Complicated cousins

As a child traveling to visit family in Highgate, Vermont I would ask how people we met were related and most of the time Dad just replied that we were cousins. It seemed like the entire town was related to us. As I began to study family history I realized just how complicated the relationships were. My Chicoine-Raymond-Dupuis ancestors and their blended families of Bouvier Lemelin, Cook and Raymond half siblings began to settle there in the 1830's and first appear in the 1840 census. My Chicoine-Beaulac ancestors appear in nearby Swanton in the 1820's moving back and forth to Canada until the early 20th century when my Dad and his family finally settled there for good.

Chicoine- Bouvier-Cook-Raymond cousins ca 1920

This confusing mix can be seen through the story of my 2nd great grandmother Salome Dupuis. She grew up in the town of Lacadie (L'Acadie) in the province of Quebec situated in the Richelieu river valley south of Montreal. It was founded by her ancestors. Her grandparents Charles Dupuis and Anne Doucet arrived there around 1770 after meeting and marrying in exile in Connecticut during the Acadian expulsion in 1763..

Ste. Marguerite Parish church Lacadie QC

Salome was the youngest of a large Dupuis family. She was married in 1840  at age 18 to Louis Lemelin age 42. Louis was from a Lacadie family and had married there in 1816 before Salome was born,  to Marguerite Herbert. From that first marriage 12 children were born but only two sons, and a girl of 10 were living with him in Napierville when his wife died.

Louis married Salome in 1851, a woman of about the same age as his sons. She became a second mother for his young daughter Marie Marguerite. Louis and Salome had a baby which they named Salome but sadly she died during infancy. Their 4 other children thrived.Louis and Salome lived most of their married life in the town of Henryville, only one of their four children was born elsewhere, in 1844 in Napierville.Then almost 9 years and 5 children later he died leaving Salome age 27 alone with her four living children.

How did she support herself after her husband's death? Or did she depend on her extended family for help? It is quite possible that her stepsons Leon and Louis both close to her own age were still living at home. (Louis' sons by his first marriage.) They later married but not until after 1850. Using census and church records I have tried to trace her marriages and migrations from her hometown of Lacadie, QC  to the border towns of Henryville, Quebec and Highgate, Vermont. In the process, like many other French-speaking  immigrants to an English speaking world her name was anglicized to Sally Wells (a translation of Du-puis or Du puit - well)

Salome Dupuis' sister in law Domithilde Allard  was married to Salome's brother Joseph Dupuis. Domithilde's sister Emeliene had married Marcel Raymond brother of Julien Raymond. The Raymond family probably knew the Dupuis family as they lived in Lacadie from before her birth until around 1829 when they moved first to Napierville and then to Henryville.. After 1837 the two oldest Raymond sons were living in Highgate Vermont just across the border. Since Henryville was the nearest Catholic parish to Highgate in the 1830's it is possible that Salome and Julien met at family weddings and baptisms.  However they met, Salome wed  Julien Raymond in 1851. He was a recent widower age 33 with at least three children under 10 according to the 1850 census but perhaps 7 under 10 according to the ages of children listed in the 1860  US census who were born before 1850. 

Bouvier-Chicoine-Cook blended family

Julien Raymond had lived in the US since before 1840 - perhaps immigrating there as a result of the uprising of 1837 and its disruptions of life in the area of the Richelieu valley. He may have come with his father Antoine and mother Marie Garand and sibling Marcel who also appears in the 1840 census. Both men are listed under their surname's "dit" name, the nickname Toulouse, he as Jules and his brother as Marshall..Julien who married Theotiste Fontaine in 1837 in St. Valentin has no children in the census but they would go on to have 7 children. In the same 1840 census my Dad's great grandfather Jean Baptiste Chicoine (John Chequin)  and family were listed as residents of nearby Swanton, VT..

Chicoine Lemelin (Lemnah) cousins 1918

Salome and Julie and their blended family of at least 7 and perhaps 11 lived in Highgate in a section that was called Frenchtown. In an 1871 map of the area there are at least two Raymond families listed (Rainmount). Adult children of their previous marriages: Julien and Theotiste, Salome and Louis Lemelin also settled in Highgate and some of their descendants wound up marrying each other. Eventually Jean Baptiste Chicoine's children and the descendants of the Raymond-Lemelin clan married. Two of my Dad's grandmothers were Raymonds - Adelaide the daughter of Julien and Salome and Virginia - the daughter of his brother Marcel and Emeliene Allard.  Virginia Raymond was married three times and raised a blended family of Bouvier, Chicoine and Cook children thereby  adding to the confusion.  

No wonder my Dad's explanation for everyone we would meet in Highgate was - we are just cousins!