Re: Muise Family Connection
Hi Sandy, I wish I had 1/3 of your information. About 35 years ago my uncle, father's brother, last living son of Nellie Parker, went to NS to get a birth record so he could put Nellie into a Nursing home here as he was 70 and in failing health and the last of her children. When he returned he told his 2 daughters her name was not Nellie Parker but Maryellen Muse and she was born in Eelbrook and was M'ikmaq. He died a short time later and left no further information other than he had to stay a day longer up there as the church with the records had burned but he could get it north???? We went as far as Glace Bay to an aunt of my sister-in-laws as she was born there. Even the priest at the church would not discuss it with us. Mary was embarrased. I know we did go to Church Point and many of the reserves and churches....At the mission church of Ste Anne at Bear River, there was a sign on the floor of the porch of the church and it looked like the word Eelbrook but not spelled the same. Our feeling is Bear river but chief Meuse only insulted us so we left. I think I understand, but it still hurt. this is so important to me and my 7 children who all have children of their own now, to fill in the gaps. Any help is much appreciated as I am 70 now myself and am not sure I can make the drive although if I had someone to go with me I would do it. I just don't know where I would go anymore. It seems we've checked it all. Regards, Barbara
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Re: Muise Family Connection
Hi, The name Helene Eleanor and Mary sound right. Somewhere we heard Maryellen was orphaned young...Nellie (Maryellen) had a daughter and named her Helen. We don't know what happened to her other than she married and had 2 daughters and one was named Maryellen. Anything you find is a plus. I did find a cousin Laura, I've never met who was daughter to one of my father's brothers. His name is George Walsh. But he is actually grandfather to Laura as his first born had a daughter (Laura) at the age of 16 makeing George her gfather not father. Confused ???? Me too. She is a great girl who has found out quite a bit but is also bothered by the fact we cannot find Nellie's family. Laura lives in Missouri which is quite a distance from me in Massachusetts. We talk often but are still searching since 1990. My best to you....Barbara
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Re: Muise Family Connection
I will tell you that there were no Meuse/Muise Mi'kmaqs in Eel Brook or surrounding villages in my lifetime or my parents. There were no tribes of Mi'kmaq in Eel Brook - except in early days before the Acadians settled there. The Meuse/Muise of that area are Acadian with Mi'kmaq ancestry from long long ago. If your ancestor was from Eel Brook they were Acadian and has the same ancestry as the rest of us from Philippe II. All the records from the churches in the area are at ATCHA in Tusket and Peter Crowell knows more about the people of that area than anyone. If there is a record, that's where it is. The SAR church records were never burned - even though the first church did around 1900. All the birth, death, marriage records are at ATCHA in books by Parish by name. If it isn't there, it isn't. Perhaps the priest didn't record it.
There were Acadian men who married Mi'kmaq women but those women were baptized into the Catholic faith and assimilated into the Acadian community. There were, however, children from Philippe II that married into the Mi'kmaq community and lived as Mi'kmaq. Those that descend are Mi'kmaq with a French ancestor. I don't have any record of those people but they are not around Eel Brook. Back in the days before the deportation, the early Acadians were settled around Baccaro and Barrington. There were no Mi'kmaq Meuse who were deported. All Meuse whether Mi'kmaq or Acadian are still the same family descended from Philippe I - that includes the d'Entremont who descend from Jacques and have no Mi'kmaq ancestry.
I won't be back in Nova Scotia until next summer. When was this Nellie born? If it was the 1850-1890 time period, then the records are not so good. If she was born in Eel Brook, she would have been baptised at our church. Have you checked social security records here to see if there is any information on the last known address? That might help locating where buried. And a death record might give parent's names, exact date of birth. Meuse is a big family but not so big in Eel Brook and Belleville.
I've been looking for some people for more years than I can think about. Someday maybe I can figure them out. I keep trying. Tell me everything you know. Even if you could find someone with that name, you still have to establish who your ancestor's parents were with some documentation.
Sandy
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Re: Muise Family Connection
Hi Sandy, Can I ask where you are from? My sister and I spoke to Peter Crowell quite a few years ago. I think it was in a shop of sorts in Tusket...He insisted Nellie was French. We have also spent a day with Mr. d'Entremont in Quinan and also had the pleasure of meeting Father D'Entremont many years ago on a visit. I still have his letters. There is just so much we don't understand about the way things were there at that time so it's hard to comprehend a lot of what we are told, but we're trying very hard. Nellie was born in 1880. She was 13 in 1893 when she arrived here on the ship Yarmouth. Yet on one paper we have she was 26 at her marriage in 1904. which meant she was born in 1878. She always spoke French and would only go to a French speaking priest in a Catholic church near her home. My sister would try to get her to talk by speaking Parisian French but it didn't work...she just never spoke of her life to anyone. We always knew her as Nellie Parker (Walsh) which was her married name. But when her son came home from NS and said her real name was Maryellen Muse and she came from Yarmouth County in a place called Eelbrook we were stunned and have been searching ever since. About 10 years ago I found another cousin who came to my house and during his visit he said..Henry Parker (Nellie's father??) came from the west and was Blackfeet, not blackfoot...he said that very strongly to me. but he knew nothing else. We have found no Henry Parker. Ergo the story my sister and I thought up that Nellie was orphaned young and left with the LaFaves and Anne Muse in 1893 and perhaps worked here for someone by the name of Henry Parker as a domestic and toook his surname. I know where they lived and have searched for a Parker family but have not found any. Did she lie on her marriage license?? I remember my father, Nellie's first born, wanting to move my mother and all 8 of us to a small fishing village in Nova Scotia...Mom refused, but again, why did he not talk about it if he knew? Dad died very young age 51 after spending 4 years in hospital. He passed in 1956 so no more was mentioned of Nova Scotia...
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Re: Muise Family Connection
I'm from Melrose and live on Cape Cod now. The LeFave's are a very small family and lived on the Eel Lake Road which is SAR and in South Belleville and North Belleville. Meuse/Lefave marriages were not uncommon. How does that family tie in? And it was very common for Acadians in the states to band together, work together. They often lived with family members here. Lots of them in Melrose, Malden, Wakefield, Stoneham, Reading area.
Who is this Anne Muse? I have no doubt Peter Crowell is correct. You would have seen him at the old courthouse in Tusket - he is the archivist for our area. There are many fairy tales around about the Mi'kmaq ancestry. Perhaps she just didn't remember much about her life in Nova Scotia. Where did she live over here? Very common back years ago in NS for people to have children and for some reason they would be brought up by some other family member. Many had very large families and farmed out some of the kids.
The last census she could be found in would be 1891. Do you know what town she lived in here and have you looked at the old census for that town? Where was she married?
Keep digging - you might get lucky. When I go to NS next summer, I can look at the SAR book and see if I can find her.
Sandy
Sandy
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Re: Muise Family Connection
HI again, Well, your only about 1 1/2 hrs from me, I'm in Quincy, Ma. Anne Muse is listed on Nellie's marriage license as her mother and Henry Parker as her father. That is why I am dubious of Anne Muse being Nellie's mother in that she is said to be 65 when traveling to the states with Nellie. Nellie was 13 so Anne would have been 52 when she had Nellie and never found a Henry Parker as I said earlier. They all settled in Wakefield, Ma. on Spring St. Nellie again was listed coming from NS when she was 20 in 1900. I forget the name of the ship. Don't know why she made the trip back to NS. And yes, it was the Courthouse we saw Peter Crowell at. Thanks Sandy, stay well, ttys. Barb
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Re: Muise Family Connection
Maybe Anne was the grandmother. Grandparents would raise an illegitimate child of a daughter. But the birth record would list the mother and "father unknown". In this case, the child would carry the mother's name. So if her father was a Parker and it was known, then it would have recorded that way even if parents weren't married. Sometimes the priest would take an illegitimate child away from the mother and give it to someone else to raise. Priests would also name children whatever they wanted if they didn't like the parent's choice.
I doubt there would be any record of a Maryellen. More likely Marie Helene. All the records are in French and there were a few priests who recorded in Latin - that's a trip to figure out. ATCHA has transcribed all the records now and it's easy to look through the registers.
Do you know if she was a naturalized citizen or have you looked at naturalization records? You need to find another document of some sort with her name on it.
I was trying to find one of Dad's aunts in Melrose recently and I was able to pick her up in the census and eventually I found her social security death record. Took a lot of looking but I found out some things about her. So keep looking.
Sandy
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Re: Muise Family Connection
Hi, You are a true fountain of knowledge...again thank you. I guess it's possible she was her grandmother. Anne was also listed as sister-in-law of Louis LeFave so his wife Fanny could have been Anne's sister???I will keep looking per your advice. Can you answer a question for me? We were told when M'ikmaq children were in "school" they were taught by French nuns and they were told to speak French or English, not their native tongue. My grandmother told my older sister once that she went to a "convent School" and was taught French in the morning and English in the afternoon. Have you ever heard of a convent school? Barbara
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Re: Muise Family Connection
There were a few Mi'kmaq families on a side road off the road to Yarmouth in my childhood but they were not Meuse. I don't remember any kids from those families and they were not at school in Eelbrook at least during my lifetime. My parents knew no Mi'kmaq children. Back in old days when an Acadian man married Mi'kmaq, the woman was baptized, usually named Marie and blended into Acadian. Their children would be Acadian and French was the spoken language. It did not go the other way around in that area. Laurent Meuse in Quinan married Marie Alexis Mi'kmaq but he was born around 1739. Their children all but one married Acadian and the descendents live in Quinan today. The one who married Mi'kmaq is gone from the records. There was a Mi'kmaq village at Quinan that predates the Acadians. They died out long ago. It is true that the Mi'kmaq were all around that area but that was before the Acadians settled. They were migratory - living inland in the winter and near the water in the summer for fishing. There were not many intermarriages - mostly in the earliest days. Where the Mi'kmaq went to, I do not know. The Acadians returned from exile starting in the 1760's so Mi'kmaqs vanished from the area after that. If they married into Acadian, they would have to have lived as Acadian as that is what survived in the area.
The villages were French and that was the language spoken. I have the AF Church map of Yarmouth County done in 1864 based on the census and Pere d'Entremont wrote his history of SAR based on it and it lists all the houses and families in SAR, Abrams River and Belleville - no Mi'kmaq. He also did one for Quinan. Believe me when I tell you that whatever Mi'kmaq existed was blended in so many years ago and has been long gone and there is no trace of it now or in my parent's time and I don't believe in my grandparent's time either.
The school for Eel Brook was on Rocco Point Road just a ways up from my house. It was a 2 room school house and it still stands today as the K of C. Originally it was on Eel Lake Road across from where my cousin George lives and I believe the building was moved but I'm not sure of that. In 1890 it was still on Eel Lake Road. The convent was next door to the church on Rocco Point Road - it was torn down years ago. But when I was young, my cousins and I would get the mail for the nuns and bring it to the convent. The nuns taught at that school and all my cousins went there. Yes it was taught in French as that was and is the language of the village The Acadian families today speak French in their households, not English. The kids learned English as a second language in school. There was another little school at Lower Eel Brook where Dad went. There were 3 schools in Belleville and 1 across the river at Abrams River. All 1 or 2 rooms. Those were not taught by the nuns - they had no car. Mom taught for a couple of years on Surette's Island before she came here - she would board with a family there and come back to Belleville on the weekends. Aunt Regina, Aunt Estelle, Aunt Mathilde were also teachers at SAR or Belleville.
Today the elementary school is in Belleville and taught in French and for the upper grades, they built a French school in Tusket and an English school in Argyle. The old high school is on Rocco Point Road and abuts my property - it is no longer a school and is in rough shape - they opened it in 1959 and closed it several years ago when the 2 schools were built. That school when it operated taught in French until the upper grades, then there was a choice of French or English.
You need to know that in my childhood, there were almost no cars in the village. We took the bus to Yarmouth anytime shopping was necessary. There were a few little stores in the village, either in someone's house or the gas station. I knew every family in the village and was somehow related to all of them. Everyone had a garden that sustained the house, animals were killed for meat and fish was the staple with the lake and river in the village. My father's family was 12 kids with only 2 surviving today. Mom's was 7 with 1 dying in childhood and none surviving today. Their life was tough - mostly everyone fished for a living and farmed to survive. Mom's father drowned when she was only 9 aboard the Francis A that was sunk off Halifax. Grandma had 6 kids to raise. Dad's father died of tb in 1941 which was rampant in NS during that time. It's a whole way of life that you just can't imagine - and it existed well into my lifetime.
Hope I answered some of your questions. I feel that if your ancester was born in Eel Brook, she was Acadian and had no more Mi'kmaq than the rest of us. I bet she went to the school when it was on Eel Lake Road. If you go to NS again, go see Peter Crowell. He has the answers if they exist today. What do you know of the Louis LeFave? There were a couple of them with that name - some I have track of and some not. Louis dit Piflef LeFave(fifer for Napoleon's army) was the first of that name in NS. He had a son Louis also but both of these lived and died in NS so it was not either of them. Maybe the Meuse can be figured out by looking at the relationship with the LeFave's.
You can ask me questions any time. I love to share info - bet you figured that out.
Sandy
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Re: Muise Family Connection
This is not the same Meuse/Muise family or at least I don't think so but I'm looking for the family of Josephine Meuse/Muise. She was born in 1865 Quinan.Her marriage record to Peter Doucet or White states her parents were John and Marie while her death states it was Maximum Muise born Quinan. She applies for marriage to James White/Leblanc with the intention to marry but was afraid to carry it out as she had been married before. After 4 years of marriage the priest allowed her an annulment with no dispensation from Peter. She dies in 1956 in Yarmouth not as a Muise nor her husbands name but as a Leblanc. The question I am asking is would anyone have any knowledge to this family from Quinan and was there a Maximum Meuse/Muise that was her father or was John and Maximum one and the same person. Thank you
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