What I Learned Taking My Genealogy Research on the Road

There comes a point in almost every family tree when the internet stops cooperating.

You have searched Ancestry. You have searched FamilySearch. You have tried every spelling variation you can think of. You have stared at digitized church registers until eighteenth-century handwriting begins to look perfectly normal. And still, you have a question.

That was exactly where I found myself with one of the biggest mysteries in my own family tree: Where did my Arceneaux family come from before Louisiana? I had made it back through my Louisiana ancestors to Michel Arceneaux, born in 1754 in what is now St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana. From there, however, things became much less certain.

I had two competing theories. One trail appeared to lead to Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec, where I had found a baptismal record dated April 2, 1719, for an older Michel whose name seemed to fit into the family story.

The other trail led to Acadia, in present-day Nova Scotia. And that second possibility came with something genealogists both treasure and fear: Family lore.

My family had always understood that our Arceneaux ancestors were Acadian. If that story was correct, perhaps my ancestors had been among the Acadians displaced during the eighteenth century, eventually making their way to Louisiana.

But family stories aren't proof. Neither, for that matter, is finding someone online who has already attached exactly the ancestors you hoped to find to their family tree.

So I did what any perfectly reasonable genealogist would do: I went to Canada.

Two Theories, One Suitcase

Before I left home, I tried to approach the problem as a research question rather than a sightseeing trip.

Theory #1: My Arceneaux line originated in Quebec, specifically around Cap-de-la-Madeleine.

Theory #2: My Arceneaux line was Acadian, with roots in what is now Nova Scotia.

The goal wasn't to decide which story I liked better. The goal was to find evidence that could support, or eliminate, either one.

Of course, there was one small complication. Canada is rather large. So my genealogy trip became something of a scavenger hunt.

First Stop: Nova Scotia

If my family's Acadian story was true, I wanted to understand the world those ancestors would have inhabited. That meant going to Nova Scotia.

I visited Grand-Pré National Historic Site, the heart of one of the most important Acadian settlements before the Deportation of the Acadians beginning in 1755.

This was one of the first lessons of the trip: Sometimes you need to visit a place even if you don't find a single document there. Standing in the landscape changes the way you understand a family. Maps suddenly make sense. Distances make sense. Rivers, churches, settlements, and migration routes stop being little dots on a computer screen and become actual places.

And historical events that you have reduced to a sentence in your family tree, "family removed from Acadia," take on an entirely different meaning.

But I wasn't in Canada only for atmosphere. I wanted records. And books. Especially one book.

The Book Hunt

Genealogists will understand this next part immediately. I became obsessed with finding an out-of-print genealogy book. Actually, more than one.

One was Stephen A. White's monumental Dictionnaire généalogique des familles acadiennes, an essential reference for Acadian genealogy.

Another was Denis J. Savard's genealogy of the Arsenault/Arceneaux/Arseneau families.

Surely, I thought, if I was actually in Canada, finding these books would be easy, but it was not. I searched library catalogs, genealogy societies, used bookstores, booksellers in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Quebec. I searched online retailers whose websites were entirely in French.

I found a digital copy for sale, only to discover that purchasing it from the United States was another adventure entirely. At one point, tracking down the book began to feel almost as difficult as tracking down the ancestors inside it. And then, in one of those wonderful genealogy twists, I eventually found the two-volume Stephen White set through Facebook Marketplace. Because apparently the solution to an eighteenth-century Acadian genealogy problem is sometimes Facebook.

Then I Followed the Other Trail

Nova Scotia represented one hypothesis. Quebec represented the other. So, I headed to Trois-Rivières and Cap-de-la-Madeleine. This was particularly exciting because I already had something concrete to investigate: the 1719 baptismal record I had found through Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. Now I wanted to know what else might exist.

I visited the BAnQ archives in Trois-Rivières, where I had access to resources I couldn't easily use from home. I learned about Parchemin, a database of Quebec notarial records. I visited a local genealogy society, went to Cap-de-la-Madeleine, visited churches, looked for cemeteries, searched for books, I asked questions, and I discovered another important lesson about genealogy travel: The record you think you're going to find is rarely the only thing worth finding.

A local genealogy society may know about a source you've never heard of. An archivist may suggest a collection you didn't know existed. A published genealogy may contain a citation that sends you to a parish register. A parish register may contain a name variation that suddenly changes your search. One clue leads to another.

Your Ancestor's Name May Not Be His Name

My Arceneaux research provided an excellent reminder of another genealogy rule: never become too attached to spelling. I encountered variations including: Arceneaux. Arsenault. Arseneau. Arseneault. And even Acenot.

To a modern researcher, those can look like completely different surnames. To an eighteenth-century priest recording a name he heard spoken aloud, they might not have been. Once I stopped searching for one "correct" spelling, more possibilities appeared.

This is especially important when researching families who moved between languages and regions. A French surname recorded in Quebec, Acadia, or Louisiana may look very different depending on who wrote it down. The same applies to first names. Michel might become Michael. Marie-Anne might appear as Marianne, Marie Anne, or Anne.

Genealogy databases are wonderful tools, but sometimes the most important search technique is simply asking: "How else could someone have written this?"

Published Genealogies Are Maps, Not Finish Lines

One of the most useful things I brought home wasn't an answer, but a much better understanding of the sources. Published family genealogies can be extraordinary resources. The work of researchers who spent decades reconstructing families can save us hundreds of hours.

But a published genealogy is still a secondary source. If a book says Michel was the son of a particular couple, I want to know: How did the author know that? Was there a baptism? A marriage record? A notarial contract? A census? A burial record? A church dispensation naming relatives?

That question "How do we know?" may be the most useful question a genealogist can ask. So rather than treating the books I found as the end of my research, I began using them as road maps to the original records.

The Biggest Surprise: Not Finding Something Can Be Useful

Before this trip, I tended to think of successful genealogy research as finding records.

Birth certificate: success.

Marriage record: success.

Baptism: success.

Ancestor located: enormous success.

But research doesn't always work that way. Sometimes you search the collection where a record should be and discover that it isn't there. That matters. Sometimes you discover that the dates don't line up. That matters. Sometimes a person who appears to be the perfect candidate turns out to have remained in Quebec when your ancestor was already appearing in Louisiana. That definitely matters.

Negative evidence can help eliminate a hypothesis just as positive evidence can support one. The trick is keeping track of what you've searched.

What I Would Tell Anyone Planning a Genealogy Research Trip

I learned a lot from taking my family-tree research out into the real world. If you're thinking about doing the same, here are the things I would recommend:

Start with a question, not an ancestor.
Don't simply decide, "I'm going to research Grandpa Smith." Decide what you are trying to learn: Who were Grandpa Smith's parents? Where was he living in 1880? When did he immigrate?

Write down your competing theories.
If there are two possibilities, don't choose one prematurely. Write down what evidence would support each one, and what evidence would disprove it.

Research the archives before you leave home.
Know their hours, registration requirements, rules, catalog, and whether you need an appointment.

Contact local genealogy societies.
They may have resources that aren't online, or even cataloged in places you would normally search.

Bring your research with you.
I had names, dates, locations, family relationships, research questions, and source information readily available.

Bring a USB drive.
Some archives allow you to save digital images or documents directly. Mine became an essential part of my research kit.

Photograph everything, and photograph the citation information, too.
A beautiful image of an eighteenth-century record isn't nearly as useful six months later if you can't remember where you found it.

Learn a few words in the local language.
I encountered French records, French websites, French genealogy abbreviations, and French archival descriptions. Knowing basic terms for birth, baptism, marriage, death, burial, son, daughter, widow, before, after, and approximately made searching much easier.

And perhaps most importantly, leave room in your itinerary for surprises. Because genealogy has a habit of changing the plan.

Did I Solve the Mystery?

Not completely. I came home with records, books, photographs, notes, new sources to investigate, and a much clearer understanding of both theories. More importantly, I came home knowing what I need to look for next. That's something genealogy websites can sometimes make us forget. Family history is about building a case. We form a hypothesis, search for evidence, discover something that doesn't fit, change the hypothesis, and then we search again.

Sometimes that search happens from the comfort of our homes. And sometimes it takes us through Nova Scotia, Grand-Pré, Quebec, Trois-Rivières, Cap-de-la-Madeleine, archives, churches, cemeteries, genealogy societies, used bookstores, and Facebook Marketplace.

All to answer one deceptively simple question: Where did my family come from?

I still have work to do before I can answer that question with confidence. But after taking my genealogy research on the road, I'm a whole lot closer.

And that, after all, is what research is supposed to do.