Sunday, January 1, 2012

Clarifying the Albert Line

In an earlier post (Connecting Canada to France), the Albert's earliest ancestor was known to be Pierre Albert based on a genealogy book written by Gabriel Drouin. I have since discovered that information is apparently a mistake. As I trace the ancestry back from Ferdinand Albert (Auguste Albert's father), I see the line to be represented in the following graphic:

The Albert book written by Mr. Drouin did not include sources so I cannot confirm the lineage that he suggested. What I have confirmed is that Gabriel Albert did have a son named Pierre but the Drouin book references another Pierre Albert who came from Lucon area of France. I have seen no linkage of this Pierre Albert to our Ferdinand Albert. The Pierre Albert line described and highlighted in the Drouin book derived from the Kamouraska area of Canada, but we know that Ferdinand's ascendants (our correct lineage shown above) came from Normandy in France and Caraquet in Canada. What I believe is the spot in the Drouin book where the mistake begins is shown circled in red.

Source: Acadiensis, Vol VII, 1907, David Russell Jack, ed.
Gabriel Albert's first son was Pierre and they both were among the founding families of Caraquet who received land grants from the British government. The image above shows an early map of Caraquet with the Albert names among the founding families of the town. The map also shows Caraquet Island where Gabriel moved his family to after the turmoil of the Acadian expulsion in 1755. Gabriel's second son was Jean Baptiste (see green arrow below) whose descendants included Ferdinand, Auguste, myself and the other Albert recipients of this blog.