Godu
Goddu, Goodhue, Godeu, Gadue, Gadhue, Gladue, Gadue, Gudyeau, Godue, Godhue, Gudyeau
INTRODUCTION WRITTEN BY GLENDON PETER GOODHUE
According to the National Archives of Quebec, no serious research has, to their knowledge, been accomplished on the Family prior to the work I am currently undertaking. A few people are working on certain Branches, but research on the earlier family, back to 1690, has proven to be a little difficult and time consuming. (more than 5 years of fairly full time research, to date - 1997)
The information used in this study is not derived from word of mouth or memory of sources, but taken from official documents such as church registers, Provincial Census Reports, and civil records of births, marriages, and deaths. The vast majority of my documentation has been gathered by the viewing of microfilms of church registers at the National Archives in Montreal, Vermont, Mass., Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Numerous visits were made to more than 40 villages, town halls, libraries and cemeteries.
The research was complicated by several factors, some of which I mention herein: it seems that in those days, many of the first born were called Joseph and also during the 1700's, it was not unusual to name more than one son by the same name, as in the case of Joseph #2, born to Rene’ Godu and Francoise Tetreau in 1742 (Family # 3), 19 years after his
older brother, Joseph #1, who, actually, was Godfather at the baptism and named the new brother after himself . . . .
Another factor which complicated the situation was the use of more than one surname: for example - Marie Charlotte Brousseau (dit) LaFleur (Family #15) was found in different documents as Marie LaFleur, Marie Charlotte Brousseau, Marie Charlotte LaFleur, etc., etc. . . a very common practice at the time, used to distinguish various branches of a large family concentrated in the same area.
Other factors, such as a high rate of illiteracy at the time, left the clergy with little or no option than to spell the names to the best of their ability. For instance - on one document, the priest and three of the family members all spelled the surname differently. Also, frequent moves from one village to another, because of illness, death of spouses, economical situations, wars, and even (in our case) because of the Rebellion of 1837-38, made it difficult to relocate families . . . it was not unusual to relocate someone years later and discover that he or she had lost a spouse, had remarried a second or third time and were raising their large families with someone in the same situation.
Probably the most difficult problem is the fact that in those days, in the life of a person, there might be three or four official documents registered between 60 or 70 years - those being birth - marriage - and death. Since Government Census Reports before 1842 seldom listed the names of the wife or children, but only the name of the Head of the Household with so many males and females of certain ages . . .
Having researched the Family during a period of 303 years, I believe I have been able to identify some of the factors which have contributed to the frequent mis-spellings and modifications of the Godu or Goddu names. First of all, the name as it was first recorded by someone in the "Hotel Dieu Hospital" in the city of Quebec, PQ (1690), does not seem to be a common or well known French name (at least, not in North America). However, the spelling remained much as Godu or Goddu in the area of Varennes and Vercheres, but was spelled as Godhue in the area of St. Denis, St. Charles, and La. Presentation. Other spellings, such as Goudue, Godut, Gudyue, Godue, and Goodhue, were very frequent. A great deal of the confusion can probably be attributed to the high degree of illiteracy at the time, and to the past experiences of Priests, Census Takers, and other officials who had come in contact with different versions of the spelling, and spelled it the way they had seen it spelled in some other Parish or part of the Province . . .
Probably the best example, and certainly the most common, would be that of the French speaking family moving into an English speaking area or even directly to the United States, where clergy, census takers, other officials, and even the family themselves, would take on the English version of the name, attending English Schools, and using the now-well-known-name of Goodhue, now widely used in the Eastern Townships and in the United States, because of the very large New England Family "Goodhue" which arrived from England in 1635, and settled in Ipswich (Then called Chenoble), Massachusetts. Other examples are the changes such as happened in Sutton, where the "H" was removed from Godhue, to better reflect the area and it's inhabitants at the time. (it is interesting to note that the parish priest in St. Denis sur Richelteu had added the "H" in the first place, possibly because of his prior contacts with members of the English American family of "Goodhue's"(many of which were also Catholic)
Basically, what seemed to have happened is a situation common to the Eastern Township area: a first family of "Goodhue's" arrived from England in 1635 and settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and worked their way north and into the Province of Quebec (Lower Canada). Others arrived in the late 1700's as "United Empire Loyalists", while at approximately the same time (1690) a young soldier (23 years old) arrived from Poitiers, Poitou, France. This first colonist was named Yves Godu, he moved to Varennes and married Jeanne Choquet in 1698 (Family # 2 ), and the decendants of this first settler from Varennes (just a few miles southeast of Montreal) moved gradually south into the areas of Sutton, Frelighsburg (known to some at that time as St. Armand Est.) Standridge East and on into the United States, eventually becoming Goodhue's. . . but many also remained as Godu in the US. The English American Goodhue families also settled in the same areas or other places, such as Rockisland, Bromptonville, Sherbrooke, Frelighsburg, and others. The English American Families have, for the most part, returned to the United States or migrated to other parts of Canada in the early 1800’s. However, a few still remain, several of which married French Canadians, and others which are now difficult to trace.
It is interesting to note that the majority of those English families that I have encountered in the research were easily traced back to Ipswich, Massachusetts, thanks to a book published by Jonathan Goodhue on that large and distinguished family in 1891 and describing 3900 individuals, and 1367 different families . . . This book talks of one large Branch of Goodhue's which they were unable to tie into their research. One can easily conclude that the Branch they could not tie into the family from Massachusetts were most probably decendants of the Godu Family (now called Goodhue ) and from a totally different origin. This conclusion becomes quite logical when we know that a great deal of the Godu decendants have been living in the New England States since the early part of the 1800's, and were present prior to and during the time the book "The Goodhue Family" was written and published.
Glendon Peter Goodhue
ST-JEROME, QUEBEC
CANADA
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