Oh George! Where art thou!?

So I have been doing search after search for my Great Grandfather; George Atwood Wilson Jr.
He said his last name was MARTIS, and that he was adopted into the Wilson family.
I have his mother's marriage record to John A. Martis in 1870 in MA.
I have searched for a birth record for George under the following:
Name: George A. Wilson
Parents: George A Wilson & Carrie T. (Witham), Williams, Martis etc-Nothing

Name (Blank) Martis
b. abt 1876 in MA/ME/NH
Parents: John A. Martis & Carrie T. Witham (etc)
Nothing.

I don't know where to look, and the fact that Carrie & kids with John disapear after 1872-then show up in 1880 in ME married to George A Wilson (sr) with more kids; that is a 10 year gap; there MUST be records or info somewhere!
>,< NARF~

~Family Fishnet; getting your lines crossed~

So, part of today has been spent doing search upon search for a record of Marriage; a Transcription, that I had found last year for my Great Grandfather William Saulnier to my Great Grandmother Francoise Comeau online. It was a site with many old marriage records from Churchpoint, NS. The information in the page was very informative and gave me many a lead in my research into those lines. Could I find it again? NO. >,< Ofcourse not!
Now I have heard the saying; "take everything you read with a grain of salt..." that is Especially True of Genealogy research and information found on a website. (Sources, Sources Sources!!) I usually try to note down where the info came from and usually 'favorite' the page for easy return and reference, but alas I must have forgotten that day. If I find a site that may have interesting or related info to what I am researching or who I am researching but has no sources I will usually chat up another Genealogist or someone I may know who has access to 1st or second hand sources to double check any info I find.
    For any of you who may be reading this, if you are Acadian or have French Acadian lines, if you don't know it already; let me clue you into a Fact: almost all big Acadian names (ei: families) are related to eachother in 'everywhichwaydirection 3 and 5 ways to the 16th power divided .5 ways to Sunday' as it were. ;) Basicly; from what have found in my own research and others of Acadian Lines; we don't have Family Trees; We have family Fishnets, or Chickenwire (think of the interlinking neverending shapes). That is a fact. Now I am not saying that there aren't any out there that are not majorly interconnected within their trees, but you'd be hard pressed to find one I think.
To try to help explain for any of you saying to yourselves while reading this: "OMG you mean your indbred??!!?!" Please read the following:
I know I am in dire need of major brushing up on my Acadian history; especially pertaining to the Deportation years, or "Grand Deraigement" in the 1750's, as it is called, but basicly after Britian won the war with France (and even before) they began to round up all Acadians they could find and track down and the British began a Campaigne of Genocide (which, thankfully for me and thousands others, did not succeed in wiping out the Acadian population), in which they:
Imprisioned them; whole families even
Split families up; sent a brother overseas while the rest were sent to New England or Maryland etc, regardless of age
Shipped them off to America. Spain. France. And other countries.
Some fled to the hills and hid out.
Some fled to Quebec.
Several of my own Ancestors were sent to Maryland, some after then ended up in Louisianna; I have at least 4 ancestors (that I can recall right now) that were actually born in LA and then moved back up to NS.
One of my ancestors and his whole family of 4 were imprisioned at Fort Edward and spent 10 years doing manual labor for the fort. (Keep in mind men and women were made to sleep in seperate areas)

(Above: Fort Edward Blockhouse; built in 1750. It is all that remains of the Fort. Photo NOT by me; from this website: http://ns1763.ca/hantsco/fortedward.html )

("Fort Edward, as it appeared in the early 1900s.
The building with the red roof, in the center of this photograph,
was the Officers' Quarters. It burned down on 16 June 1922.

This Valentine & Sons postcard was postmarked in Windsor in June 1908." image & caption found at this website: http://ns1763.ca/hantsco/fortedward.html )

I can only imagine what they went through.
(for any who are curious; google Rene Saulnier & Fort Edward to learn more or click here to learn more about the Expulsion and Acadian History & Genealogy)
Many Acadians died while in transit overseas in shipwrecks.
One of my lines; Jacques Amirault and his parents were sent to Chelsea, MA; I did some reading; many Acadians who ended up in MA had rules; they were not allowed to go beyond 10 miles from their 'abode' (shanties). If they did they faced punishment. They had to get permission from the Govenor to leave or have other 'amenities' of life. They had to 'Request' aid (many died from lack of medical aid, disease and starvation). The tradgedies go on and on....

    When Britian won the war there were (and I think I may have the exact number wrong) about 15,000-20,000 Acadians in NB and NS. Ten years later, after America had won it's revolution and Loyalists had excaped to Canada and claimed many an acadian's farm, the Acadian's were released from prisons, etc and allowed to 'go home'. By that Point there were about 300 Acadian Families left.

Back then; if you were an Acadian you likely married another Acadian; and Voila! There you have a good portion of the reason why most Acadians are related to another; in a vague nutshell.
(I will work on getting more precise information to update this with)
 How does this tie into my search for that Marriage Transcription of William Saulnier & Francoise Comeau?
Well, when I had first found it, it had the names of bride and groom, their parents, witnesses etc.
William's Parents are down as: Oliver Saulnier & Anne Walsh
Francoise's Parents are down as: Mathurin Comeau & Honorine Saulnier.
When I saw that I had a slightly creepy sensation of a chill run up my spine; I already knew Olivier had a sister named Honorine; I though....Nahhhhh
I did some more poking about on this site and found both Olivier Saulnier's marriage record and Honorine Saulnier's record...
Olivier's Parents are down as: Marc Casimir Saulnier & Marguerite Charlotte Deveau
Anne's Parents were not listed.
----
Mathurin's Parents are down as Urbain Fulgence Comeau & Catherine Saulnier.
Honorine's Parents are down as: Marc Casimir Saulnier & Marguerite Charlotte Deveau
(Insert a MAJOR Face palm and pitiful groan here >,<)
This meant my Great Grandparents were 1st cousins...(<wince>OUCH.)
I sat there for over 10 minutes just saying "OMG are you (insert your own choice of multiple explitives Here) kidding me??"
I have also found numerous connections between them through other family lines, though not as close, and connections between my own Grandparents (4th 5th etc cousins).
I come from Michel Boudrot  ("Father" of all the Boudreau's/Boudreaux's/Boudreault's etc in the USA & Canada) 21 DIFFERENT WAYS (thus far and counting) for example.
One of the upsides to all this?
I HAVE BLOOD FAMILY EVERYWHERE! 
*"Muahahahah!" * ;)
LOL
And numerous other distant, not so distant, really distant cousins all over; I even have a 6th cousin who lives in France; his 5th great grandfather and mine were brothers; his was sent to France, mine to Maryland. I am sometimes invited to go to really neat places to drop in and say hi. lol I even found out a friend of mine who I have known for years is my 6th and 8th cousin; knowing we are blood family has strengthened our friendship. I have a standing invitation to visit a cousin in Florida, France, Boston, Canada and so on :)
I REALLY resemble one side of my family more so than others.
My mother's response to this and to all the other 'interconnections' I have found through the years.
"Well, guess it means ya got strong genes!!" lol
I try to take all these things with humor otherwise my brain would explode just trying to figure out just 'how much' I am related to my own 1st cousins when you add in all the other crossed lines. lol.

So this is why I have been trying to find this site again; so I can contact the site owner and double check this info to REALLY make sure that it is correct. Because if they weren't 1st cousins I want to know, and if they really were 1st cousins I really want to make sure it wasn't a clerical error on the record.

And so it begins.....

Hi. Since this is my first blog I should probably introduce myself;   I'm 'LadyAlaise'.
  After much hmming and hawming I decided to try my hand at a blog, and like the Blog title suggests; this will be a journey for me and for those who will read this. And so, in the spirit of new beginnings I will explain a bit on how I got on this journey of family tree research.
    As I remember it;  When I was was 12 years old my Nana started telling me stories about her mother's and father's families; the Dunlea's and the Wilson's.
  Her mother was one of the "Dunlea Sisters of Pigeon Cove", as she put it, born, here in Massachusetts, to Irish Immigrants escaping the horrible famine from 'across the pond'.  She told me how her Grandfather, John, was a "Stone Mason" and how her Grandmother, who was a Boyle, her mother, and 8 Aunts worked in the Shoe Factories of that time.
   Her father, she said, was adopted into his family, the Wilson family, and he worked for an early telephone company in New England.
    She told me how when she was about the age of 6, she was playing 'Cowboys and Indians' in front of her home with her two brothers, she said she always was the 'indian', and her father, home from work was watching them. He was a "big bear of a man", very tall and strong. After some time he called my Nana over and bent down to her and asked:
"Would you like to know a secret?"
"Yes!" She answered.
"We're Indian...but SHHHH! You can't tell anyone, you have to keep it a secret."
I guess that both my Nana and her brothers asked more questions as they got older because Nana was able to tell me more about his mysterious origins.
She said how Wilson wasn't his original surname, that his surname was "Martissee" or "Martaise" or "Mahtis",(keep in mind that she and her family all had pretty thick Boston Accents)  and that his biological Grandmother or great Grandmother was supposedly a "Chiefs daughter".  Both My Nana and her brother my Great Uncle told me (at seperate times) about all this.

I was in absolute Awe; awe that they could know all this stuff about people who had lived "back then", about people who were no longer around to tell it how they knew it, about these people who I had come from!  My curiosity was snagged by the unanswered questions about her mother and father; Where in Ireland did her mother's family come from? What did they look like? Did I look anything like them? What did they think about? What had they lived through? Who were my Great Grandfather's biological family? Where had he come from? Was he really part Native American?
This curiosity never ebbed.
I began to wonder how I was 'related' to those people and to the children and grandchildren and so on of them and their families; I began to wonder about the abstracted context within that of my own life, on where I fit in 'my family tree' on what that meant. It dawned on me not long after, that if the people my Nana told me of, my ancestors, had not made the decision to leave Ireland, or for my Great Grandparents, if they hadn't gotten married; then I would not exist! How their choices in their lives; who they married, where they lived and so on, still even generations later, has an effect on the present, like a ripple effect! I was floored by that realization; and was dismayed at the thought that these people, my family, that their lives, who they were, what they went through; that their memory should ever be forgotten or lost! That no matter what humble or noble in origin they were, that they mattered, that they had lived, walked on the same earth, laughed or cried, made hard choices and simple choices, and breathed as I do now.
   I proceeded to get a pencil and a pad of yellow lined paper and asked my Nana and Great Uncle more questions about their parents and their families.
  When a photo of her mother was pointed out by my mother I jotted down that there was a photo of her, and about what age my family thought she was when it was taken. I devoted, at first, two pages per person my Nana and G. Uncle told me about; I ended up using one of my school notebooks to keep everything and write things down.  I began to dissect those family stories for clues, abstracted connections, and began to pester the ever living heck out of my family for info! (Oh, and I STILL do! lol)
I would use my study hall breaks and my free time in the computer room  in school to use the still fairly new internet to try to find info. (It was MUCH harder then let me tell you!) I made phone call after phone call to relatives and pretty much 'interviewed', and pumped them for as much info as they would provide; no small a detail was to be overlooked, for I soon discovered that even the smallest detail can lead one to more information or a place to look. I learned from scratch and from those who had more experience than I after coming upon a few posting forums and email groups.

    In turn, my new found passion for everything familytree related further fuelled my passion for history; I wanted to learn and know what was going on in this world, and area when these people were alive; what decisions did they face in their 'world', what hadn't been invented yet?? And so this also perpetuated my joy of History; instead of getting a video of Mighty Mouse or My Little Mermaid from my town library, I started taking home National Geographic films , magazines and documentaries, WWII history videos, 18th century themed historical dramas, old books about local families and histories of early Massachusetts, documentaries on Ireland, Native American Tribes, doing research online about the 'famine years' and the experience of the Irish here in New England at the time, films on science, nature, ancient Rome and Greece and then some; all before hitting 15 years old!

     Here it is; nearly 2012 and I have been doing this for over half my lifetime...

   Thus began my Journey and ultimately my Passion for family tree research, genealogy, and history. And so it continues, I am sure, until the day I die; by then hopefully someone in my family with be awestruck by the stories and memories and knowledge I may pass on, and thus our 'family memory' won't be forgotten or lost.

And so, in ending my first blog; I invite you:
~Walk with me in my Journies through the Trees~