Thankful Thursday - What's In A Name?

As you will know, if you have been following my blog for the past few days, I have been concentrating on my gr-gr-gr-grandparents, Nicholas DuBois and his wife Magdalain Houin.

I was able to locate the family on the 1880 Census. But, other than a few kindly hints, [long ago someone gave me a list of their children, but I'd had no proof] I was unable to tie them to my gr-gr-grandmother, Anna/Annette. I had been told that after her death, her husband married Anna's sister, Adelaide. But, again, I had been unable to find proof.

By the 1880 Census, the Dubois' were in their 70's and 80's, and Anna had already died. I feared I would never locate the family together!

Then this week, I decided to look at the family abstractly.

DuBois was French, this I knew. However, I had never taken French in high school [had I known I would love this search so much, I would gladly have opted for French over Spanish!]. So with the aid of an online translator, I found that DuBois literally meant "The Wood". So, let's see if we can locate a Census record with at least most of the family listed on it.

And suddenly there it was! Not just a census record, but how about three of them! We now have the 1840-1860 census records with all of the children, sans one [who is supposed to have died as a toddler], listed on them!

1840 Census

 

1850 Census

 

1860 Census

 

On the 1840, 1850 and 1860 Census my ancestor's were listed as the Woods family! But by the time the 1880 rolled around, they were using their native surname of DuBois. This is why I have had so many problems locating them!

Sometimes it seems we must step out of the box and try a new approach to get the results we most want. And that is my Thankful Thursday for the week!