I had a nice telephone conversation yesterday with Danny Colford - a direct descendant of the original Colford family of St. Columban. He told me that years ago, he found a family tombstone behind the St. Columban  Church (His grandfather or great-grandfather's stone). At any rate, he was so upset that no one seemed particularly interested in that time about a broken tombstone, that he simply put it in his car and took it home. He still has it. I told him that whenever we were ready to construct our brick wall that I would let him know, so that he can return it for inclusion in any monument that we build. Danny does not use the computer too often, but he did leave me his phone number. If anyone would like to contact him, please let me know and I will give you his number.

Fergus

I received this enquiry concerning St. Bernard de Lacolle on Ancetry.com and said that I would post it here, incase anyone knows of a direct connection between St. Columban and St. Bernard....Fergus,

I am not at all sure if I am connected to St. Columban, but I could not help but notice that two of my family names in Quebec popped up on your list. My g-grandfather, Joseph Robert MURPHY was born in Saint Bernard de Lacolle in Saint Jean County, in 1862. His parents were Mary GRIMES and William MURPHY. Mary was born in Quebec, Lacolle, I believe, about 1830, to Michael GRIMES and Elisabeth DOUGLAS. Mary had a sister named Margaret who married a Terrance O'NEILL at Saint Bernard in the 1850's. Mary also had either a brother or cousin by the name of Henry.
I am in the process of trying to figure out where to look in the parish records before Saint Bernard began in 1843. And also trying to make my way back to Ireland and possibly Scotland.
I am interested to know about the MURPHYS and GRIMES that you mentioned.

Becky

Here is my reply to Becky

Hi Becky;

There were very large families of Grimes; Murphys and O'Neils in St. Columban which is about 40 miles n/w of Montreal. However, a quick check did not show any of the connections that you mentioned. The earliest Grimes that I can find (agin I only checked quickly) was a James Grimes born about 1810 and married to an Anne Clark - both of them are listed as being from Co. Tyrone, Ireland. If you do visit our site at www.stcolumban-irish.com and look under marriages for both Ste. Scholatique (St. Columban was a part of Ste. Scholastique parish until about 1837) and under BMD's for St. Columban, you will see a lot of Grimes; Murphy and O'Neil marriages etc. All the first names of Mary; Margaret; Michael etc. are also common but not unusual since, of course, all the Irish in the 1820's seemed to use these names regularly. If I do come across any connections to Saint Bernard de Lacolle, I will re-post another reply. In the meantime, I will also add your post to the discussion forum area of our web site in case other descendants of St. Columban see a realtionship.

Take Care

Fergus

Jeff Legault has done it again! He has added a new "Interactive Map" of the St. Columban area to the map section on our main page. It is sort of a combination of different map possibilites. It definitely shows you where St. Columba is in the world! It is fun and easy to use.... To view this new Interactive map:-

Look under Maps for Interactive Map . . .

http://www.stcolumban-irish.com/Maps/index.html

Jeff Legault found another very interesting Irish-Quebec web site that, once again, lists many family surnames that are similiar to the ones from St. Columban. Not sure if any families were connected between St. Columban and Frampton, Quebec - but still an interesting site to check out ....

http://www.framptonirish.com/

Hello All,

As some of you may be aware, I am somewhat involved with projects on the automatedgenealogy site. Some ofthe thing I do are create links between WW1 soldiers that I find in the census to their records at the Archives and the Virtual memorial site. I also link between the different census. I was asked to create a link for a WW1 soldier with the surname of Strong. I did his link then continued to link the Strong family from the 1911 census to the 1901 census, the I figured I would look for the father in the 1881 census and create a link there are well. It turns out the father might have been from St Columban, but before I create the link I would like to be sure. Does anyone have any info on this family? the 1901 link is here... father is at line 22.
http://automatedgenealogy.com/census/ViewFrame.jsp?id=89750

and here is the link to the Thomas Strong I figure is him, in St Columban
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Search/census/individual_record.asp?INDI_CODE=1881CN_1183376_2&frompage=5

Thank you for any help.
Sean 8-)

Joseph Graham from the newspaper Main Street which, serves the Laurentians, has published an article about St. Columban. This article is in two parts, and also included in the paper was special announcement about our Cemetery Restoration project. Jeff has posted these articles on our main site under published articles. To read both articles and see the notice that was included, please click on the following link:-

http://www.stcolumban-irish.com/Published-Histories/index.html

Since there are some people registered on this discussion forum that are not in our direct e-mail list (and actually there are some people on our e-mail list, that have not registered on this discussion forum), it gets a little confusing.

Just to be sure that everyone is up-to-date on our efforts to plan a St. Columban extravaganza night as a fund-raiser for our St. Columban Restoration project, I am posting the information here. (Many of you have already received this information by e-mail).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Everyone;

We had our meeting today about a possible St. Columban extravaganza to be held in January 2007. The following are notes from this meeting. (if anyone attending, sees that I forgot something, please let me know).

Of course, if anyone else in the group would like to participate in this project, please also let me know. Even if you are aware of any possible Corporate sponsors for this event; or where we might get free or cheap printing of materials etc. - the info. would be appreciated.

And, of course, the suggestions from anyone in our group are always welcomed.

At any rate, here are the comments recorded....

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Notes of Meeting for the:

St. Columban Restoration Fundraising Project.

A meeting was held at Kelley O?Rourke?s home on Saturday, June 10, 2006 to discuss the possibility of the above mentioned project. And, the following points were noted:-

The objective will be to raise funds for our Cemetery restoration project.

We believe that the project is feasible and could reach the objective

Subject to confirmation from Ned Eustache, for the availability of the new Loyola High theater like auditorium, this event would be scheduled for Saturday, January 27th 2007 at Loyola.

Tentatively, it would include an oral story about the rise and fall of St. Columban as an Irish Community.

The story would be delivered by two (2) narrators. One in English and the other in French. It may be possible to have Dr. Michael Kenealy, the Director of Irish studies at Concordia University deliver the presentation in English, and Peter Gossage, a History Professor from the Universit? de Sherbrooke deliver the oratory in French.

The presentation in addition to the Orators would include Irish music; Irish dancers and perhaps a Power Point presentation that would depict various St. Columban and general Irish images.

The Loyola Theatre holds approximately 750 people, and we have a suggested ticket cost of $ 25.00 per person for this performance. ($16,400 if all tickets are sold)

We would also obtain a liquor license in order to sell beer and wine during the intermission and after the performance.

We do not have any confirmed costs yet for the Hall; the Singers or the Dancers.

The actual program would be produced by David Gossage in co-operation with Bernadette Short from the Irish dancers and of course with various suggestions, documents etc. that we, as a group, might be able to offer.

Whatever groundwork possible (i.e. confirming the hall etc.) will be done over the summer, with the hope of having a great deal of the production in place and ready for public presentation by about mid-October.

We might investigate selling Calendars; Coffee Cups etc. at the event.

Some Assignments:

a)      Kelley & Audrey O?Rourke will be the co-chairs of the production itself.

b)      Fergus Keyes will start to try to attract some Corporate sponsors.

c)      Jeff Legault might be able to help with the possible Power Point presentation.

d)      Kay Dunn can interface our group with the Irish dancers.

e)      Ned Eustache would be responsible for confirming Loyola Hall

f)       ?Ann McLaughlin will check on any permits needed as well as co-ordinate Ticket Sales with Audrey & Kelley.

g)      Ken Neil will check out possible Brochure and Ticket designs

h)      Kelley & Audrey will verify the liquor possibilities with the SAQ etc., as well start a database for possible people to contact regarding selling tickets.

i)       ?Claude Bourguignon will act as co-coordinator for St. Columban as well as French publicity etc.


           In attendance at this meeting were:-

           Kelley O?Rourke

           Audrey O?Rourke

           Kay Dunn

           Ken Neil

           Anne McLaughlin

           Claude Bourguignon

           Fergus Keyes

           Next meeting is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, July 29th 2006

Shelia sent us this general information about a number of people with Irish names (some of these names are common and often found in St. Columban) that were killed in Quebec City in September 1899...

Here is Shelia's quote:-

"The info that I found is, it was a rockslide onto houses on Champlain St. Quebec City."

Burials, St. Patrick's Church,  Quebec City area, cause of death is from a landslide. Burials took place Sept. 1889.
Sheila, Ont.

Essie Fitzgerald
Joseph Fitzgerald
Timothy Berrigan
Catherine (looks like) Airs Reddy
Thomas Nolan
Catherine Kemp Nolan
Denis Christopher Berrigan
Rose Ann McBrearty (O'Dowd)
Joseph Kemp
Thomas Farrell
Lawrence Farrell
Stella Farrell
Agnes Farrell
Margaret Walsh
Ellen Walsh (Bradley)
Ellen Bradley
Alice Bradley
Margaret Bradley
Mary Agnes Bradley
Richard H. Leahey
Julia Doyle (Leahey)
Norah Kennedy
Mary Leahey (Kemp)
Catherine (looks like) Lana (Marshall)
Michael Deahey
Agnes Burke
Ellen Burke
Mary Jane Allen (Burke)
Charles Allen
Agnes Pollick (Allen)
Catherine Allen
Thomas Pembarton

An e-mail received today...

This is a wonderful site!  I was thrilled to have found it.  I have been doing research on my St. Colomban families for many years and have also visited Claude Bourguignon in his home in St. Colomban.  My only wish is that one day I can read both of his books in English!  Are there any plans to extract obituaries from perhaps the Montreal newspapers for residents of St. Colomban?  My  St. Colomban families are:
[highlight]McCarthy, O'Neil, Duffy and Howard.
[/highlight]

Thank you for all the hard work by you and others.

Carole McCarty (mrsmc)
cam809@comcast.net

I know that the Lawton Family were very connected to St. Columban particularly around the 1950's . Not sure if Maureen Lawton mentioned in today's obituary, in the Montreal Gazette, was part of this family but the name is definitely familiar to me....Thought I would just post the notice....