As French-Canadian researchers, we often find ourselves transcribing French language documents or entering French words into our genealogy databases. Knowing shortcuts for entering accented French letters makes the task much easier. If you’ve heard of the Big Drouin, Little Drouin, Red Drouin, Blue Drouin, Male Drouin, and Female Drouin, and it’s got you a bit […]

Perhaps one of the most valuable French-Canadian resources packed into one volume is René Jetté’s Dictionnaire genealogique des familles du Quebec, covering early Québec families from the beginning to 1730. Learn how to use Jetté to locate your family as well as what other information can be found within it’s pages. If you can’t find […]

Imagine being a young lady in your teens or early twenties. You leave everything known to you to travel six to eight weeks across an unforgiving ocean toward a harsh land that requires all your strength and resolve to survive. We of French-Canadian descent are here today because approximately 800 young ladies did precisely that. These Filles du Roi, or King's Daughters, were not of royal blood, but they did have the backing of the king. In episode 7 of Maple Stars and Stripes, Sylvia Montville Bartholomy will regale us with the story of these remarkable women.

If you have spent any time at all in the French-Canadian genealogy section of a  library, you have seen the seven-volume set of books known simply by the author’s surname, the Tanguay. These books contain the baptisms, marriages, burials, and constructed families from 1608-1700. At least, the ones that Cyprien Tanguay could uncover in his search from […]

In French, searching for a surname beginning with an H or a vowel presents a unique set of problems. Episode 5 presents strategies for success.

In the main segment, we acknowledge that it is sometimes difficult to determine a given name in a handwritten record, sometimes due to difficulty in reading faded or otherwise illegible script, or simply because of an unfamiliarity with French given names. After exploring given name practices and challenges, we look at several helpful resources.

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There are so many ways to spell certain sounds in French that it sometimes becomes difficult to even recognize a name as the one for which you are searching. In episode 4 of Maple Stars and Stripes (MapleStarsandStripes.com/4), we take a look at the many ways of spelling the long O sound and why it’s […]

When our French-Canadian ancestors left Québec and came to America, they began to generate records in an English-speaking system. Many clerks wrote their names phonetically. As a result, the names in American records often don’t come close to the actual spelling and can often be unrecognizable to an inexperienced eye. In episode 3, we discuss […]

If you’ve come across dit/dite names in your French-Canadian research and wondered what it all meant, then episode 2 of Maple Stars and Stripes is for you! Along with learning how to pronounce it, we’ll also cover its origins and uses. Then you’ll find many print and online resources that will help you to compile […]

WELCOME TO THE MAPLE STARS AND STRIPES DEBUT! Maple Stars and Stripes: Your French-Canadian Genealogy Podcast was created as a way to share tips and tricks that might make it easier to research your French-Canadian family here in America as well as to trace them back in Quebec. We’ll discuss ways to make it easier to […]