If you watched the December 22 episode of Qui êtes-vous?, Quebec’s version of Who Do you Think You are?, you saw actress Mariloup Wolfe trace her roots to Germany. One of the people who helped her was Claude Crégheur, co-author of the Dictionnaire des souches allemandes et scandinaves au Québec, a repertoire of German and Scandinavian roots in Quebec that was published in 2013.
Mr. Crégheur conducted his research with his co-author Claude Kaufholtz-Couture. He is also an historian with the Société partrimoine et histories des seigneuries de Lotbinière, a heritage and seigneury historical society in Lotbinière.
During the program, we watched as Ms. Wolfe learned she is descended from Michael Wolfe, a soldier who came to Quebec from Germany in 1779 to fight alongside the British against the Americans during the American Revolution.
About 10,000 German soldiers came to Canada, and more than 2,000 of them stayed.
Ms. Wolfe is one of several thousand Quebecers who are descended from Germans. In fact, people with names, such as Chrétien, Dallaire, Desbois, Marchand, Métivier, Noël, Rousseau, Saint-Louis, and Vadeboncoeur, may be surprised to discover their ancestors may not have come from France, but from Germany.
The Dictionnaire des souches allemandes et scandinaves au Québec contains a list of Germanic families lines in Quebec, an index of spouses, an historical overview of their emigration to North America, and more than 4,500 biographies.
Jean-Pierre Wilhelmy also wrote a book about German soldiers who fought for the British. It has been translated into English, Soldiers for Sale: German “Mercenaries” with the British in Canada during the American Revolution, 1776-83.
This book is described in a Canada’s History magazine review as a “must for those with (German) ancestry.” The book includes a list of mercenaries by country of origin and names of German soldiers who remained in Canada. You can see the table of contents and a small portion of the book here.
You can watch the Mariloup Wolfe episode on Radio-Canada’s website.
Along with these great resources, members of ancestry.ca/world deluxe have access to the soldiers records we digitized from Library and Archives Canada.
Great info! Thanks!
In addition to these great resources, Ancestry.ca/World Deluxe has Pension applications from the King’s German Legion and Other German Corps digitized from the War Office Records – http://search.ancestry.ca/search/db.aspx?dbid=3353
Good to know! I will add this info to the Genealogy à la carte Facebook group. Thanks, Lesley.
In 2011, I published a book titled « Les Troupes allemandes et leur établissement au Canada 1776-1783 ». The book lists 1 200 or so soldiers who settled in Canada, mainly in Quebec, after the American Revolutionary War, with a short biography, general commentary and various indexes.
I also run a mailing list on the subject on Rootsweb :
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/QUEBEC-HESSIANS/2011-11/1322282524
Cordialement.
Good to know! This is a little known, but important part, of our history that should have a greater profile. Merci, Dominique.