Family in Quebec

Ever since we got back from Quebec a year and a half ago, I've been working on the family history of a bunch of ancestors from Quebec City. I didn't even know I HAD ancestors from there, and true, they are rather distant cousins, but I have felt more and more close to them and very happy to do their temple work. I found my first name when I went to do initiatory ordinances at the temple and was randomly given the name of a lady who had been born in Quebec. Because I felt that little connection with her, I remembered her name and her birthday, and when I went home, I looked her up, and I was related to her! I was able to request her other ordinances, and while I was doing that, I started looking at records for her siblings and parents, leading me to even more people.

She was the first. Since then, I have "coincidentally" been led to a whole new set of names four times at the temple. Twice I happened to sit next to someone in a session holding a name card of a person from Quebec, and I glanced over and saw the names and then remembered them and looked them up later. And twice I was being a witness for a sealing session and saw a Quebec-based name on the lists the sealer was using. And all of those four names were also relatives and led to finding more relatives. It is almost comical at this point, like anyone on the other side who has the remotest connection to Quebec City (or me) is suddenly jumping out of the woodwork: "Find me! Find me!"

Someone could scoff at these distant connections. I'm sometimes tempted to do so myself. "Well! These aren't really direct line ancestors, after all. And basically everyone is related anyway. Of course you'd run into relatives if you go back far enough. There's nothing so special about that."

But it's not true! I DO run into lots of people who aren't related to me, if I'm just searching around Family Search on my own. And even if I'm not a true great-granddaughter of these people I've found, I AM connected to them. I can feel that I am. I have literally felt other mothers speaking to me across time and space, whispering, "Find my baby!" I've felt their spirits rejoicing with mine in the temple. I've felt their determination as they make the covenants I'm standing proxy for: "We didn't live like this on earth. But we are ready to do it now."

And why did we even go to Quebec in the first place? On one level, we just chose it. It made sense for some reasons (rent was cheaper there than almost anywhere else), though it was not the obvious choice in other ways (the language difference being a big one). But on another level, through prayer and research and discussion and revelation, we were led there as surely as if we'd been pulled there on a string. And I don't know if we even yet know all the reasons!

On top of that, it's really fun for me to do this research. I get to use my French, and I feel like I sometimes spot things no one else might spot because I know what to look for. (Like my ancestor François Boivin showing up on another record as Frank Bevan, or the deux enfants anonymes twins who died before they could even have the ondoiement, the emergency, private baptism for an infant not expected to survive.) I like learning these things. I like feeling useful.

While I was researching some of these Quebec family members, I came upon this guy:

I immediately liked him. He looks so grumpy! He reminds me of some of the people in our church congregation in Quebec. His profession was listed as épicier (grocer) in Quebec City, and there were some pictures of his épicerie:

It looked so much like several stores we knew in Quebec (one very old, the others newer), with the jars of jams and mustards stacked carefully along the wall shelves. And when I looked up where it was, I saw it was on a corner right down the hill from our house in Quebec, a place I had passed many times as I walked down to the St. Roch cathedral where I liked to go to Mass. (And where he also probably went to Mass!) I couldn't believe our paths had crossed so closely (in space, if not in time!).

So, on our trip to Quebec in June, I wanted to find the place. There was one picture of the outside of the building:

and it did look like so many of the buildings in that area, including our house. It obviously wouldn't be a grocery story any more, but I thought for sure I'd still be able to find it. But sadly, when we got to that corner, none of the buildings matched.

It must have been torn down to make room for new construction, which makes sense. Even the J.A. Moisan store we used to love on Rue St. Jean, which boasted of being "the oldest grocery store still operating in North America," has closed now. 😭 But I didn't mind too much. It just feels different being there by accident like I was when we lived here, than being there this time, on purpose, knowing it was the very place that man—my grumpy friend in the picture—had lived and worked.

Also on this trip, we visited the cemetery on L'Île-d'Orléans. We had been there many times. I always thought it was a lovely, peaceful place. But this time I knew I had some ancestors buried there. I just wanted to find their graves, and…I don't know, just stand there again, knowing now of our connection. As I said before, it feels different.

It's a small cemetery, but there are more graves there than you might think when you aren't looking for one in particular. I thought at first I might not be able to find any relatives at all! But there were so many familiar names, and I started recognizing them. Blouin, Hébert, Pouliot, Julien, Leroux, Fortier.  At last we found the one I was looking for, and then there were so many more around it! I felt like I was coming upon old friends!

One thing it made me think about was just how quickly memories are lost. These people didn't live that long ago. Most of them are in the 1800s, with a few in the last half of the 1700s. But already so many of their gravestones are unreadable. The places they lived and worked are all gone, and there aren't even pictures of most of them. Their great-grandchildren likely don't even know their names. How would you ever even find these people's information again, let alone know any facts about them, or least of all know who they really were? The impossibility of that task seems so enormous and final. It is strange to think about.

And yet as we stood there in the graveyard, I felt so hopeful knowing that these people are NOT truly gone and forgotten. Their spirits still exist and have some power to reach toward us. And Heavenly Father knows and loves each one.

As I was writing this I looked up the temple work I've been doing in the past year and a half since we got back from Quebec. And I found out that between me and Sam and the kids, we have done over 300 ordinances for ancestors from Quebec. Now of course many of those are multiple ordinances for the same person. But even if you count six temple ordinances per person (and many didn't need all of those six ordinances done), that is fifty people I've somehow been led to out of nowhere. Fifty people I now feel closer to. Fifty people I, in a small way, love.

As we wandered through the cemetery, Sam had the impression to take a picture of a random gravestone, one of the weathered, lichen-covered ones with an undecipherable name. When we got home he put it into Photoshop and turned up the contrast and we were able to make out enough details to hunt for that name in Family Search. We finally found the right person, and we were so excited to see that I was related to him, and he needed his temple work done. But to our surprise…Sam was related to him too! And now we have a whole new branch of relatives to search for.