I'll use any excuse to discuss genealogy. Today is Bastille Day, which fits the bill nicely, at least in my case.
My 7th generation paternal grandfather, Noel Lebrun dit Carrière, sailed from France to New France (Canada) in the late 17th century. It was in New France that he married the Canadian-born Anne Brochu, whose parents hailed from France.
On my mother’s side of the family, Jacques Archambault and his wife, Françoise Tourault, who were married in France, settled in New France about 1645.
Over time, the Lebrun dit Carrière surname was simplified to Carrière and, later still, to Carrier. My Carrier and Archambault grandparents did not emigrate from Canada to the United States until 1899 in one case and the early 20th century in the other. So by the time they settled in Massachusetts and Connecticut, respectively, their families had been living in Canada for more than two centuries.
The “old country,” for my family, is Canada, not France. How could it be otherwise? And yet the Carriers and Archambaults were, originally, French, in the sense of being from France. My roots, when traced back far enough, were French before the family tree sprouted French-Canadian branches.
In the French-speaking household of my Massachusetts youth, we always had a complex sense of our own identity. We were Americans, of course. My parents were born in the United States. So was I. We were Franco-Americans, too, because our ancestors, over the course of more than 200 years, were Québécois.
But there was one more layer. In some ill-defined, half-lost, almost-mythical sense, we saw ourselves as being French, meaning of France, as well.
By the time Parisians stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789, my ancestors were long gone from France, having arrived in Canada more than 100 years earlier. But roots run deep. With that in mind, July 14, Bastille Day, the preeminent national holiday of France, deserves at least a passing mention. And a glorious photo as well.
