After Jim Carrey received an honorary lifetime achievement César award in Paris last week, many comments afterward were about his appearance and, unfortunately, not about his fine effort to deliver a five-minute acceptance speech in French and not about what he said.
As a genealogist, I was pleased to hear him mention his 6X-great-grandfather, Marc François Carré, although he said he was his 3X-great-grandfather. I suspect saying, “arrière-arrière,” i.e., great-great, a few more times may have been tedious for the audience.
Mr. Carrey said that his ancestor was born in the Côtes-d’Armor, France before immigrating to Canada.
Even though I have no connection to the Carré family, I just had to look up Jim Carrey’s lineage.
Marc François Carré was born in the Côtes d’Armor in 1713 and immigrated to Quebec in about 1740. He was a marchand-mercier (merchant of art objects and other merchandise) at the time. In 1742, he married Marie-Josèphe Paré, who was born in Saint-Joachim, Quebec in 1742. He died in Montreal in 1758 when he was 45 years old. His 36-year-old widow, left with their two children, married Nicholas Simon, a younger man, the following year.
It appears that the Carré name continued for a few generations until Jim Carrey’s father changed it to Carrey.
There are several online resources to view Marc François Carré’s ancestors and descendants. Two that are free and available in English are Nos Origines/Genealogy of Canada and Geneastar on Geneanet that provides more than 17,000 family trees of celebrities. Many other resources for Quebec can be found in my Genealogy Research Toolbox.
Mr. Carrey could also have spoken about ancestors on his maternal French-Canadian line who came to Quebec from France about a century before his Carré ancestor, but, unfortunately, people too often tend to focus on the paternal line, even on genealogy programs on TV.
Mr. Carrey’s acceptance speech can be viewed on YouTube.
Now, back to my chores.
