How Connor Bedard's ancestors migrated west

How Connor Bedard’s ancestors migrated west

Posted On: June 24, 2023

The Canadian’s supporters remained hopeful, but Gary Bettman’s abacus decided otherwise. Connor Bedard will likely end up in Chicago, where he will continue to delight Blackhawks fans for many years to come.

• Also read: Another fully deserved award for Connor Bedard

Already described as the most talented player of his generation, he was born on July 17, 2005 in North Vancouver. In an interview with TVA Sports last year, his father Thomas revealed the family’s ties to their Quebec roots.

“Fifty years before I was born, the Bédard family settled in Quebec. Since then our clan has moved to Western Canada. That’s where I was born and that’s where Connor was born. I only learned that a few years ago. »

The history of the Bédards is representative of all these families from the French-speaking diaspora that crossed the continent. Their language resisted for a long time until finally assimilated through intermarriage. The lack of language communities that would be able to pass on the heritage also contributed to this.

ISAAC BEDARD

Ancestor Isaac Bédard (1614-1689), originally from La Rochelle, landed in Quebec around 1660. His wife Marie Girard (1623-1688?) and their children followed a little later. Before heading to New France, the Bédards had to renounce their Protestantism.

After first settling on the Côte de la Fabrique, where they had problems with the neighborhood, the family settled in Petite-Auvergne, south of the Trait Carré in Charlesbourg.

Skilled with his hands, Isaac receives an order for 100 oars from Jean Talon. His son Jacques (1644-1711), a farmer and also a talented carpenter in Charlesbourg, built two wings of the General Hospital.

His grandson Jacques (1760?-1832) was also skilled with the hammer: he built the back gallery of the Saint-Mathias-du-Richelieu church.

The Bédards spent a century on the banks of the Richelieu before moving west in the early 20th century.

Ambroise Bédard (1848-1909) settled in Saint-Pierre-Jolys, a town of 1,000 people, still predominantly French-speaking, about thirty miles south of Winnipeg.

Ambroise Bédard (1848–1909) and Louise-Marie Manie (1852–1894) of Saint-Alexandre d’Iberville, great-great-great-grandparents of Connor Bedard.

Photo public domain

His son Lucien (1883-1946), born in Quebec, was still living on a farm in Manitoba in 1911. In 1921 he was in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, with his eight children. He will die across the continent in Vancouver after having 14 children.

His eldest son Joseph Désiré (1906-1992), who was to pursue a career in the Navy, married a German, which led to the assimilation of the offspring.

Désiré’s son Garth Frederick Bedard, born in a cab in New Westminster, is the grandfather of the young prodigy. Garth will not be there next week when his grandson dons the Blackhawks jersey. He tragically died in a car accident two years ago.