Robin employees
Most were employed by Charles Robin and Co, either on the company's ships or at their headquarters in Gaspé.
There was a constant flow of Jerseymen to and from Canada every year, and many of them settled in Canada, married and raised families there. Thanks to the research of George Francis Le Feuvre, of Jersey, and Marcel R Garnier of Gaspé, the lives and families of hundreds of these emigrants have been researched.
George Le Feuvre
George Le Feuvre paid many visits to Gaspésie in the 20th century, visiting those Jerseymen and their families living there. The notes made during his final visits in the 1960s are of historical importance and were assembled in his book Jèrri Dadis published by Le Don Balleine, in Jersey. It contains the names of Jerseymen who died in Quebec and who lie in Anglican and Catholic cemeteries there, as well as notes on the Jerseymen of Gaspé villages and life in the area at that time.
Although the Gaspé fishing industry would eventually attract large numbers of people from other areas, particularly Scotland, it was started by Charles Robin, and the Jersey influence in this corner of Canada was enormous. Even today a drive along the south coast of the Gaspé peninsular takes visitors through village after village whose post boxes virtually all bear the recognisable names of Jersey families.
Marcel Garnier
The research of amateur genealogist Marcel Garnier, who died in December 2006, resulted in the assembly of over 1,500 family trees of the Channel Island pioneers who crossed the Atlantic to settle in Quebec and New Brunswick between 1765 and 1940.
Le Sauteur website
The website of French Canadian Jersey originaire Tony Le Sauteur, which is no longer active, contained a list of over 1,000 men and women from the Channel Islands who emigrated to Canada and the links below are to an index of those known to originate in Jersey.
