Five acts, five generations, and what the grades say
Steve put five Drouin frames in the inbox the same afternoon the family was chosen — the direct Comte line, one marriage per generation, as his PRDH probe had found them. Unrenamed, as the method asks; the frame token is the key. This is what an evening of reading them produced, and what it did not.
The ladder
| Act | Parish, date | What it is | |
|---|---|---|---|
| S-0002 | Louis Comte × Rose David | St-Constant, 1 Feb 1830 | the starting marriage, greffe copy, one clear hand |
| S-0003 | Pierre-Pascal Compte × Véronique Lérigé | St-Philippe, 16 Apr 1787 | his parents’ marriage — the act runs onto the next frame, which we do not hold |
| S-0004 | Pierre Lecomte × Geneviève Boutrice | Lachine, 19 Apr 1751 | Pascal’s parents — both spouses sign |
| S-0005 | Pierre Le Comte × Marie-Charlotte Fournier | Ste-Anne-du-Bout-de-l’Île, Oct 1721 | Pierre’s parents — read from a frame too small for the hand |
| S-0006 | Anne Goupil, veuve of Estienne(?) Comte, tailor, remarries | Notre-Dame de Montréal, 6 Feb 1701 | the immigrant’s widow; the immigrant himself only by reflection |
Every proper name was re-cropped at 3× to 5× before it was typed. On the 6240-pixel St-Philippe frame that works. On the 2400-pixel frames of 1701 and 1721 it does not — the ink is already at the limit of the scan — and the records say so: four readings are marked uncertain, one forename is unread, two surnames are unread. A larger download from the viewer, or the parish’s other register (the greffe copy), is the remedy; guessing is not.
What the acts gave that the répertoire could not
- Occupations and signatures. Louis is a journalier in 1830 and cannot sign; his great-grandfather Pierre signed his own marriage in 1751 — « pierre cont » — and his bride signed hers; their father Pierre was bedeau de la paroisse de Montréal, beadle of Notre-Dame, in 1751; the immigrant was a tailor. Five generations, and the literacy runs downhill.
- A correction in the priest’s own hand. In 1787 the curé wrote Monique for the bride, struck it, and wrote Véronique above — in the margin and in the text. That is the kind of contemporaneous strike-correction the Drouin two-part test names as a mark of an original register.
- An act that corroborates itself. The 1751 groom’s mother is cut off at the margin — « Marie Cha… Fo… » — and then named whole in the witness clause four lines later: « Marie Fournier, mère de l’époux ». The reading we could not make at the margin, the act made for us.
- A date the calendar fixed. The 1751 act’s year is cut at the page edge — « mille sept cens cinquante » and nothing more. But the act says the third bans were read « hier dimanche de Quasimodo », and Quasimodo Sunday was 18 April in 1751 (Easter 11 April) and 5 April in 1750. The act above it on the same page, dated the same day, reads « cinquante un » in full. 1751.
- A second Pascal. The 1830 act names the groom’s father Pascal Comte and has a witness « Pascal Comte, son frère ». Two men of one name in one act, on the first day. He has a file (P-0007) for one reason only: so that nobody merges him into his father. And the répertoire’s two wives for « Pascal » — Véronique Lériger and Marguerite Sorel — are now Q-0002.
What the grades say, and why they are right
build.py index computes the pedigree; nobody types a chain grade. It reads:
- the starting couple — Proven (the act is sighted);
- Pascal and Véronique, and Pierre and Geneviève above them — Probable-Strong: each generation’s marriage is a sighted act, but the joint between generations rests on a parent’s name in one act matching a spouse’s name in another. No document yet says « the Pascal of 1830 is the Pierre-Pascal of 1787 ». A baptism of Louis naming his parents would; so would a baptism of Pascal at Pointe-Claire c. 1760;
- the immigrant couple — Probable: the 1721 groom’s father’s forename is unread, and the identification with the tailor of 1701 stands on a surname, a wife’s surname and a forename that looks consistent.
The temptation, with a clean patriline in hand and PRDH agreeing all the way to 1680, is to call the whole ladder Proven. The rule — a chain is as strong as its weakest joint — is what stops us, and it is the tool, not our restraint, that enforces it. Compiled agreement raises nothing.
What is not done, and is next
- Frame after S-0003 (St-Philippe, 1787): the witnesses and signatures of Pascal’s marriage are on it.
- Larger frames, or the greffe copies, for 1701 and 1721. Everything above generation 4 depends on them.
- Baptisms, which is what turns name-matches into filiations: Louis (St-Philippe or St-Constant, before 1809), Pascal (Pointe-Claire, c. 1755–65), Pierre (Montréal or Lachine, c. 1725–30).
- The immigrant couple’s own marriage — c. 1680 per Steve’s probe, not among the frames.
- Q-0002: the two 1827–28 Comte marriages at St-Constant, sighted, to count the Pascals.
- The other spouses’ lines have not been touched: David, Aguenier, Lériger/St-Ive, Boutrice, Fournier, Goupil. The frontier lists eleven people whose parents are not linked. That is the list.