The purpose of this work is to provide the descendants of Emily (Bebeau) and Werner Dahlheimer a history of the Bebeau family, Emily’s ancestors and their origins in France and Canada.
Several people provided input and must be recognized for their contributions. Further details and family records may be found on their websites:
Al
Dahlquist, Little Canada, Minnesota, USA:
http://hometown.aol.com/minifroggy/myhomepage/index.html
http://www.familyorigins.com/users/d/a/h/Alfred-J-Dahlquist/FAMO1-0001/index.html
Click
here to view relationship chart (Adobe pdf file)
Lucette
Bibeault, Quebec, Canada:
http://www.boisfrancs.qc.ca/~lucette/accueil.html
Click here to view relationship chart
(Adobe pdf file)
Patty Guimont, Chicago, Illinois,
USA:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~patty0802/index.htm
- Home page
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~patty0802/d14.htm#P4439
– Emily’s records
Laurier Vadnais, Quebec,
Canada:
http://www.fgagnon.com/vadnais/eng/
http://www.fgagnon.com/vadnais/eng/bibe_e.shtml - Bibeau history
Jane Heinrich (originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA):
http://www.dahlheimer-bebeau.com
Which if these it the correct
spelling? That is a good question. Lucette Bibeault, a distant cousin in Quebec,
wrote the following:
The name Bibeau
came from the fact that the founder of our name was a bibau, which is to say he
was a soldier whom his weapons consisted of a spear or a crossbow. The
first that carried our name was indeed a rafter or a soldier. Since the
people around him gave him this nickname which stayed with him for the rest of
his life, his children who were so familiar with the name decided to keep Bibau
or Bibeau and that constituted their family name. As a matter of fact,
before the 12th century the members of the same family only had a given name;
from then on, the Royal authorities ordered that each family had to have a last
name. This name Bibeau, which was at first a nickname then becoming a
family name, persisted for centuries. It traveled through France from
generations to generations, and it spread as far as the seashore. Then
in 1660, it crossed the Atlantic with our first Canadian ancestor, Francois
Bibeau, and it solidly installed itself in the country of Quebec.
Although in Canada, our name has different spellings our first Canadian
ancestor signed his as “Francois Bibaud“, and to this day, his
descendants write it as Bibaud, Bibaut, Bibeault, and Bibeau. These different
names … all have the same pronunciation that is exactly the one of the original
name Bibaud.
One internet website suggests that the
names Bibaud, Bibau, Bibeau, Bibeault, have the same roots as found in the
French word biberon, meaning baby bottle, but which probably designates a
drinker. Perhaps that explains why our
ancestor in France owned a tavern!!
Anne Gaudin in France
wrote the following (content drawn from her website): http://a.gaudin.free.fr/variantes%20patronymiques.htm
One must be aware that, prior to the 16th century in France,
the only names people used were their baptismal names, which were not passed on
to their descendants. As time passed, it
became confusing due to the number of names.
As a result, people began referring to people by first names which often
had something to do with their physical appearance, their character, place of
abode, profession, etc. In the 16th
century, King Francois 1st put in place a law requiring fixed family
names which should be transmitted from father to son.
Even though this law was in place, the spelling of the names
would continue to vary up to the end of the 19th century and the
beginning of the 20th century.
As a result, before the 20th century, one cannot rely on the
spelling of a name when tracing family roots.
Often one finds that, within the same legal record (i.e., marriage), the
father and son may spell their names differently, and that one individual may
even spell his/her own name differently.
One must keep these things in mind when doing research, as well as the
fact that many priests were not often very well educated, and that the local
pronunciation of a name and dialect could have deformed the sounds. Example:
eau = aud
So, what is the
correct name? Based on the above, that
is a question that cannot be fully answered.
The family baptismal
records in France record family names of Bibeau and Bibaut.
When people emigrated
to North American, the names and spellings changed again. These spelling changes even occurred in
Emily’s own family, for not only her last name but her first and middle names
as well. According to family
members: