Should parishes be included in pre-1790-France profile location fields for immigrants who lived in New France?

Question

This is a continuation so to speak of G2G's Place categories in France.

Based on the above-mentioned G2G question, and keeping in mind the special case of pioneers who once lived in Nouvelle-France who were born in France and possibly married or died, or both, in France, it appears generally agreed to at minimum show profile location fields involved in the following form:

• Village or city, ancient French province, France (e.g. Tourouvre, Perche, France).

Although there has been considerable discussion about the pros and cons of also including some form of parish designation in such location fields, it appears worthwhile to spend so more time in order to reach consensus..

An option preferred by some including me would be to adopt the following form:

• Village or city (parish), ancient French province, France (e.g. Tourouvre (Saint-Aubin), Perche, France).

Which raises questions as to whether such bracketing of parishes is destined to be banned by WT.

The advantages of showing parishes bracketed in this manner include the folllowing aspects

• The village or city is always shown first in location fields.

• A parish is included in the location field only if available, if it does not duplicate the village or city.

• Knowledge of parish in location field facilitates quick referencing to crucial geographical and/or religious aspects.

• Etc.

Comments

Hi Claude,

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand the necessity of having a separate post regarding this topic.  While I appreciate your input, I believe that the original post offers a sufficient channel for voicing your opinion on the matter.  Opening multiple posts could pose a challenge when trying to integrate feedback to inform our decisions about French categorization.

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Suggestion to make separate G2G in Isabelle's. Danielle seems to be in accordance with this suggestion. Consensus is far from reached. I think this separate Q2G question should stand for anyone in Wikitree to respond. G2G Forum is a free-ranging community.

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Also, emphasis on Place categories in France & Should parishes be included in pre-1790-France profile location fields for immigrants who lived in New France questions is, respectively, on categories & location fields.

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Duplicated from very recent comments in Place categories in France G2G question:

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it was different parish AND different diocese, and those were in different provinces, hence impossible to ascertain which was right unless data was found on the other side.  So I left it at France only.

commented 7 minutes ago by Danielle Liard G2G6 Pilot

That is an option best addressed by the profile editor closest to the situation. The bracketed parish option is an option. There is no obligation. But the option is officially made available. Nothing more. Nothing less.

commented 58 seconds ago by Claude Lambert G2G6

Answer 1

I favor including the parish name when it is known and when it adds some information. As there seems to be only one parish in Tourouvre, I would not include it in this case; but for a city with several parishes I would definitely include it, as it is needed to find original records, and usually corresponds to a rather precise geographical area.

By the way, the name of the parish is not necessarily the same as the name of the church. I have never researched Perche, but I would bet that when a man from Tourouvre marries in a nearby village, the record says something like "X de la paroisse de Tourouvre et Y de cette paroisse" and not "X de la paroisse Saint-Aubin etc.". Even in cities it is not always the case, one example being the parish of Montierneuf in Poitiers (the church is Saint-Jean-l'Évangéliste, but its name is almost never used in records).

I do not think that the "for immigrants who lived in New France" part of the question is relevant. If people where born or married in France, then the same rules should apply for the places of these events whether they later emigrated or not.

Maybe we should make a special case for people for whom the baptism record has not been found, and whose place of birth is mentioned in a marriage record but is not readily recognizable. If we try to put the place name in a standard form, there is a big risk that some misleading extrapolated information be included. It is probably better to copy the ambiguous place name as it is in the record, and indicate in research notes the possible interpretation(s).

Comments

I would hope that eventually it should be irrelevant if such French-born profile is for an immigrant who lived in New France or not.

However, time marches on, there is division of work between Quebecois & French Roots projects, and immigrants from France who lived in New France occupy special importance in terms of Quebecois Project priorities. 

I will comment separately about other issues you raise.

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Baptism record for my ancestor Aubin Lambert says simply Saint-Aubin, no Tourouvre, no paroisse. Cursory look at list of Percheron Immigration profiles suggests pioneers' baptism record make no mention of paroisse either explicitly of as paroisse so and so. My research of Percheron Immigration category's 330+ profiles suggests the vast major of these pioneers were likely born in the parishes were they lived. Perche province is peppered with church plaque identifying the likely birth location of these Percheron. Saint-Aubin de Tourouvre church has a plaque inscribed with over 30 pioneers. How does Quebecois Project prove or disprove is these plaques are inscribed correctly? I suggest by placing an emphasis of pinpointing parishes for a start.

Answer 2

Simple answer, no, if the city and province are known.  Parishes and dioceses also change over time.  For instance, I had a profile I recently worked on where the diocese was named on the marriage record, but on consulting PRDH pioneer record, they gave a different diocese.  Everything else being the same.

That people lived in a certain parish is moot.  If there are different denominations present, such as Catholic and Protestant in France, say in La Rochelle, both denominations claimed a certain territory within the city.  Which would have overlapped to a greater or lesser degree.  So which parish was he born in?  Irrelevant.  He was born in La Rochelle, Aunis, France.  Bio can contain date as to which church/temple he was baptized at, if known.  But it doesn't belong in the actual location field.  with or without brackets.

On this side of the big pond, a whole lot of parishes are the only name for a specific location, such as Ste-Famille, St-François, St-Jean, all on Île d'Orléans,  They indicate a more precise location than just Île d'Orléans.  But when you come to Montréal island, there are various villages which sprouted up, including Lachine, Pointe-aux-Trembles, Rivière-des-Prairies, and so on.  All of them originally had baptisms, marriages and funerals done in Notre-Dame de Montréal, which was the first church on the island.  Including Notre-Dame in death field for instance is misleading, say the guy died in Lachine.  Again, the place to say where the funeral was held is in bio, not location field.

Comments

I don't understand this emphasis on exceptions. Bracketed parish is an option, to be invoked if and only if applicable. And we are talking about France not New France.

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Religious register for Lachine's Saints-Anges parish opened on October 31, 1676.

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Yes, parishes and diocese change over time.  But the location field is where we put the location as it was called in the time the birth, death or marriage occurred. 

That a person lived in a particular parish is not moot.

Both religious parishes and government administrative entities describe a specific location with specific boundaries at a given period in time. Especially in periods of time when the government did not track populations and most of the records which exist are religious records, a religious location is as valid a location as a government entity.

In the time period when people immigrated from France to New France, the Catholic parishes were used to describe where property was located in property transactions. See Profile of Jean Crevier (Crevier-132)  When religious parish locations are what are used to describe property locations in transactions, then they are clearly what the people of the time used to describe the location.  And our style guidelines say that in location fields we should use what the people of the time would have used.  Since the people of the time used the parishes to describe locations in their important documents, then it is appropriate to use the parishes in the location fields of profiles.

Our guidelines say that the location fields should reflect what the people of the time would have used.  On the other hand, they say that category names are for the convenience of grouping and need not follow the "at the time" usage.  Our suggestion checking routines are also set up this way.  They check the time period and see if the location fits the time.  Thus while the fact that boundaries of a parish, and what diocese it belonged to changed over time may be valid considerations for determining whether you want to include parishes in and dioceses in category names, such changes are not a valid reason for excluding parishes from location fields.

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The Crevier family were rich, with lots of property, which is not true of most immigrants to New France.  See below for more.

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I am against the bracketing as that seems to be the thing that will cause problems - BUT anything to help distinguish between folks with the same name is helpful!  I had so much trouble on my Quebecois folks with the same name as the parent thing that any fact that separates them out will help to keep me on the right path - thanks for trying to get this straightened out

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Navarro, I agree about brackets. I would not put them in any guideline. For one thing there have already been signs that they might be banned in the future. And I think they tend to clutter the location field.

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Re banning of brackets, according to Data Doctors Project, item 10.9 600 Location, an error report is produced for each of the 3 location fields in a profile:

• 613, 643, 673 Parentheses in location: Parentheses should not be in location fields. Either remove the information to the biography if it does not belong in the location field, or remove the parentheses if the place name is correct with them.

There does not appear to be any strict enforcement of these errors. But if bracketing is not in the cards, what is the consensus regarding inclusion or not of parish in location field?

Answer 3

This separate thread does matter as there are a good many people like myself who follow tags for Quebecois but not French Roots.

Until such time as we get categories set up for the parishes and applied to all or nearly all profiles, I think it is important to have the parishes in the location field.

From the point of view of my research, the Catholic parish is the most important piece of location information for genealogical purposes.  The Catholic religion and Catholic Church played an extremely important role in the settlement of New France.  Very few Protestants immigrated to New France during the period in which it was New France as it was made clear by the government and the companies that no Protestants need apply.  If the immigrant was even unable to produce proof of his baptism or confirmation as a Catholic, the immigrant had to undergo baptism again and renounce any other religion upon arrival.

Also, while in modern times, all of France is part of one muncipality or another, in the time we are talking about here, that was not necessarily true.  People who were from rural areas and used to a farming life were preferred as settler immigrants for New France.

If someone was baptised in a church in a village, it did not mean that the person or his parents lived in that village.  But if the baptismal record says the parents were "of this parish," it is highly likely the person was born somewhere in the parish. Thus, often the parish is the location most accurately supported by the records.  The records rarely refer to the village name.  The village name often is extrapolated from the information in the parish records and the location of the church.

And when the person was from a larger city with multiple parishes, including the parish in the location field helps to narrow down the location within the city and get one closer to members of the same family.

Comments

If we even have a baptism for the person.  When speaking of immigrants to New France, I don't know how many times I have come across marriage records where a parish and diocese are named, what is not stated is if they were native of that parish, or if it was their provenance.  I use Fichier origine a lot for immigrants, and very often, the place named in marriage record is provenance, they were born and baptized elsewhere.  I am speaking of those for whom a baptism has been found.  So to include the parish named on marriage in birth field can be highly misleading.  Plus, when all we have is a parish, and the parish name is something like St-Pierre, which is found in many places, which one is it?  

My point is that the parish and diocese should go in the bio, not the location field.  France is small geographically, and villages or lieu-dit are not far apart.  For large cities, a person may have moved from one parish to another, and if we do not have the baptism, then naming one parish over another is again possibly misleading.  Paris as a city has multiple parishes, as well as being a diocese and archdiocese.  

And there are actually quite a number of people who were baptized in protestant churches who came here, particularly from the area of La Rochelle.  Many of them said they were from a Catholic parish in La Rochelle on their marriage here, but when their baptism is found, it was in a protestant temple.  I don't know if they all were made to renounce the heresy as it was viewed then or not, there are some records of renunciations but hard to find them.  Just the confirmations are hard to find as it is, and those were for anybody past a certain age who could not show proof of having received that sacrament.

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Well yes thank goodness Mary Jensen!  that is the key to such a good record in the New France families!  Yay  -yep  glad the church was into that keeping track or we would know so little in so many cases - and I know that it is not only there - in the United States of America - some southern states have Parishes instead of Counties - they are used like that - and if you look at the New France records they served as both really - I think that it should be used like Counties are in more modern times - and a series of maps should be available so people can see what is where - I know I looked and found some when I was first researching my New France people in the days of slow modems - so someone with a free weekend ought to be able to set up a freespace page or project page with maps for various Parishes from then and show what they are now - anyone like that idea?

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The map of parishez exists and is therefore manageable for WikiTree application for New France because immigrants and their descendants who lived in New France were concentrated in relatively new locations.

But the above G2G question relates to pre-1790-France location fields for immigrants who lived in New France, which locations were widely dispersed across France. The task of showing these French parish in a customized map does not exist, is a considerably more daunting task ,and not therefore feasible in the short term.

Answer 4

Working closely with the Quebecois Project, the French Roots Project needs to play a leading role in shaping the outcome of the G2G question at hand.

Comments

In this regarding, I am thinking specifically of need for location fields applicable to pre-1790-France immigrants who lived in New France to be harmonized in respective Quebecois and French Roots guidelines in order to minimize differences from profile editors' viewpoint.

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It occurs to me that in the future to really become a world tree we must somehow be able to get some flexibility into profiles - this and other G2G conversations show that our fields we fill out to enter a persons profile are not working right for everyone - especially some non US - Americans and this needs to happen somehow that the form needs to fit the culture of the place and all places could have potential differences that just do not seem to match up to the current way we are doing it - maybe we need different versions of the Profile (I know it would mean a lot of change to the database as well) for different countries - Names in some places are not set up the way we have it - locations here - that seems to mess up if too much is put in there - I mean I see why people went to brackets but that is not the answer

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Thank you Navarro. I'm am left unclear as to whether or not you agree with my perceived need to minimize guideline differences regarding profile  location fields in which both Quebecois and French Roots projects are involved.

In terms of bracketing, I hope you are aware of my above comment acknowledging existence of 613, 643, 673 Parentheses in location error reporting.

I end that comment by asking: What is the consensus regarding inclusion or not of parish in location field? 

I am not sure we know the answer to this question.

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That is a lot!  I said in a comment above that I would not be "for" bracketing - but I do understand why it was used and I do wish there was a n easy way to have the Parishes that are on there fixed somehow and stay - and I am sure many will say move them to the Biography which is all well and fine except the inclusion in the place name gives me the impression you had wished to have them in a searchable sort of place

I hate to see this end in a non-answer sort of place as no one has a good way to fix it really - it seems like they should definitely be there somewhere as they are so important for that time - and help differentiate so much for that time period -

OK I know it is not good form to ask a question when answering a question but it is not clear to me if one can just leave the parish and somehow have the system recognize that if another thing is there and it is in the list of city, county, country so it becomes city, parish, county country would that not solve it?  Then maybe the bot could go through and un-bracket those very many and just put them in order with the rest of the location?

I am sorry I had misunderstood the question when I responded before and thought this pertained to those in New France as well as France - and now I see that it does not - still when you get across it seems that any aid to finding that info you need for the person in your history is important and I hate to dump off any helps

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WikiTree profile location field has bot prompting but it is useless - try it out. One has to write out the field completely on one's own in accordance with project guideline requirements.

There is too much emphasis in this discussion about bracketing per se and not enough on resolving parish inclusion (or not) in location fields. 

Bracketing adds genealogical value-added to the location fields and associated location field error reporting can easily be changed to overlook the parathenses in location field.

But, push comes to shove, bracketing can be dispensed with.

The big picture question remains: What is the consensus regarding inclusion or not of parish in location field? 

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Well had I known the whole story I would have not said I was against bracketing - I mean if it means all those Parish indications would be dumped then no - change the policy to include the brackets - why would anyone want to dump all that work down the drain?

Now I get that brackets throw an error message - so change something - that is what they went by then and are we not supposed to put it into th profile as they would have then?

I can relate to the fact that having the Parish on some profiles and not others is not neat and tidy - and that category work is trying to standardize the place name protocol - and that is good , I understand some of it was quite a confusing mess - but do not throw out the baby with the bathwater - jeeze

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Regarding 'so change something' about error messaging, this may be easier said than done judging from my location field finalization experience working with Guy Constantineau, former Quebecois Project Leader, as well  Isabelle's only comment in this thread, which starts with the words, "Navarro, I agree about brackets. I would not put them in any guideline."

Still the major genealogical value-added of contemplated convention for optional parish bracketing in location field is that: 

• Bracket makes it 100% clear that this refers to a parish, and nothing else.
• Location field always starts with city, town or village.
• Inclusion of parish in field is especially valuable in narrowing geography within Paris and other multiple-diocese or multiple-church cities and towns.
• Inclusion of parish in location field is easily feasible whereas parish-level categorization is neither feasible nor desirable.
• Optional parish inclusion in location field reflects genealogical reality - a major plus.
• The location field convention emulates^ the University of Montreal PRDH's vast experience reconstructing and maintaining over 2,350,000 BMS certificates drawn from ancient Quebec religious registers in the period up to 1800.

^ For more detailed treatment comparing this proposed convention with PRDH practice refer to my most recent comment in G2G's Place categories in France 

I would be most interested in knowing reasons behind :

• Data Doctor project guideline stating that  'Parentheses should not be in location fields.' 
• Isabelle saying she would not put brackets in any guideline. 

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Well I can see why she said that - It throws errors and is not how it is supposed to be done going forward - but the fact that it must have been the way to do it at one time so was done is the only conclusion I can draw from the existence of all those - and I just think some way has to be made for the conversion of the way it is to an acceptable procedure where the Parish is included - yesterday morning taking the time to go through the new plan for place categories and the other thread I realized the seriousness of the question's ramifications and became alarmed that that work is to be discarded -

As for the fact that the change over time is one of the problems stated about that information I suggest that perhaps someone could attempt to do a spreadsheet or evolving map of the changes that did occur to refer to when looking at a specific time period similar to the work done on North American Place Names - an invaluable resource to correct place names for time there - lots of work but what about genealogy is not a lot of work?

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Can you point to link about work done on North American Place Names? 

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Your argument on the other thread makes no sense though - the 1666 and 1667 census thing has nothing to do with this Parish thing - You can not trade apples for oranges - so there is that - hope to see them all intact if I ever get out of new Netherland and back to New France and France

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The issue is an admittedly subtle, somewhat off-topic, aspect introduced in an attempt to trade-off new contemplated parish guideline preparation resources  for long-outstanding unfinished census categorization business. You our at liberty to ignore this aspect Navarro. It's back to New France and France parishes all the way for sure.

Can you point to link about work done on North American Place Names?