About

Growing up, I remember my father, Ernie Gagnon, saying that his grandmother was an Indian and his great grandfather “got kicked out of Canada for trying to start a rebellion.” Although both factoids were very intriguing, I must have gotten the impression he didn’t know much more, so I never bothered to ask questions and I assumed the answers were lost forever. Growing up, I remember my father, Ernie Gagnon, saying that his grandmother was an Indian and his great grandfather “got kicked out of Canada for trying to start a rebellion.” Although both factoids were very intriguing, I must have gotten the impression he didn’t know much more, so I never bothered to ask questions and I assumed the answers were lost forever.

Decades went by and then came the internet. I was curious to know if anything at all could be discovered by searching the web. The going was slow at first because I had no names and because there wasn’t much “out there.” The key breakthrough came when the rebellious great-grandfather was positively identified — Lucien Gagnon. After that fitting together a complete family tree was fairly easy, thanks to the fact that “Gagnon” is one of the most common French-Canadian names and great many others had done the research. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that so much could be found.

With a family tree in hand, I now turned my attention to the details. Again, it helped that the growth of the web put more information out there as time went on. Old fashioned printed resources (!) also played a part. So too did information gathered by family (a big thanks to cousin Dorothy).

This was all fun and games, but what to do with it? How should I share it? As I started to summarize what I had found, I sensed I needed to add some historical context. Having a life-long interest in history, I needed little motivation to delve into the past. The result was more than I had hoped for.

With a family tree in hand, I now turned my attention to the details. Although most people never set or change the course of history, we are all affected by it. Our Gagnon ancestors were all affected by history, some more than others. Some of these historical details directly impacted a few individuals, but they all ultimately determined who, when, and where we are.

Enjoy the story and let me know if you have more to add.

— Jim Gagnon