In my early years of genealogical research,, I had concentrated on discovering my Speare ancestors and at the time a fruitless effort to learm more about my maternal grandparents. I knew little about my fathers family since his father had died in California when I was very young. While I did know my fathers mother, she lived in Canada and had remarried and because of the distance and lack of express roads our visits were perhaps only monthly. In time, I came to realize that my grandmother’s family had deeps roots in French Canada as early as 1635. In time I found many women ancestors were Filles de Roi (Daughters of the King) which was important in Canadian history. Many or the men were important contributors not only Canada, but also, Detroit and Michigan history. With my love of history and familiarity with Detroit, I was enthralled. I have much to tell about these French-Canadian ancestors.
There are many family lineage lines to the Speare/Nitz union. There are a number of ancestors who came as Filles du Roi and Filles a Marier. At this writing there are at least ten (10) directly linked to the these groups of woman. I will show them separately and highlight what is known about many individuals.
Briefly, the Filles du Roi (Daughters of the King) refers to a group of about 770 women who came to New France between 1663-1673. They were specifically recruited to come and marry in this new land. Their passage was paid for by the crown and they were given dowry’s and some household goods. The came to Quebec, Montreal and Three Rivers. While many wild rumors abound, these young women were vetted by local priests and or convents. Many of the girls were orphans or had been placed in convents because their families were unable to support them
The Fille a Marier (before the Kings Daughters) is a phrase applied to the marriageable age women who came to New France in the period 1634-1662.
However, this is a work of a lifetime and I have started late. To get a sense of the number of relations that brought us to today. We each have only two parents and four grandparents but if one goes back ten generations (8th great grandparents) 1024 separate individuals are involved. Wouldn’t it be nice if we knew more about each of them? They all had impact on who, where and why we are today.
What follows is my or my wife’s direct line lineage to these woman and their generational stories.