Collins.

The Melting Pot Called Canada.

Marie Odile Samson and Pierre Toussain Collins and family, circa. 1910.

Introduction.

This section covers the ancestry of Joseph Welly Erneste Collins, known as William or Willy Collins, someone whose own life appears to have been unremarkable, based upon the little information available. Willy was my great-grandfather, who I never met. He died before I was born. The stories of his ancestors are rich with struggle, success, and fortitude. They are people from diverse origins who came together in a new land, fleeing poverty and persecution or seeking adventure and opportunity. Surprisingly, many of their backgrounds diverge from the Franco-Québecois histories that I had expected to uncover. Although this research does not definitively answer the question of the origins of the Collins family name, it may shed some light on that topic.

Before the Collins family immigrated to the United States from Québec in about 1887, when Willy’s parents Pierre Toussain Collins and his wife Marie Odile Samson relocated with ten of their twelve children from Trois-Rivières, Québec to Holyoke, Massachusetts, they and their ancestors had merged six or more generations of ancestry from France (Catholics and Huguenots), Britain, Switzerland, Germany, and perhaps, the British American Colonies.

Research.

This research on Willy Collins’ Québec family history is based firmly upon the baptismal, marriage, and burial registers that were established during the origins of the French colonies in what was then known as New France (today’s Canada). Roman Catholic priests kept detailed records and starting about 1679, these registers were kept in duplicate so in the case where one was lost, the other likely survived. They have been reviewed, translated, and meticulously documented and maintained by the University of Montréal and The Drouin Genealogic Institute accessible online through the PRDH-IGD and LaFrance databases. To build out the stories of some of these individuals, I turned to other sources.

Sources.

Acadian-home.org
Ancestry.com
Archive.org
Archives.novascotia.ca
The Baltzer Family in America: The Descendants of Johannes Christopher Baltzer by Philip Baltzer. 2003.
Before the King’s Daughters: the Filles à Marier, 1634-1662 by Peter J. Gagne. 2002.
Biographie.ca
The Descendants of Hans Heinrich Schenkel by Don Shankle. 26 August 2000.
Filles à Marier: French-Canadian Heritage Society of Michigan, accessed 22 Aug 2020.
GenealogieQuébec.com/en/Lafrance
Genealogybank.com
A Great and Nobel Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland by John Mack Fragher. 2005.
King’s Daughters and Founding Mothers: the Filles du Roi, 1663-1673 by Peter J. Gagne. 2001.
Library and Archives of Canada
Oral Histories by Douglas Dean, August-December 2020.
Origins of the Pioneers of Acadia, According to the Depositions Made by Their Descendants at Belle-Ile-en-Mer in 1767 by Stephen A. White.
Our French-Canadian Ancestors by Thomas J. Laforest. 1997.
PRDH-IGD.com
The first Acadian Census, Port Royal, 1671. Translated by Lucie LeBlanc Consentino from the extracted study Les origins franchises des premieres families acadiennes by Nicole T. Bujold and Maurice Caillebeau, edited by the Conseil General of Vienna in 1979.
Wikipedia.com
Wikitree.com

Some Useful Terms.

Seigneur - The seigneurial system was a royal institutional form of land distribution established in New France. The seigneur granted a piece of land to a family. The family would engage in subsistence farming. The seigneurial system involved the personal dependency of censitaires (tenants) on the seigneur. The land was granted as fiefs and seigneuries to the most influential colonists who, in turn, granted tenancies.

Fief – an estate of land.

Arriere-fief – similar to a subletting of a fief.

Livres – Currency of France until 1794. French for “pound.”

Arpents- Land measurement. One arpent equals about 0.85 acres.

Fleuve – French word for “river.”

Syndic de habitants -a chief civil officer, translates to “trustee of the inhabitants.”

Bourgeois – middle class or of some financial means.

Conseil Souverain – similar to a court, translates to “Sovereign advice.”

Planters – an antiquated English term for farmers.

Dit Names or Nick Names.

You will notice that a substantial number of the Québecois and Acadians have two last names or family names. One (or both) of the names was passed down from the father. The dit name may describe a variety of things such as the first name of the father, the place of origin, a profession, or a physical attribute or behavior. Military service often led to the assignment of a nickname by the other members of the troops. Sometimes one child would adopt a new name and essentially start a new family line. An example of this was the Mellanson Laverdure family where two sons chose to call themselves Mellanson and a third son went by Laverdure.

The usual convention is to express the original last name and follow it with the word dit and then the “nick name.” Following the lead of the PRDH, I have chosen not to do that. Instead you will just see the two last names expressed consecutively. These family names evolved over time from generation to generation, it is often unclear which of these two names the individual actually used on a day-to-day basis. Including them both, is just simpler.

The full pedigree of Willy Erneste Collins is available from me in .pdf format. If you are interested, please contact me at the email address below.