History, Ancestry & eBay

My grandmother, Blanche Lajuenesse, back row, far right.

I realize that we are just hours away from a long awaited return to spring, so discussing my winter interests seems like a step back. Perhaps it’s my attempt to justify my lack of blog posts, to indicate that my time has been spent elsewhere, somehow easing my guilt. Reality is that you probably don’t care that I haven’t posted since we were 52 days away from spring. If you do, please let me know and I’ll be absolutely sure to post more often.

My grandfather, Willie Roy, with my mother,
Rejeanne, and my aunt Madeline.

With that said, I’ve been on a quest to uncover my ancestry. “Who do you think you are?” is partly to blame. It’s that TV show on CBS where each week, a celebrity delves into his or her own family history. This season we’ve seen Rosie McDonald go from Montreal to Ireland to find out what brought her grandfather’s family to this side of the Atlantic. Tim McGraw found a route that connected his family to early Virginia settlers that housed and encouraged George Washington. Lionel Richie found out that his great grandfather, who had abandoned his grandmother as a child, had actually set off to establish a support system that led to the civil rights.



I started an account on http://www.ancestry.com/. I started looking. I found some very interesting stuff. Prompted not only by the television show, but also by questions from my daughter asking about where we can from, I kept digging, or clicking, and looking.

The population of Maine is becoming more diverse, although at last report, we are still the whitest state in the nation. White faces, however, do come in many varieties and mine happens to be one of the estimated 25% of the natives born with Franco American roots. I’ve learned that in the mid 1800’s as agriculture declined in Quebec, the industrial revolution was ramping up here in New England. Shoe factories, tanneries, paper mills, cotton mills and all manner of large scale production was developing. The combination of poor farming, large French Catholic families, and the lure of steady income and a better life drew hundreds of thousands of people to Maine, including, in 1896 my paternal grandmother’s family. I found out that my maternal grandmother, one of eighteen children, came to Maine with her family when she was sixteen years old. On Ancestry.com, I saw my great grandmother’s birth record. I found that my grandmother was the first in her family to read and write.

My maternal grandparent's wedding, 1930

My maternal grandparent's wedding anniversary

Growing up in Biddeford, Maine, the French language was heard everywhere. My parents tell me that I didn’t speak English until I started to play outside with other kids. The large brick mills hummed with activity, and although on the decline in my youth, and shut down now, they employed much of the population, including many members of my extended family. Aunts, uncles, and grandparents lived their lives in and around the mills in Biddeford and Saco. My point is that I took for granted that my history was all around me. For the most part I ignored the obvious; that manufacturing was moving south, that the mills were being converted to apartments and office space, and that a way of life was dying. To me, it was progress and frankly, I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

My parents when they were dating.  Aren't they so cute?

My parent's wedding

So fast forward some twenty five years and I’m faced with a little girl who wants to know about her heritage, who has an unexplainable draw to France and the French language, and is looking for answers. I’m sharing with her the things I find and trying to sketch out a path that stretches back to France via Canada. What we find together, no one knows, but we’re looking.

My mom is the little one in the middle with the barette. 

My thanks on this to the Franco American Center on the campus of the University of Maine in Orono. I’ve got a book to pick up this afternoon on the Roy family, my family on my mother’s side. If Franco American history interests you at all, here’s their website: Francoamericanarchives.org

My grandfather

A quick note about the eBay mention in my title: My interest in selling my work and the neat items I find, and the things I dig out of our basement to ready for a yard sale has prompted me to open an eBay store to sell this stuff.

I will be writing more about this soon, and am working on a website to accompany it: http://www.fullcircleonlinestore.com/. It’s not up and running yet, as I’m still in the early stages of design. I chose the name based on the idea that the things I sell on the site and on eBay have been used, and can be used again, given a new life, come full circle from new to in use to unused to use and life again. We are fortunate to be able to have decent clothing and I want to pass on the things we outgrow. I’ve come across two antique photographs that have been in my basement for a few years after I claimed them from a pile of stuff found in my sister’s old house. Turns out Wallace Nutting and David Davidson have a following and I’m hoping to sell those prints online. An old jug that has been sitting on my parent’s hearth for years, dusted weekly by my mother, is an antique kerosene bottle. I’m selling my wedding dress, some jewelry, and some artwork and am hoping that with some sales, I can continue to explore history and craft a future with a connection to the past.

Here’s the link to my store on eBay: at http://stores.ebay.com/fullcircleonlinestore.

Wallace Nutting