On October 20, 1884, Georgian Bay Métis Community members Charles Beausoleil and Catherine Brissette were united in marriage at St. Anne’s Church in Penetanguishene. With fellow Métis community members, Joseph Giroux and Deline Boucher standing as witnesses, Charles and Catherine’s marriage reflects the deeply rooted interconnectedness and mutual support that has defined the Georgian Bay Métis Community for generations. Catherine Brissette was born around 1863 in Tiny, the da

Olive Beausoleil and Isidore “McKoy” Dusome were married on May 23, 1875 in Penetanguishene, deepening the Georgian Bay Métis Community’s already well established family and kinship networks. Olive Beausoleil was born in Penetanguishene around 1854, the daughter of 1840 Penetanguishene Halfbreed Petition signatory, Alexis Beausoleil, and Olive Giroux. Raised on the shores of Georgian Bay, Olive grew up in her Métis community. Isidore Dusome was born in Penetanguishene around

On June 6, 1885, Georgian Bay Métis Community Members Francis Longlade and Julie Lamoureux were married in Tiny, Ontario, near Penetanguishene.  Born in Tiny in 1851, Francis Longlade was one of at least eleven children of Louis Longlade. Louis Longlade was born on Drummond Island and, following the War of 1812, relocated to Penetanguishene in the 1820s with a significant portion of the Métis community.  Julie Lamoureux, the daughter of Julienne Adam dit Laramee, who was also

On January 7, 1867, Georgian Bay Métis Community members Andrew Brissette and Judith Boucher were married in Tiny Township.  Born in nearby Penetanguishene in 1847, Andrew Brissette was the son of Archange L'Hirondelle, Métis from the Lesser Slave Lake region of present-day Alberta, and Hyppolite Brissette, the fur-trader whose career was documented in A.C. Osborne's The Migration of Voyageurs From Drummond Island to Penetanguishene in 1828 .  Judith Boucher's mother, Rosette

Paul Vasseur and Marie Prisque’s marriage reflects one of the many marriages between Métis families woven through Penetanguishene’s history.  Born in Penetanguishene around 1837, Paul was the son of Marguerite Longlade and Charles Vasseur, a participant in the 1812 “capture of Mackinaw” and signatory of the 1840 Penetanguishene Petition. Paul was deeply involved in community life, serving as a witness at the wedding of Marie Girroir and Joseph Boucher in 1860, three years bef

The marriage of Alexander Longlade and Marie Sophie Secord on August 22, 1886, reflects a broader pattern of endogamy–Métis marrying Métis–that sustained community life in Georgian Bay throughout the nineteenth century. These unions reinforced kinship networks, cultural continuity, and shared responsibility within an already interconnected Métis society.  Marie Sophie Secord was born around 1870 in Tiny to Benjamin Secord and Sophie Beausoleil, a Métis woman deeply rooted in