1. Introduction

This effort serves only as the beginning of the process.  This is (and should be) a living and breathing document and, as such, always a “work in progress.”  I can only imagine how much better these results would have been had I begun this analysis years ago, when our parents and so many of our relatives were still alive and therefore able to help us to more fully appreciate the lives and times that impacted our family history.  One of the main drivers of this effort was the birth of our grandchildren – Abby and Will.  The relationship between grandchildren and grandparents is so special it defies description.  As I watch them grow, I think about all who came before them and how each generation has added something that makes each of us special. 

After more than eighteen months of researching our family tree it has truly become a “labor of love.”  Throughout my life I have occasionally tried to remember life as it was in the late 1940s and 1950s, particularly as it applies to family history and relationships.  Now that I am a grandfather of these two wonderful children it reminds me of what we may have missed as young children in those years.

This began as a specific effort to trace the lineage of the Lorion name and family.  However, after a short time it became evident to me that we are really a product of more than just our Lorion heritage.  With that in mind, I decided to broaden the scope of the research to include the four main lines that make us what we are today.  That means that, in addition to following the Lorions back in time, I also chronicle the McCarthys, Brodeurs and Davids. 

To date, I have been able to trace the paternal and maternal lineages of the four key family lines from Massachusetts to Canada and finally to France.  While none of the individuals would necessarily be considered “famous,” many of them contributed greatly to the early days of Canada and the emerging Franco-American population in the U.S.  This effort was made possible by a number of genealogy websites, especially ancestry.com and yourfolks.com.  I also employed the services of a professional genealogist from Canada to help with the difficult and frustrating task of researching the McCarthy family tree (more about that in the Narrative Section).  As with the Lorions, Brodeurs and Davids, the McCarthys emigrated from France to Canada and then finally to the U.S.  I have been able to trace the McCarthy lineage back to France in the early 1700s, so while they certainly could have emigrated from Ireland to France in the years prior to 1700, I have seen no such evidence.  Therefore we can only speculate as to their original heritage: French or Irish.

As children growing up we had lost three of our four grandparents before we were born.    However, fortunately we did have Memere “Bert” Brodeur and I will be forever grateful for her.  She was the only grandparent that we knew.  She was full of life and always fun to be with - even to her 100^th birthday.  Her husband Wilfred Brodeur died in 1945.  On the Lorion side our grandfather Albert died in 1944 only five months after his second grandchild (Gerry) was born.  Our grandmother, Eva McCarthy, died in 1918 during the horrific influenza pandemic.

Overall this story covers at least fourteen generations of ancestors and nearly 500 years of history dating back to the 1500s.  For the David lineage the dates could go well beyond that.  (More information on this will be available in the David section of our research.)  Some generations will have substantial documentation while others will be simply a listing of the individuals.  Some of the generations simply don’t have much in the way of documented history so I have included what is currently available.

As this story unfolds, I will try to include reports and documents that will, hopefully, help you more fully understand and appreciate the process and, more importantly, understand the context and the environment that our ancestors experienced. 

To help you to visualize the areas in France where our ancestors came from I am including the following map.