Joseph
DAVID dit LACOURSE
Helpful background for understanding names and places that may appear in Joseph's Québec records.
Québec has been described by several names during different periods of its history. Knowing the period name can make older records easier to recognize.
Thanks to Micheline Gadbois MacDonald for providing this information.
When the first settlers came to Québec from France, it was a custom to add a "dit" nickname to the surname. The English translation of "dit" is "said." Colonists of Nouvelle France used dit names as distinguishers. A settler might use one to differentiate a branch of the family from siblings, sometimes choosing a name connected with the place to which the family had relocated.
A dit name could also result from a casual adoption or from honoring the family that had raised someone. In other cases it identified the town or village in France from which the person originated. The custom ended around 1900, when people increasingly used only one name, either the dit nickname or the original surname.
Source: American-French Genealogical Society, Woonsocket, Rhode Island (www.afgs.org/ditnames/index1.html)
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Birth — 1803
1818 - Canada's border is defined as the 49th Parallel from Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains.
1820 - January 29 - George IV becomes King of England1830 - June 26 - William IV becomes King of England1837 - June 20 - Victoria becomes Queen of England1841 - February 11 – Act of Union - The two colonies of The Canadas are merged into the United Province of Canada
1843 - The Christmas card is invented (Sir Henry Cole and John Callcott Horsley, England) 1845 - The rubber band is invented (Stephen Perry, England)1852-53 - The Grand Trunk Railway receives its charter.1854 - The French seigneurial system of land tenancy is finally abolished in Canada East.1857 - Ottawa chosen by Queen Victoria as the capital of the united colony of Canada.1867 - Canada becomes a sovereign nation by an act of the British Parliament (the British North America Act). Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick are united as the Dominion of Canada.
1867 - July 1 - John A. Macdonald becomes Prime Minister of Canada 1868 - The typewriter is invented (Christopher Latham Sholes, United States)1873 - November 7 - Alexander Mackenzie becomes Prime Minister of Canada1878 - October 17 - John A. Macdonald becomes Prime Minister of Canada 1884 - Photographic film is invented (George Eastman, United States)1885 - November 7 - Canadian Pacific railroad completed (Montreal to Vancouver)1887 - June 23 – The Rocky Mountains Park Act becomes law in Canada, creating that nation's first national park, Banff National Park. 1891 - The zipper is invented (Whitcomb L. Judson, United States)1891 - June 16 - John Abbott becomes Prime Minister of Canada1892 - December 5 - John Sparrow David Thompson becomes Prime Minister of Canada1894 - December 21 - Mackenzie Bowell becomes Prime Minister of Canada1896 - May 1 - Charles Tupper becomes Prime Minister of Canada1896 - July 11 - Wilfrid Laurier becomes Prime Minister of Canada
Death — 1897View charts and other tools for this ancestor and family.
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