Looking for sources for Pierre Tesson de Honore/dit Honore/Henry (B. 1780, likely Quebec)

+7 votes
497 views
Alright - this is my 5xgreat grandfather and I'm hoping to be able to find some sources for him, but I'm hitting a bit of a brick wall.

- His name seems to be noted on different trees as "Pierre Tesson dit Honore", "Pierre Tesson de Honore", "Pierre Henry" or even "Peter Henry".

- Other trees have him born in 1780 and dying in 1861.

- Parents seem to be noted as Joseph Tesson de Honore and Marie-Angelique Cachet.

- His sons after him go by the surname "Henry".

- I am fairly certain his Last Name at Birth needs to change, but there is currently no birth record to indicate what his actual last name at birth is.

- He married "Olive Draper".

I really do not know where to begin with him. I think his name is the biggest confusion for me at this point. And I am assuming he must show up in some sort of Census due to him dying in 1861, but I do not know if he was located in Canada or the US at this point. Later descendents ended up in Ontario.

Thanks for any help!
WikiTree profile: Pierre Henry
in Genealogy Help by Kristen Louca G2G6 Mach 3 (32.8k points)
I also found this:

http://users.usinternet.com/dfnels/tesson.htm

Which seems to indicate the father was Joseph-Henry. and "dit Honore" being a dit name. Though this also says "Tesson" not "Theson".

Is there enough evidence, I wonder, to switch his LNAB to "Theson"?
the name gets written variously Tesson, Theson, Tison, etc.  Modern version is Tison.
I have a supposed ancestor in the dominican republic with name pedro maringa thesson who lived in Samana. I have not been able to confirm this further. He lived in the 1800s. In addition, there is Pierre Thesson that left the Dominican Republic around that time and settled in Missouri. In Samana, there is a locality called Thesson.

4 Answers

+9 votes
 
Best answer

There was a Pierre Theson (actual LNAB), born and baptized on 6 May 1780 in Saint-Jean-François-Régis, Province of Québec (now Saint-Philippe, Québec, Canada) to parents Joseph Theson and Marie Remond.  Sources (both require subscription):

https://www.genealogiequebec.com/Membership/LAFRANCE/acte/669570

https://www.genealogie.umontreal.ca/Membership/en/PRDH/Individu/393781

If this is the correct person, then his mother is already connected on WikiTree as Marie-Angélique Raymond-2043.  Unfortunately, due to all the naming variants, there seem to be at least three profiles of the father that need to be merged away.

I came across an Ancestry profile that has agrees on date and location of birth.  According to that profile, he marries Olive Draper in 1800 in Marysburg, Ontario and that he dies in 1861 in Sombra, Ontario.  That profile also has Cachet as the mother's maiden name, for reasons that are not clear.  I don't believe that Cachet is a 'dit' name for Raymond.

by Greg Lavoie G2G6 Pilot (371k points)
selected by Janne Gorman
That does seem promising (the birthdate you note matches the birthdate noted on the profile here.)

The oddity with the mother is strange, though!!

Also where did "dit Honore" come from? The descendents most certianly switched to using "Henry" as their surname, which always seemed like a very big jump to me. Most of my other Quebecois ancestors either dropped the dit name or took the exact dit name as their surname (IE Cliche dit Noel to Noel or Rousseau dit Gervais to Rousseau, etc.)
I wonder if this is him in the 1861 Census?

 

"Ontario Census, 1861," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MQ7F-CNW : 5 September 2017), Peter Henry, Sombra, Lambton, Ontario, Canada; citing p. 19, line 11; Library and Archives Canada film number C-1041, Public Archives, Toronto; FHL microfilm 2,435,861.
Henry is probably a corruption of Honoré, which was the dit name associated with the family.  It's hard to say whether it was Anglicized by the family, or written down incorrectly by the census taker.  The census record doesn't link back to an image for further inspection.

Edit: Just re-read your description pointing out that descendants are named Henry.  So it seems that this was done to Anglicize the name.

The dit name Honoré comes from the founder of the Tison/Tesson/Theson etc. lineage.  Again, we have problems with duplicates, but you can find him under Honoré-Louis Tesson-81, Honoré-Louis Tesson-83, or Honoré Louis Tesson-61.

Given all the duplicates, sourcing issues, and some date discrepancies, I'll try to spend some time this weekend sorting things out a bit for this family.
Thanks - very much appreciated with the help sorting this out!

I've changed Pierre and his father on my branch of the tree to have LNAB of "Tesson" and swapped the dit name to the "Other Last Name" field. I did propose a merge of one of the duplicate Joseph's to my Joseph, though stopped there for now. Pierre is Tesson-93 and Joseph is Tesson-92.
dit Honoré comes from the name of the founder of the line, Honoré Tesson, it is a frequent occurence that children get the given name of their father added as a dit name to differentiate them from namesake cousins.
+6 votes

I added baptisms for Joseph and Pierre and proposed several merges.

Marie Angelique Remond married Jacob Cachet / Gauchet February 12, 1759, at St-Jean-François-Régis (St-Philippe).

Marie Remond, widow of Jacob Cachet, married Joseph Teson dit Honore September 29, 1766, at St-Jean-François-Régis (St-Philippe).

 

by Karen Lowe G2G6 Pilot (192k points)
Perfect - thank you! That solves the mystery of the prevalent "Cachet" surname. I should have figured it was likely that she had married more than once.

Wonder if there are any children from the first marriage. Interesting!

Hello Kristen:  As all of my father's ancestry is French-Canadian, I have many years of experience in researching Quebec records. I have a subscription to the University of Montreal genealogy site; PRDH: https://www.genealogie.umontreal.ca/en/home

This is one of the very best secondary sources for French Canadian genealogy. You buy search credits and they do not expire until used.

As the LDS Church site, FamilySearch.org is not indexed, I use PRDH to find the records and dates and then browse FamilySearch to get the original parish records. I have found that the Quebec Church records are over 95% complete and are some of the best preserved collections in the world.  I have found the same information as Karen Tobo has given above.  I note that Joseph TISON HONRE and Marie Angelique RAYMOND had at least eight children and there was a son named, Pierre, baptized in 1771, BUT he only lived for five months, so not your Pierre.  Now that we seem to have the names correct, I will search a bit more.  You may e-mail me direct at jllaboss@telus,net if you wish.  I can share the PRDH family images if you wish.

Jim LaBossiere-31

 

Hello again:

I have done PRDH searches for ANY marriage of ANY Pierre TISON or HONORE between 1750 - 1824 [That is the end of the current PRDH marriage indexing] and there is no such marriage found. I also searched for ANY Olive DRAPER between 1740 - 1849 [PRDH current end of individual record indexing]. There is NO Olive DRAPER.There are a number od Draper females. Perhaps she had a different forename or the marriage was NOT in Quebec.

Hi yet again:  I also have a subscription to BMS2000, the website for the association of Quebec genealogical societies. http://www.bms2000.org/en

They have indexed the Quebec parish records to after 1899. I searched for ANY marriage of ANY "TIS" or  "HON" male to ANY "DRA" female between 1750 - 1880. No record could be found. I suspect that Olive Draper used a different forename or again, the union was NOT in Quebec.

 

Belated thanks for all your help! I am fairly certain Olive Draper and Pierre Henry were married in Ontario, as they ended up there eventually. It would make sense, I think, as Olive's family were originally from the US.

I'm super glad the naming confusion got sorted out, though. That seems to be the biggest hurdle with my Quebecois ancestors.
+6 votes
have put a short bio for his mother in her profile, as a note, the name at birth is Marie Angélique, neither is a middle name, such are very rarely used in French Canadian culture nor in their ancestors.  She mostly goes by the name Marie, might not have liked Angélique, which she got from her godmother.  Also, women kept their own family names.
by Danielle Liard G2G6 Pilot (659k points)
+3 votes

His father is my 6th great grandfather.  For the descendants of Honoré Louis Tesson that settled in Carondelet, in the St. Louis area, the Honore original family name was Tesson Honore, sometimes signed only "Honore" or "Tesson". Later, the Honore was dropped and some of the family became known simply as Tesson.  There is a Tesson street in St. Louis.  

I hired Robert E. Parkin, Genealogical Research and Producetions, 6611 Clayton Road, Room 104, St Louis, MO 63117, who was at the time the president of the Missouri Historical society to research my family.  That was before one could look everything up on the internet.  

The family has also been included in the book 
Creoles of St Louis, by Paul Edmond Beckwith, Nixon-Jones Printing Company, 1893,

by Janne Gorman G2G6 Mach 4 (41.4k points)

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