#52 Ancestors - Week 5 - Elizabeth Lebreton (abt. 1876-1962)

This is week 5 (week 3 for me) of the 52 Ancestors Challenge. I'm finding this challenge is helping me to really focus on my research and to think about more than just the names and dates.  Many times I am finding myself with more questions than answers.  I have been finding myself becoming more interested in history and wanting to know what the daily lives were like.  Maybe genealogy should be taught in school along side the history classes.

This week I struggled with who to focus my research on as I have come across very interesting information on some of my ancestors that I would like to write about but will require some deeper research by me, including a field trip to the Canadian Library and Archives to look as some files onsite.  Good thing I am only a 20 minute drive from there!  Stay tuned for an interesting post someday.

My first two posts were about ancestors from my mothers side.  I am going to try and post equally from both sides of my family tree.  This week I am writing about my Great Grandmother, Elizabeth Lebreton.

 Elizabeth Lebreton is my Great-Grandmother, my father's grandmother. She passed away, April 3, 1962, just before I was born, in Grande Anse, Gloucester County, New Brunswick, Canada where she lived the last 4 years of her life.

When Elizabeth, or Eliza as many records refer to her as, was approximately 5 years old her family lived in Inkerman, Gloucester County, New Brunswick, Canada.  Her father was a farmer as many of the men in the area were.  She was the second oldest child living in the household, with an older sister Marie (6) and two younger brothers David (3) and Francis (1).  Also living with them at this time was a Domestic who is listed as the same age as Elizabeth's mother.  So far I have not been able to find any information about this person.  It is unknown if this person was employed by the family or just living with the family.  It seems unusual to me for a farm family to have a domestic as they would typically face struggles to feed their own family, which was not very large (yet) and did not have children extremely close in age.

When when Eliza was approximately 16 years old she was still living in Inkerman, Gloucester County, New Brunswick, Canada and her household consisted of  her parents: Patrice Lebreton and Margaret Comeau; siblings: Mary (18), David (12), Francis (11), Nazaire (8) ad Malvina (2); an aunt, Margaret Lebreton and also her grandparents, Morice (71) and Alice (77) Como (Comeau).  The household was starting to fill up.

Eliza married Jeremie Mazerolle in 1894 in the parish of L'Immaculee Conception in Pokemouche en-haut, Gloucester County, New Brunswick, Canada.  David Lebreton and Marie Anne St. Pierre were their witnesses. David could have been Eliza's brother. I don't know who Marie Anne St. Pierre was but I suspect the St. Pierre family must have a close connection to them as George St. Pierre was a sponsor for their first son's (Leo) baptism. Eliza and Jeremie were both members of the parish of L'Immaculee Conception and continued to be members of this parish as they raised their family and had them baptized there.

Eliza and Jeremie continued to live in Inkerman and had 12 children the last two who were twins spanning 1895 - 1913. I am still working on sourcing the facts for most of the children, who knows maybe I will find more!