You wrote:: [QUEBEC] Quebec Irish Date: 10/10/2003 7:02:43 PM Pacific Standard Time From: redeor@webtv.net (Rene) To: QUEBEC-L@rootsweb.com Hi All, After a long hiatus from the list, I feel I am able to return, but---I'm not at all sure if there's any way to help me. I have found the first trace of my brick wall gggrandfather, Thomas McDivitt ( spelled various ways ) with his marriage registration Nov 1840 , by an Anglican pastor McKnight at Frampton, Beauce Co. (Dorchester ) QC Witnesses were Jane McLaughlan and John Sheedy. Thomas was listed as "bachelor, farmer "By 1851 (census ) he is at Valcartier QC listed as teacher ( I suspect a higher education Anglican boys school given a few tiny clues from family lore) The obit of a son of Thomas states the son " was born on a farm at Valcartier which later became a training base for Canadian soldiers during the late war ( WW ! ) I have exhausted every research possibility in trying to ascertain where in Ireland Thomas was born--his siblings--parents etc and now must try going back to the beginning in Quebec and see if any one has some advice--direction as to if there may be any possibility of any kind of records of him prior to his marriage at Frampton. and if there might be a clue somewhere in QC land records and how to locate them for those years, also if any one knows of the type of school mentioned around Valcartier 1851-61. +++++++++++++++++++++++ Hullo, Maureen. Two thoughts -(1) lots of Irish were Church of England (Anglican) in those days and still are. Not everyone knows that. Try the C of E church records - the web page for the Canadian Anglican Church will tell you how to access them - not sure how it is addressed. (2) I finally found a reference to the county in Ireland where my immigrant ancestor had been born ON HIS HEADSTONE. There it was: "Patrick Egan, a native of County Lietrim, Ireland, . . . " and so on. I had just about killed myself looking in records, with no result at all prior to that. The irony of it was that I had the death date and the cemetery location all the time - just had never physically looked at the stone. Later I found that it was the (Irish?) style of the time to include the land of one's birth in the engraved information on headstones. Even in deepest Illinois in a little French community I was researching for another line, I saw stones with Irish surnames AND the birth-counties given. Sooooooooo - if you can find the burial site and the marker, you may be closer to Thomas's county of origin. THEN you can contact the Irish Heritage Office in that county with the info you have, and see what they can tell you. Best of luck, Ginny Crawford