An Overview

Focus starts with the origins of the Eastern Michigan Picards in France and Francophone North America and ends with  Alfred Picard’s immigration to the United State 1n 1864. The final part of the book will be a cross between genealogy, memoir, and cultural history focusing on the clash between Anglo-Saxon and French cultures and on the nature of North America as a settler society. It differs from genealogy because it will include speculation on origins, descriptions, and motives.

The first section of the book will focus on the French origins and culture of the Picard family, which eventually settled in Saginaw in Eastern Michigan. Only ten generations, and of course some five hundred years or so, separate my generation from Northern France.

I’ve been able to confirm that the genealogy in my possession of the Eastern Michigan Picard Family, founded by Alfred Picard (my great-grandfather) is accurate as far back as circa 1598 and Nantes, France, and one Hugues Picard dit LaFortune, who migrated to Quebec from Nantes in 1653.

Hughes’ father, Gabriel, who remained in France, is our oldest family link thus far (though my  genealogy site contains speculation that goes back further. (See my Ancestry.com page.)

The second section of this book places the Picard family within the context of the history of New France and Canada between 1653 and the present. The third section of the book (and a focal point of this research) is on the descendants of Alfred, my immediate family who migrated from Beauharnois County, Quebec, in the nineteenth century to Eastern Michigan (Saginaw). See the section entitled “The Eastern Michigan Picards.” Alfred Picard’s life in Eastern Michigan will follow this section of the book site.