Here's another update on my progress and what’s coming down the pipeline in terms of research and public events.
See Me!
Gervais Family Event
February 22, 2025
10:00am - 1:00pm
Little Canada Historical Society
NOTE: This special event is only for Gervais and Laurence family descendants.
Recent Work
Contracts, Grants, and Fundraising
Privately funding my research year means piecing together funds from a variety of sources. But the work should pay off in the long run when we apply for a Legacy grant for the writing phase of the project. I will be able to demonstrate significant buy-in from a bunch of individuals and organizations.
I finalized a contract with the Little Canada Historical Society(LCHS). I am now technically a contractor working on behalf of LCHS to conduct this research. This arrangement allows them to allocate staff time and help raise funds on behalf of the project, and it helps me reach members of the community Benjamin and Genevieve founded.
I applied for and was awarded a grant from the French-American Heritage Foundation, for which I am very grateful. I intend to use this grant money to fund a research trip to Winnipeg.
I applied for a Gale Family Library Legacy Research Fellowship to help pay for research expenses and my time at the Minnesota Historical Society. Grant awards will be announced in early April. (Fingers crossed.)
Correspondence with Scholars and Archivists
I continue to foster relationships with scholars and submit inquiries to more archives.
I had a wonderful conversation with Patrick Lacroix, a historian at the Acadian Archives of the University of Maine - Fort Kent. Lacroix has written a number of academic articles about early French-Canadian immigration to the Northeast, including the first detailed research into the French community that developed in Champlain, New York. (In about 1828, Benjamin Gervais’s youngest brother Louis Pierre moved to Champlain, where he married and raised a family. Only in 1852 did Louis and his wife decide to join Louis’s two brothers in Minnesota Territory.) Lacroix kindly agreed to read and critique some of my chapters as the book takes shape.
An archivist at the Pointe-à-Callière Museum in Montreal has been very helpful. He sent me a couple archaeological reports and an excerpt from the 1825 census of the city. These documents provide critical context about a port-side neighborhood in the city that was significant to both Genevieve and Benjamin. Unfortunately, he failed to find any artifacts in the museum collections that could be associated with any relevant individuals.
The Bank of Montreal searched the oldest records in their collections. They uncovered a ledger for a Montreal merchant with whom Benjamin Gervais worked as an independent voyageur in 1821–2. It only covers 17 months and is short on details, but it does correspond exactly with the time Benjamin was involved in the business.
I’ve been talking to a professor of geology about the location of the Gervais mill and the source of the original millstones. Other than creeks running down the bluff to the Mississippi River, there aren't a lot of places in Ramsey County suitable for a dam and millrace. I am hoping to better understand what made Benjamin choose the particular location along Gervais Creek for his mill. I also want to know what kind of rock was used in the first millstones and where it was quarried.
Building a Community of Extended Family
Descendants of Benjamin, Genevieve, and their siblings live all over the U.S. and Canada. I started a Facebook group so distant cousins can share stories, photos, and news.
In addition, to promote the upcoming Gervais family event (and with the help of a very kind Gervais descendant), I reached out to a bunch of people who share Gervais and/or Laurence DNA and corresponded with several of them. One distant cousin invited me to experience a taste of Métis culture in his hometown in Manitoba when I’m up in Winnipeg for my research trip.
Planning and Preparing for Research Trips
Winnipeg
After speaking with the director of the Centre du Patrimoine in Winnipeg, I decided a second in-person trip to Winnipeg is necessary. I initially planned to go the week of February 17, but it turns out that is Louis Riel Day in Manitoba and everything is closed. I am now looking at heading up some time in March. (Maybe the temperature will be above zero by then?!)
In addition to materials at the Centre du Patrimoine, the trip will allow me to complete research at the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives. In both places, I will be looking for records about Benjamin’s older brother Jean-Baptiste, Genevieve’s brothers Jean-Baptiste, Bazile, and Charles, Genevieve’s nephew Norbert Larance, and neighbors and kin who lived on and around Point Douglas in the 1820s and 1830s. Charles Laurence (aka Larance) is particularly important. He was one of the more successful farmers in the Red River Settlement, became influential in the free-trade movement against the HBC, and was instrumental in the development of the Red River ox-cart trails in the 1840s. Some of Ben and Gen’s nephews, cousins, and Godchildren were key players in the Riel Resistance in 1869–70.
St. Louis
The one academic conference I plan to attend this year is the French Heritage Corridor Conference in St. Louis in April. If I can swing it, I might try to grab a day in the Missouri Historical Society archives. My interest there would be identifying the earliest business relationships between St. Louis and the Red River Settlement. Connections between Red River and St. Louis began, I suspect, in the early 1840s. My hunch is that Genevieve’s brother Charles and close family friend Joseph Gobin were involved in setting up that trade, but I need more evidence.
Eastern Canada
I’m getting closer to finalizing plans for my big research trip to archives in Ottawa, Montreal, and Trois-Riviéres. I sent letters off to several local history organizations in the villages where Benjamin and Genevieve grew up. Their responses—how much there is to see in each village, how long they might want to host us, etc.—will help set the final schedule. (I’ll be traveling with two LCHS board members.)
Grand Portage
Documents are great, but there is also value in experiential learning. In January, immedaitely after the LCHS Open House, I squeezed in a visit to the Snake River Fur Post Winter Frolic event. There I met re-eneactors who are part of a group called La Compagnie des Hivernants de la Riviere Saint Pierre (The Company of Winterers of the St. Peter’s [Minnesota] River). The group was wonderfully hospitable, very knowledgeable about day-to-day life in the fur trade, and eager to demonstrate all sorts of tools and techniques.
Many years ago, when I was about 12 years old, I visited the Grand Portage National Monument on a family trip up the North Shore. But I’ve never been to a rendezvous reenactment. With my new connections to the bright, dedicated people of La Compagnie, I am hoping I can get at least a small taste of the rough life of a voyageur at the 2025 rendezvous.
Actual Research
With all the planning and organizing still taking place—grant applications, correspondence, meetings—I didn’t have tons of time for actual research. But I still made good progress.
Probably my most significant discoveries in the whole project relate to why and how Genevieve wound up heading west to the Selkirk Colony as a girl of just 13 as well as significant details about her fortunes during her first six years in the settlement.
In a curious twist, some of the most important records documenting this history can be found not in Winnipeg or Montreal or London, but in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. I am trying to keep many of these details secret as a big reveal with the book’s publication. But I have to share a little bit!
Just a few days ago, I unexpectedly found Genevieve Laurence herself listed as a Godmother in a baptism written into Neuchâtel’s civil register of baptisms in 1833. The underlying record does not, however, date to that time or place. Rather, it is a copy of an entry from the Catholic parish of St. Boniface in the Red River Settlement, recording a baptism from May 20, 1820, in which Genevieve, who was still only 15 years old at the time, agreed to sponsor the child. The priest, Father Sévère Dumoulin, was Godfather.
These discoveries are all the more significant because nearly all the original St. Boniface church records were lost in a fire in 1968. I never thought I would see any of Fathers Dumoulin and Provencher’s actual parish records, yet here is a baptism that appears to be copied exactly from the now-lost original:
To keep the secret about why these records are in Switzerland, I am including only the line that names Genevieve as the child's Godmother (Marraine). I’ve continued to work through Ramsey County deed books. For each relevant purchase or sale, I am outlining the property boundaries on a Google MyMap so I can see spatial relationships to the physical geography and with neighbors.
Ahead of my trip to Winnipeg, I am reading a number of books about the history of the Métis and biographies of Louis Riel. In addition to historical content, I am also looking at how different authors approach biography as a literary form.
What’s Next
More Ramsey County deeds, mortgages, tax records, and court documents
Quebec Notarial Records
I’ve gathered quite a few records from Quebec notaries. They are in various stages of transcription and translation. This is a fairly big but crucial task.
Finalizing my list of target collections at the Centre du Patrimoine and HBC Archives
Following up on a message from a Gervais descendant about a juicy story he heard regarding conflict between the Archdiocese of St. Paul and the Gervais family.
Trying to find out if the birch altar Benjamin and Genevieve built for hosting church services in of their home (before 1852) still survives. One descendant claims to have seen it back in the 1960s at the old Minnesota Historical Society building. I plan to inquire with the historical society and archdiocese.
Preparing for the Gervais Family Event
Creating a family history quiz that will be fun, challenging, and educational
Writing a brief speech about why the story of the Gervaises and Laurences matters. What makes their lives worth learning about more than other people of the same period?
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