Etienne Parent (1802 - 1874) - Part I
Up to this point, I have writing post about each of my direct ancestors, maternal and paternal. To be fair, I alternated from one side of the family to the other for each post. Starting with this post I am going to go in a slightly difference direction and, for the foreseeable future, I will focus my post on one ancestor, Etienne Parent.
During the course of researching my parent ancestors I discovered Etienne Parent (1802 - 1874). He is not a direct ancestor. Etienne is descended from Etienne Parent, one of the original triplets of Pierre Parent and Jeanne Badeau. That would make Etienne Parent an uncle. Sorry, I have not worked out our exact relationship. Our relationship is not that important to my research.
I have been researching Etienne Parent for over an year and I have collected an enormous amount of information from a variety of sources; Library and Archives Canada (LAC), The Internet Archives, Geneanet, Family Search, and a number of internet queries. As you can see i have found a lot of information on the internet but I have also researched Etienne Parent using books, journals, magazines and newspapers. I have so much material on Etienne Parent that I had to spend time organizing the information so that I would be able to find the material that I wanted when I wanted it.
The one thing that I did not find was a comprehensive biography of Etienne Parent which was very puzzling. During his lifetime Etienne Parent was one of the leading journalists, statesmen and public intellectual of his time. To me, it was a great injustice that this man who dedicated his life to his people and his country should be relegated to being an academic this subject for Phd candidates of political economy. That is not to say that it is not important that Etienne Parent should not be studied and written about but he should be known by the greater public. He should be as well known as his contemporaries; Louis Joseph Papineau, Louis Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin. These are men that Etienne Parent knew well. He was good friends with Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine for his entire life and with Louis Joseph Papineau until he broke off with Papineau over disagreements about political reform in Quebec. These men, LaFontaine, Baldwin and Papineau are all important actors in Canadian history but Etienne Parent has been relegated to being a footnote in history. This is not right!
This is the reason for all of my research over the past year or so, the reason that I acquired such a significant body of information and knowledge that I can draw upon to write a biography of Etienne Parent. The more that I have learned about him, the more confidence I have that this biography must be written. I have found short biographies of Etienne Parent. Most of them are from one to five pages long. The longest was written by one of his sons-in-law, Benjamin Sulte who was a important Quebecoise writer and historian at the end of the nineteenth century in Quebec. I want to write the complete biography of Etienne Parent that not only discusses his thinking on politics, society, economics, religion and education which is significant but also his family life, his life as a talented writer, journalist, lawyer and finally his career working in the government of the newly created Canada.
That is enough for today. More to come!
During the course of researching my parent ancestors I discovered Etienne Parent (1802 - 1874). He is not a direct ancestor. Etienne is descended from Etienne Parent, one of the original triplets of Pierre Parent and Jeanne Badeau. That would make Etienne Parent an uncle. Sorry, I have not worked out our exact relationship. Our relationship is not that important to my research.
I have been researching Etienne Parent for over an year and I have collected an enormous amount of information from a variety of sources; Library and Archives Canada (LAC), The Internet Archives, Geneanet, Family Search, and a number of internet queries. As you can see i have found a lot of information on the internet but I have also researched Etienne Parent using books, journals, magazines and newspapers. I have so much material on Etienne Parent that I had to spend time organizing the information so that I would be able to find the material that I wanted when I wanted it.
The one thing that I did not find was a comprehensive biography of Etienne Parent which was very puzzling. During his lifetime Etienne Parent was one of the leading journalists, statesmen and public intellectual of his time. To me, it was a great injustice that this man who dedicated his life to his people and his country should be relegated to being an academic this subject for Phd candidates of political economy. That is not to say that it is not important that Etienne Parent should not be studied and written about but he should be known by the greater public. He should be as well known as his contemporaries; Louis Joseph Papineau, Louis Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin. These are men that Etienne Parent knew well. He was good friends with Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine for his entire life and with Louis Joseph Papineau until he broke off with Papineau over disagreements about political reform in Quebec. These men, LaFontaine, Baldwin and Papineau are all important actors in Canadian history but Etienne Parent has been relegated to being a footnote in history. This is not right!
This is the reason for all of my research over the past year or so, the reason that I acquired such a significant body of information and knowledge that I can draw upon to write a biography of Etienne Parent. The more that I have learned about him, the more confidence I have that this biography must be written. I have found short biographies of Etienne Parent. Most of them are from one to five pages long. The longest was written by one of his sons-in-law, Benjamin Sulte who was a important Quebecoise writer and historian at the end of the nineteenth century in Quebec. I want to write the complete biography of Etienne Parent that not only discusses his thinking on politics, society, economics, religion and education which is significant but also his family life, his life as a talented writer, journalist, lawyer and finally his career working in the government of the newly created Canada.
That is enough for today. More to come!
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