Clyde Raymond, only 91 in this picture, with his grandson, Mike. The power of positive genetics. September 10, 2014
My husband’s grandfather, Clyde Raymond, is a hell of a guy. Sailor, husband, father, soon to be centenarian. Ray enjoys the findings of my genealogy research, but I wanted to put together something special just for him. I wanted to find stories about the direct Raymond and Stickles ancestors, the names he remembers hearing when he was a kid.
These posts might seem a little more straightforward than the others. Ray is a no-nonsense, Greatest Generation, “just the facts, ma’am” kind of guy, so I wanted to keep it lively but to the point.
So thank you, Ray, for being and helping to raise two of the best men I know. This one’s for you.
This week: Raymond genealogy
Next week: The Stickles
Genealogy of the Raymond Family:
The first recordable Raymond ancestor was Barthelomi, born in 1639 in Angoulême, Charente, France and died in 1708 in the same small town. In 1664 at the age of 25 he married Marguerite Chaudier (1635 – 1708), also of Angoulême.
Chartene Region, France
La cathédrale Saint-Pierre à Angoulême: at its present location since the 4th century. Swanky.
Raymonds in New France:
Toussaint Rémond (Raymond)(1669-1741) was born in Roullet, a small village 5 km south of Angouleme. Toussaint was the first Raymond émigré in North America, arriving in New France on June 4, 1687. He was employed by the King of France as a soldier under the command of the French colonel Philippe de Rigaud Vaudreuil. Vaudreuil and his men were deployed to New France, and the fledgling town of Montreal, in 1687 to protect the early colonists and fur traders from the Iroquois. Vaudreuil later was appointed Governor-general of New France. After Toussaint’s service was complete in 1690, he remained in New France as a colonist with his first wife, Marie Jeanne Beaumont, and their son Etienne.
Toussaint’s second wife, Marie Ursule Lemaitre, married for the first time at 16. Marie Ursule and Jean Duval settled on a farm in Laprairie, Quebec, and over the next ten years had six children. Only two were to survive, and on September 4, 1690, Jean was killed by the Iroquois in a surprise attack. Toussaint Raymond was a new widower with a small son when he married Mrs. Jean Duval in 1692. Together they farmed the land that had been owned by Jean. Marie Urusule and Toussaint Raymond had two children, both of whom died in infancy. Six years after their marriage, Toussaint’s second wife passed away on May 15, 1696 at age 34.
Toussaint quickly married Raymond ancestor Barbe Pilet (1677 – 1757) on September 29th of the same year, and left Marie Ursule and Jean Duval’s farm behind. After their marriage, Toussaint and Barbe stayed in Laprairie, and lived a rural life as farmers until about 1709. By 1710 the family had moved to Montreal, where Toussaint died February 16, 1741 at the age of 74 and was buried in the cemetery for the poor. His wife, Barbe Pilet, died at the Montreal General Hospital, then a facility for the poor, on February 3, 1757. She had lived her entire 80 years in Quebec, and died 3 years before the end of French rule.
Toussaint’s 1696 marriage record reveals who his parents were and where he immigrated from in France.
Between 1697 and 1721 Toussaint and Barbe Raymond had fifteen children, including their second son, Francis, born December 8, 1698. On April 6, 1723, Francis Raymond married Marie Louise Longuentin (1705 – 1773), daughter of Jerome Longuentin and Marie Louise Dumas.
Marie’s father Jerome was born in Paris on June 1, 1659. Jerome’s father, Andre, died in Paris in early 1661 and his mother, Jeanne Angelique Briere (1640 -1711), entered in to a marriage contract as a Fille de Roi, or “Daughter of the King”. A “Fille de Roi” was a mail order bride, brought to Quebec to solve the age old problem of not enough women for the frontier men. Jeanne Angelique sailed from France to Quebec with her two year old son Jerome and a dowry of 300 livres. She married local carpenter Adrien Sedilot on September 22, 1661 at Ville de Quebec (Quebec City). Adrien is said to have been an attentive and loving stepfather to Jerome.
Montreal in the early 1700s
Francois Raymond and Marie Louise had 12 children, 10 of whom survived. Their third son was Jean Baptiste, born December 19, 1727 in Laprairie. In 1746, when Jean Baptiste was 18, he married 27 year old widow Marie Elisabeth Lepinay. There is a strong tradition through the generations of young, single Raymond men marrying older, sometimes widowed, women. All of Jean Baptiste and Marie Elisabeth’s daughters were named Marie: Marie Josephte, Marie Madeleine, Marie Celeste and Marie Charlotte. They also had two sons, Jean Francois and ancestor Louis Raymond. Jean Baptiste died in 1757 at age 30, and his final daughter, Marie Charlotte, was born posthumously.
Church of La Nativité de la Sainte-Vierge in La Prairie, Quebec
Jean Baptiste and Marie Elisabeth’s son Louis (1757 – 1779) was the last Raymond ancestor to live and die in Quebec. On November 22, 1779 Louis married Angelique Boucher-Lavigne (1751 – 1851). Angelique’s great, great, great grandfather, Marin Boucher, had arrived in New France in 1634 with his second wife and their children, and founded the town of Beauport, which is now part of Quebec City.
Louis and Angelique’s second son would ultimately be known by two names: Jean Baptiste Raymond in Quebec, and John Raymond Sr. in Brasher, New York. On October 22, 1822 Jean Baptiste married Marguerite Paquette at the old Church of St. Polycarp in Quebec. But Quebec was rapidly changing against French Catholics. The 1840 Act of Union united the English north with the French south, eliminating the French majority and consolidating English power in Montreal. Instability and rebellion followed, and in 1849 the Capitol was moved to Toronto after French supporters burned Parliament. In addition to political unrest and growing oppression, soil nutrients were becoming depleted due to outdated farming methods.
During the 1852 Canadian national census, the Raymond family was still living in Quebec, but in 1855 Jean Baptiste and Marguerite relocated with their nine children to Brasher, St. Lawrence County, New York. They were part of the first wave of French Canadian emigrants that would peak later in the 19th century, with 200,000 French Canadians leaving Quebec between 1879 and 1901.
1860 Census “John Ramoe” and Marguerite living in Brasher Falls, NY with their children remaining at home: Louis, Hugh Augustin, Alexander, Rachel and Daniel.
Just months after the 1860 census was taken, on November 13 Hugh Augustin married Delina LaForce with Hugh’s older brother, Antoine, as a witness. They were married in Hogansburg, NY near the Canadian border.
Augustin Raymond and Delina LaForce marriage record: November 13, 1860
Their first child was the future grandfather of Clyde Raymond, John Raymo. John was born nine months after the wedding on August 22, 1860, in Helena, NY. John Raymo died, still living in Brasher Falls, New York, 15 days after the November 26, 1922 birth of his grandson Clyde Henry Raymond.
According to the 1900 census, John Raymo and Maria LaShomb were illiterate, but all of their children including Clyde Raymond’s father, 10 year old Elmer, could read and write. Maria had given birth to 8 children by 1900, 7 of whom were living.
John Raymo and Maria Lashomb Calvary Cemetery, Massena, Saint Lawrence, New York
It’s the same end for all of us, our ancestors could never have imagined that you and I would be looking at their grave from a thousand miles away. I imagine my descendents some day researching their great, great grandmother and thinking, “Wow, that’s a crappy Word Press template. They really had it rough back then”.
Next week I’ll post the history of the Stickles family, who chose sides wisely in both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.