Greetings and a warm welcome to all Baril family members, historians
and researchers who might benefit from being associated with this
virtual Barilian community. The purpose of this opening page is
merely to introduce myself as the current secretary to the group,
where my job is to answer any question I can and to refer you
to someone competent when I cannot.
At several critical points in my life, I have stumbled into areas
of human endeavor where a fresh contribution seemed possible.
Each time, however, someone else got there first and did such
an exquisite job, I could only emulate, or worse, simply regurgitate.
After much rooting about in the entrails of my own family background
and its intricate links to rural Quebec and France, I thought
I had found my niche. I would put an end to the woeful 'Coles-Notes' drudgery of forgotten place names and dates which most people associate with the study of history. I would graft new excitement onto our precious genealogical bones by writing a collection of bitter-sweet, love drenched anecdotes drawn from the various archival remains of our ancestors' daily life.
All of this only to stumble on the genealogical life's work of Mme. Thérèse Rocheleau-Baril and on the literary works of Jean O'Neil. So much for my last potential niche, my last hope!
O'Neil, wherever you are, camouflaged perhaps in some carefully guarded anonymity, I salute you, I thank you, and pending the opportunity to formally ask for permission to quote from your fiendishly convenient prose, I will reverentially bellow your name from the virtual rooftops of this Barilian web site in the hopes that, through you, others might discover the heart of the matter.
Of course we all owe a debt of gratitude to Alex Haley for setting the stage and for humming the basic melody. But for the rest of us, from Laurentia to Louisiana, half-mad frenchmen, irish-catholic, scots-presbyterean, peasants, bards and minstrels, Jean O'Neil has written the living counterpoint (yes, most of his subjects are still living) for a return to our own roots along the arteries and capillaries of French North America.
Among BARIL genealogists, however, one person stands as the giant among us. The incontrovertable dean of all BARIL family research is Mme. Thérèse Rocheleau-Baril. The breadth, depth and detail of the work she has done in over 50 years of Baril research is staggering.
As you begin your own genealogical journey, you will inevitably encounter the charlatans and boastful braggarts who measure their macho success with units of quantity, not quality. Sadly, they seem totally unaware that 90% of the Ascendancy data they claim as their own has been skoffed and computerized, unattributed, from the decades of manual work by this amazing woman.
What I dare hope for with this personal web site of mine, therefore, is to make it an ode to the Fleuve St-Laurent, its Mississipian continuance, the precious human heritage which is still discernible along its winding tributaries, and mostly, a tribute to Thérèse.
I sincerely hope you will find some small part of yourself among these pages and invite you to establish contact with any of us at BARIL.ORG who might share significant parts of your own background.
pb