Tracking down Old Uncle Whatsisname

Commentary by Joe McWilliams

I’ve been having a bit of fun researching my ancestors. By that, of course, I mean idle ‘Googling’ of names to see what comes up. What comes up is quite a lot, compared to similar efforts of about 10 years ago when the Internet was still young. Somebody besides me has been doing a lot of work. For example, once upon a time at a family reunion I learned that an Alsatian by the name of Balthazar Muttart was dangling from ye olde family tree. I got a kick out of it and the name has stuck in my mind. Muttart was ethnically German, but a French citizen. As such he was drafted, or otherwise recruited into the French military back in the 1750s or thereabouts. He was a stonemason, I have now learned, and was to help maintain the mighty French fort at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island. Students of Canadian history will know what happened next. Along came the British and knocked the French on the head, capturing Louisbourg. Next up for Mr. Muttart (Moutarde in some records, which sounds French, but the records seem to agree he was German) was a choice between joining the British forces or something less agreeable. He signed up and was at the Plains of Abraham with General Wolfe in the battle that finally won Canada for the British. Muttart later took land in Prince Edward Island, raised a family and one of his daughters married a McWilliams - or MacWilliams - and the rest is history. Not very well-recorded history, unfortunately. It’s pretty easy to find mention online of old Uncle Balthazar - probably because his name is so unusual – but when I start trying to sort out the descendants to locate the connection to my grandfather, it gets difficult. There are too many McWilliamses, MacWilliamses (and even M’Williamses) floating around out there, so it gets confusing. Clearly, whoever has been doing all the work to put this sort of stuff online has more to do. Judging how much progress they’ve made in the past 10 years, I’m sure they’ll get it done eventually. I can wait. Meanwhile, I find I have relatives all over the place I never knew about. I wonder how I’d be received if I dropped by one day and said, “Hi, Mr. Clermont? I’m your cousin from Alberta. Got any place for me to crash?” Or for that matter, how I’d respond if it happened to me. Maybe I’ll just leave it at the level of idle Googling. There must be a lot of this going on all the time - connections being made between living relatives and ancestors being unearthed. Whether it does anyone any good or not I don’t know. But if I’m ever in Europe and within spitting distance of Balthazar Muttart’s home town of Steinbach, I think I might stop by for a visit. See if I have any Alsatian relatives to write home about.

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