the earliest period have been ignored, at least I have not yet been successful in finding any, even when I have photocopies of the registry in front of me.
 
Users beware.
 
On the positive side, I did locate the marriage of a cousine in the records for 1925 Ste Anne de Detroit and now know with certainty who her parents were. However, when searching for her father's marriage, I found Wilfred Boivin's name transcribed as Hilfrid Boisson, in Ste. Sophie.
 
I am both elated and appalled by the new index, and I fear what will happen when those who are unfamiliar with the records to begin with enter the data preserved in it on yet other internet web sites. Tanguay opened a veritable Pandora's box.  This index is another one, so far.
   
  It has also been reported to the Quebec-Research list that records in the Québec files for St. Jean Baptiste (definitely a Catholic parish) have been entered as Baptist denomination, not Catholique.
   
  Many people are contacting Ancestry to request the ability to correct the errors that have been found in this new "index" to the Drouin Collection. At least, the digital images available at Ancestry allow users to verify the contents of the abstracted details.

   
  The work done by FCHSM member Sharon Kelley for the published version of the index to Early Detroit marriages and her ongoing work on the other early records becomes even more valuable in the light of the problems found in the new Drouin index at Ancestry.  

  Suzanne Boivin Sommerville, FCHSM member
 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://habitant.org/pipermail/fchsm_habitant.org/attachments/20080418/199568eb/attachment.html