What we have undertaken

The Scope - Which Baril?

In modern France, excluding major cities, there were approximately 250 BARIL telephone listings in about 2002. Canada boasted of over 3,100 at a time telephone listings were still easy to get. Today, many people only have cell phones with no phone listings. Along with those who re-settled in the United States beginning in the early 1800's, many have said that all Canadian Baril families are descended from a single person, Jean Baril, born in approximately 1646.

Jean emigrated to New France in 1665, settled in the village of Batiscan in the present-day province of Québec, and sired 15 sons during three marriages. If you are a Baril living in North America, you are almost certainly a descendant of Jean. If you know the names of your Baril grandparents and where they were married, you can trace your heritage to Jean.

Outside metropolitain areas, Baril families in modern France are still living in the regions their ancestors occupied at the time of Jean's departure and some have traced their ascendance back to the 1700's, a few even to the 1500's.

The scope of interest for Baril genealogists and historians, therefore, is to map out all possible Baril family activities and movements over the last 400 years, both in France and in North America. Our hope is to re-document the link between those living in North America and those who remained in France.

As of New Year's Day 2002, key documents are still missing.

The Missing Link - A Caution

As of New Year's Day 2002, the documentary links between Baril relatives in France and North American were still missing. New clues have emerged over the last 20 years that are helping to complete picture of the Baril families.

Jean Baril's indentured labour contract and his first marriage contract were tragically lost when fire destroyed the early colonial archives in Québec city. With them went the only hope in North America of accurately identifying his parents and parish of origin in France.

However, thanks to intensive franco-canadian research efforts sponsored by the International Insitute of Notaries, we hope that documents will surface in France, most likely from the Admiralty Archives in Rochefort, especially the indenture contract and ship's manifests that would have been required for Jean to obtain passage across the Atlantic.

You can therefore safely discount irresponsible claims on some Web pages that give a date and place of Jean's birth. The claims are baseless and unprofessional, unless that information now exists. If it does, it will appear here on The Tree section of the website.

If you do come across any specific claim that peeks your interest, please feel free to ask us for an evaluation.

Suzanne and Peter, started working together in 1996. Some of their early correspondence is indicative of their excitement with their research endeavour. Each of them took their own journey in compiling their information about the branch of their tree up from themselves and down from Jean Baril.

These were exiting times for them. This is a page from their original 1996 website and the correspondence that started the ball rolling.