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Key LocationsMuch of my research has focused on key locations in the migration of our family: Grand Forks, ND/East Grand Forks, MN; Goderich, Ontario; Michigan, Montréal, Québec and France.
Zoom in to see pins on the custom map on the left showing key locations in our family history. |
Location History
Maps are wonderful tools for helping to understand relationships between people and they help provide a context for the stories we tell. When a person talks about a trip in the 1800s taking a week with a horse and wagon and you look at that distance and note that we can drive that same distance comfortably in a day now, it begins to dawn on you how focused and local family lives were.
Some of the family moved from Quebec to Ontario in the 1800s. They settled on the shore of Lake Huron in Huron County, Ontario. A few moved to the “thumb” of Michigan and set up homesteads in Huron County, Michigan. The two Huron Counties were a confusing item for some years for me!
Richard and Alexander Corriveau (father and son) got land in Michigan in the late 1870s. They had to clear trees, plant crops and build homes for their families. They were part of a community building a Catholic church nearby. But in Sept of 1880 a great fire swept across that part of Michigan killing many people and devastating the area. With their homes and crops gone, the Corriveaus/Cariveaus went to Duluth, engaged a lawyer to sell their Michigan land and used those funds to purchase land in the Red River Valley of East Grand Forks. That land was the John and Clara Cariveau home and farm where my grandfather, Earl, was raised. Surrounding the farm where my grandfather grew up were the homes and farms of his cousins.
Grand Forks, North Dakota is just across the river from East Grand Forks, MN and the hospital there is where my father was born.
See maps of the Cariveau farm location below.
Some of the family moved from Quebec to Ontario in the 1800s. They settled on the shore of Lake Huron in Huron County, Ontario. A few moved to the “thumb” of Michigan and set up homesteads in Huron County, Michigan. The two Huron Counties were a confusing item for some years for me!
Richard and Alexander Corriveau (father and son) got land in Michigan in the late 1870s. They had to clear trees, plant crops and build homes for their families. They were part of a community building a Catholic church nearby. But in Sept of 1880 a great fire swept across that part of Michigan killing many people and devastating the area. With their homes and crops gone, the Corriveaus/Cariveaus went to Duluth, engaged a lawyer to sell their Michigan land and used those funds to purchase land in the Red River Valley of East Grand Forks. That land was the John and Clara Cariveau home and farm where my grandfather, Earl, was raised. Surrounding the farm where my grandfather grew up were the homes and farms of his cousins.
Grand Forks, North Dakota is just across the river from East Grand Forks, MN and the hospital there is where my father was born.
See maps of the Cariveau farm location below.