“How Do You Spell That?” is the theme for week 15 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, and from the moment I started brainstorming ideas, I knew I was going to write about the Barr branch of my family. As a researcher this is one of my favorite branches because I’ve developed beautiful friendships with three dear men that share my great-great grandfather, Charles Barr Jr., as a common ancestor. At times, genealogical research can be lonely; you feel like a treasure hunter or a detective unearthing a clue here, an artifact there. You are so excited about your latest finds, but at best, most of the time you’ll be met with an, “Oh….cool…” from a family member or friend trying hard to be supportive. When you meet others who are researching the same branches as you are it’s like coming home. You’ve found your little tribe of weirdo-nerds who truly get how amazing it is to find that document or to identify the unknown family member in that picture. So the Barrs – or however you want to spell the last name, is a branch that is near and dear to my heart.
My family members who don’t research, but take an interest in what I do, are often confused by the spelling of this last name. I may mention Charles Barr, Jr., and then Charles Bard Sr., or a collateral relative like Joseph Barre, and they always question the spelling variations, often assuming I’ve made a mistake. What is the correct way to spell this surname? The simple answer? All of these variations are correct. All of them are our relatives. As I’ve discussed previously, names change and evolve over time. My grandfather knew this. For whatever reason, whether it was family lore or some runaway idea of his, he thought Barr was originally Barre, and that our ancestors were British Loyalists who founded Barre, Vermont. That’s not true. Even the town historians of Barre, Vermont aren’t sure why it’s called Barre. Our Barrs were definitely French, not British, and our family’s original surname wasn’t the British-sounding Barr, but rather the French Jambard. Our first ancestor to arrive in Canada from France was Jean-Baptiste Barde dit Jambard, my 7th great-grandfather. As did most early settlers, Jean-Baptiste had a large family, and most of them had large families as well. As time went on the surname morphed into a variety of surnames. Not only did many siblings take on different spellings of the name, but it was common for different documents to contain a variety of spellings all for the same individual.
My first ancestor to drop the dit Jambard, was my 4th great-grandfather, Remi Bard. Remi was born on September 15, 1795 in Riviere-Ouelle, Kamouraska, Quebec, Canada, married Marie Hudon dit Beaulieu, and had a large family that consisted mostly of daughters. Remi Bard holds the distinction of being the earliest born ancestor for whom I have a photograph. This tiny, degraded tintype was passed down from Charles Barr, Jr., to his daughter, Bernadette Barr, to her son, Philip LaViolet, and down to me when I inherited Grampy’s genealogy research. Remi Bard was a farmer, and my grandfather was told by his grandfather, Charles, that Remi had red hair. Every so often, a ginger will pop up in our mostly brown-haired family, and we owe that trait to Remi.
Remi’s two sons, Charles and Remi, adopted different spellings for their surnames. Charles went by Charles Bard, Sr., while the younger Remi went by Remi Barr. Charles Bard, Sr. was born on August 23, 1840, and like his father was a red-headed farmer. He married twice. He had one child by Marie Vitaline Caron before she died – my great-great grandfather, Charles Barr, Jr. Shortly after her death, he married Lea Emond and had nine additional children. Among his children, there were Bards, Barrs, and Barres. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to why various children adopted different spellings. I have no idea how many of these family members were even literate. Spellings were often at the whim of the record-keepers, not the individuals. They would write down names phonetically, which is why you see such large spelling variations in old records.
Charles Barr, Jr., my great-great grandfather, eventually settled on the Barr spelling of his name, and all three of his children who made it to adulthood retained that spelling. His one son passed it onto his children, and as documentation became more important and names more difficult to change, that spelling stuck. However, that doesn’t mean every document for Charles contains the Barr spelling. In his 1874 baptismal record, he is Charles Barre. In the 1895 marriage record to his first wife, Camilla Dube, he is Charles Bard. The 1891 Canada Census lists him as Bard, while he is Barr in the 1901 Canada Census. In the birth records for all of his children born in Canada, he is Charles Bart, and they also have the Bart surname. He didn’t settle into the Barr spelling until he moved permanently to America. When he remarried in America, he did so under Barr, and his youngest child, Alice was born and baptized as Alice Barr. When his two older children, Wilfred and Bernadette eventually joined him, all of their documentation also had the Barr surname going forward, despite the fact they were both born as Bart.
It's interesting to see how names evolve and change over time. Though there are many other examples of it in my family, the Barr/Bard/Bart/Barre/Jambard surname is probably the one that has changed the most and has the widest variety of spellings.
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