Page 60 - Fortier Family History

Jane Souliere Family Tree (Agnes’ Mother) French (NWC) & Ojibway Origins The Souliere family is one of the oldest families to settle in New France (Quebec). In our line the 1st Souliere (various spellings) to immigrate from France was Nicholas Souliere dit dit Tranchemontagne Sustier. He immigrated before 1671, which is when he married in Quebec on L’Ile d’Orleans. I wonder if he knew Antoine Fortier’s family? I have traced our Souliere line back to LaPointe, WI (on Madeline Island in Lake Superior just north of Ashland, WI) as far back as the late 1700s or early 1800s. Madeline Island was the spiritual center and final stopping place for the Ojibway people after their nearly 500 year migration from the northeastern Atlantic seaboard (from the Gulf of St. Lawrence south to what today is Maine). I believe that Nicholas’ g-g-g-grandson Jean Baptiste Souliere II (1788-1879) was the first to marry a Native or Mixed-Blood woman, Angelique Bousquet, and they lived on Madeline Island before immigrating back east to Michigan Territory. According to the Indian Affairs Treaty Paylist records for Nick Finlayson, Jane was transferred from John Anango’s Paylist "Ticket" when she married Nick in 1885, to Nick’s Paylist Ticket. John Anango was her first husband, even though they were separated by 40 years in age. Nick’s first wife was Elizabeth Anango, John Anango’s daughter from a previous marriage. Jane was a widow when she married Nick, who was a widower after Elizabeth Anango died. There is a record of Jane Souliere, Indian, living at Pic River in 1861, age 1 year, daughter of Antoine Souliere and Marie Louise Schellin, Indian with 7 siblings (Ontario/Algoma Census of 1861). That would put her age at 25 when she married Nick in 1885. The Souliere family goes way back to the 1700s, one of the many Voyager families intermarrying with Native women. Continued