Hi everyone,

My name is Danny Duchesneau, I’m born in 1977 in Quebec City. Sorry for my bad English as my primary language is french.

Sorry for the ugly URL in my post as we can't embed URL on the message board.

First, a little bit of history and adoption before the Tousley/Towsley part. ;)

About a year and half ago, I got interested in finding/knowing about my origins and started to do some genealogy work so I went on and asked my father Raymond Duchesneau questions about his father Georges Duchesneau who died in 1973. The only information that my father could give me was:

- Georges was adopted and Duchesneau was not his surname at birth.
- Georges spoke english (quite rare in the north of Quebec City in the 1950’s)
- Georges original surname as my father pronounced it (he didn’t had a clue at how to spell it though) sounded like “Tasselé” which is the Quebec City pronunciation of “tasse le” which means “move him” or “move it” so at that time I was like mmmm, I’m not so sure about that as it sounded more like a nickname than a surname.
- And 2 photos of him.

You understand that at this point I realized that I don’t have Duchesneau blood but some other. So I’ve been trying a lot of different things trying to find out who my paternal ancestors really are.

First of all, the main problem here is that we can’t find Georges’ birth act, certificate, nothing. I asked some of the best searchers/genealogist here in Quebec and we were not able to find any document with his original surname at birth.

This is were I started to do rigorous genealogy research myself on ancestry.ca as well as hundreds of other places and here are some of my findings (half of the documents are in french but I think you’ll get the idea anyway);

- My grandfather (Georges Duchesneau) was adopted just like my father told me, here’s the court judgement (http://goo.gl/yWtm1S). This 1939 document tells us that he was adopted by Emile Duchesneau and Marguerite Laderoute and that he was born January 31st 1913.
So this is where the “Duchesneau” surname comes from.

- The name of Georges’ parents on his marriage record (http://goo.gl/Y2fn67) in 1935 are Emile Duchesneau and Marguerite Laderoute.

Here comes the Tousley part;

- So I went further and found out Emile Duchesneau and Maggie (Marguerite) Laderoute marriage record in 1918 (http://goo.gl/OR6WJa). This is where it gets interesting… In this record, it is mentioned that Maggie Laderoute is widow of Archibald Loring Tousley. So I went like, wait a second the “Tasselé” surname my father told me about sounds EXACTLY like the Tousley surname of that Archibald..

At this point I started to think that Georges’ parents were actually Archibald Loring Tousley and Maggie Laderoute.

- Then, I found out Archibald Loring Tousley and Maggie Laderoute marriage record (front:http://goo.gl/nm8MoT), (back:http://goo.gl/UJGlNP) in 1906 in St-Louis-de-France-de-Montréal.

- So trying to find information on this couple brought me to get my hands on Archibald’s WW1 military records which I ordered at Library and Archives Canada to find out that he was killed in action on November 1916 Vimy, France. Here’s page 21 (http://goo.gl/y4JIlo) from the 37 pages military records I received from Library and Archives Canada.

If you put all these things together it actually make sense;

- Archibald Loring Tousley married Marguerite Laderoute in 1906, St-Louis-de-France-de-Montréal.
- They got a son named Georges in 1913.
- Archibald died in 1916.
- Maggie (Marguerite) Laderoute remarried with Emile Duchesneau in 1918, Cathédrale St-Jacques-le-Mineur-de-Montréal.
- Emile Duchesneau adopted Georges.
- They lived together in Montreal according to the 1921 Canadian census (http://goo.gl/kRfQYa).
- The family moved from Montreal to Quebec City in 1931 or 1932.
- Georges got married in 1935 in Quebec City, Paroisse St-Roch.

Here comes the DNA part;

I asked my father about doing the DNA test at 23andme.com (the one from Ancestry not being offered in Canada...) and the results do match one could have expected but still I don’t have any evidence that our family is of Tousley descent. So, I was wondering if it is possible to compare my father’s DNA with the DNA of a Tousley/Towsley descent? Would anybody could help me with that? I really would like to know about my origins.

If my family is really of Tousley descendants, I think we're the last Tousley alive that I know of from David Bryan Tousley's branch who emigrated in 1870 and the family keep going here in the province of Quebec (mostly Quebec City) but under the name Duchesneau.

Here is a link my paternal line (If I’m really of Tousley descent.). (http://goo.gl/ZcM2Xa)

I have quite interesting sources about them in my Ancestry tree so have a look! I do have much more to share on those people, documents that I haven't attached to the tree yet especially about the first 7 generations, things like the 148 pages Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files for William Tousley for example.

Cordialement,

Danny