Page 12 - Genealogy French Families Détroit River Revision 1701-1936 - Vol. 1

HISTORY OF THE PROJECT
FROH THE 1976 EDITION
Two hundred yean, ago the Detroit River Region was British and remained
so until 11 July 1796 when the Americans occupied Detroit. The boundary line
between Michigan and Ontario ran from the beginning of the St Clair Rivpr and
eouth through Lake St Clair and then west along the Detroit River which then
turns south to Lake Erie. This is considered the Detroit River Region.
The people who lived in thia St Clair-Detroit river valley were the
French whore ancestors came with Cadillac in 1701 and after. The Ueench had
faems on both aides of the Detroit River as well as on the shores of Lake St
Clair.
After the British occupation in 1760 the French remained on their farms
and attended their chuechea of Ste Mne at Detroit and Assumption at Sandwich
(Windaor). After the American occupation of the Michigan territory the French
still r-ined. ~
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Therefore it war logical that thir Genealo of the French Families of
the Detroit River Reqlon be considered as a bice%~i~peoject because tG
French were here two hundred years ago. Their influence is still evident in
man" wave, includina the aurn-s of the descendants in Michiaan and Ontario.
and-in :he narces of-atreeta in Detroit, Uin&or and the adjoining communities,
although the namea have often been anglicized in spelling and pronunciation.
Credit must be aiven to Fr. Christian Denisaen for collectinm the
materials and information to create thir genealogy of the French Fkliea.
Fr. Denisren c- to the Detroit area in 1872, having been born and
educated in the Netherlands. He had majored in modern lsngusges at college
before entering the seminary. He was appointed an aaaiatant priest at Mort
Holy Trinity Detroit but soon was transferred to Mchorville. Next he war
assigned aa a mimaionpry priest at Lexington, Michigan and rained there
until 1889. Then he came aa paator to St Charles Detroit and remained there
until hie death in 1911.
He began reaearch into the original titles of the Church Farm to
determine if the fund. derived from the sale of the Church Farm land belonged
to the dioceae or to the pariah. These searches led him into the history of
the persons and familiea associated with thia property. This then led him
lnto the mnumental genealogical record of all the French familiea settled in
the Detroit River region from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the
begimlng of the twentieth century.
From 1704 to the present the recorda of the parish of Ste Anne are
camplete. Originally thir parish extended from the Saginaw to Mahe Bay and
included the South Coaat of the Detroit River (Windsor) until the
eatabliahment of Assumption pariah, Sandwich in 1752. The parish of St
htoine, Monroe had recorda from 1792, Mt Clemens church since 1846 and the
Groase Pointe church since 1847.
Fr. Denisnen became a good friend of Clarence I(. Burton who had
eatablished the Burton Abstract and Title Co. They had a conrmon interest in
hiatorv and menealow. blr. Burton had admitted that French name nstterna
confua;d him-and ~0%. Deniaaen wrote a letter of explanation ihlch blr.
Burton published in the book, Cadillac's Villa e, wherein is also a liat of
the original French aettlees on the Detrode.
Fr. Denisren willed his 20,000 pages of genealogical manusfripts to Mr.
Burton who organized the material into fadliea and added info-tion and made
corractiona until his death in 1931. Fr. Denimsen's genealogy remained in the
Burton Historical Collection of the Detroit Public Library. There are three
sets of the Genealogy. One set is bound in 26 vol-a of typed manuscripts
and has been available to the public upon application.
Alice C. Dalligan, chief of the Burton Historical Collection and I had
talked about the feaeibility of printing in book £om "The Denisaen". One day
in late 1974 we were standing near the Collot map of Detroit of 1796, which is
a large fe-d copy of a map originally at the Ministry of Marine in Paria,
France. The -p showa the fa- extending back from the Detroit River and the
ownere' names.
This conversation waa the beahha of the bicentennial oroiect to
and that the Detroit Society for Genealogical Reaearch would provide the funds
to prepare and print the genealogy. I had volunteered to act aa editor
be0au.e of my interest in the French Families. My mother'a nam had been