Jack Aubry roamed the Irish countryside in search
of his ancestor’s birthplace. Christine Roger talks
with a direct descendant of Canada’s first Irish settler.
Roots run deep in Canadian soil for those who can trace their ancestors to the 17th century, but few can claim they are direct descendants of Canada’s first Irish immigrant.
Jack Aubry makes that claim uncontested — thus far..
When he found out from his uncle Louis that their ancestor, Pierre Aubry (born Tec Cornelius Aubrenan), was the only settler of Irish origin in the June 10, 1663 census of Montréal, Aubry thought that was “a hell of a story.”
“I’m fascinated by it just because, in a sense, it’s unexpected,” says Aubry. “A story that’s right under my nose.”
What had been family lore became a public declaration in The Ottawa Citizen on July 1, when Aubry, a national reporter for The Citizen, wrote “Diving into the Gene Pool.”
Having convinced his editor of his claim’s authenticity and newsworthiness, Aubry flew to Dublin, with his daughter, Avril, leaving behind him 330 years of French-Canadian ancestry that began in 1670 when Pierre Aubry married Jeanne Chartier.
Being naturally “curious” and having a journalistic instinct to “dig deeper,” Aubry felt compelled to investigate his ancestor’s roots.
Aubry and Avril greeted me with smiles at the front door of their Glebe home. In the hall closet, two basketballs sat on top of footwear. A slender girl with straight, shoulder-length hair and blue eyes, Avril, 10, plays basketball. Aubry, 43, used to play in high school and for the varsity team at Queen’s where he studied English literature.
Black and white photographs in slick, basic black frames cascaded down the wall along the narrow staircase that descended into the hall. They invited me into the front room, a cosy haven with mint green walls, hardwood floors, gilded mirrors and a fireplace.
While I interviewed his daughter, Aubry sat across us in a lilac armchair, looking at his daughter who answered my questions with ease. She had watched her dad conduct interviews during their three-week stay in Ireland last January in search of Pierre Aubry’s birthplace.
Avril talked to me about her visit to a Catholic school where she told a class about Canada. The students recited poetry in Gaelic, and Avril spoke to them in French telling them that in Canada, ‘We speak French instead of Gaelic.’
She fondly recalled a special moment on the shore of the Dinen River in Kilkenny County. “There was a farm, and they bred dogs. I played with the dog while my dad was asking questions. It was an Irish setter,” says Avril Aubry.
Shortly after Avril had gone upstairs, Aubry’s wife, 43, came to greet me. Like Aubry’s mother, she’s of Irish descent. She left Aubry and I to talk about his family history.
Born in Rouyn-Noranda, in northern Quebec, on Sept. 7, 1958, Aubry grew up in a bilingual household with four brothers. “I’m a fairly competitive person because of that,” says Aubry. “You learn early that if you don’t get in there, you’re going to miss out. There won’t be anything left on the table.”
His father, Maurice Aubry, is a French-Canadian from Ontario. Born to an Irish mother and English father, his mother, Mary Smith, is from Quebec. The other women in the Aubry family line are all French-Canadians.
While in Ireland, Aubry sought out ancestors, archives, graveyards, pubs, and, eventually, his ancestor’s birthplace that, according to his uncle’s research, would have been in Dysart-on-the-Dinen in Kilkenny County.
“He (Pierre Aubry) was born in Ireland but became a naturalized Frenchman,” says Louis Aubry, in an interview from his home in Rockland.
He is believed to have immigrated to France in 1652, then to Canada in 1661, under Louis IVX.
“It was probably when Cromwell defeated the Irish army in 1652,” says Aubry’s uncle, a retired Montfort Hospital health administrator. “When he married one of the Filles du roi, Jeanne Chartier, he (Tec) changed his name to Aubry.”
A French-Canadian of medium height with a trimmed, white beard, Louis Aubry, 77, spoke to me in French about his ancestors. He told me that his interest in genealogy dates back to 1984 when he was doing a master’s degree in health administration at the University of Ottawa. After our chat, he invited me to see his collection of books on
famous French-Canadians such as Louis Joseph Papineau and volumes of his genealogy research.
Louis Aubry first came across his ancestor’s origins in Montréal, la formation d’une société 1642-1663, written by Marcel Trudel, historian and former dean at the University of Ottawa. An amateur genealogist, he convinced his nephew to write a story about Pierre Aubry.
Jack Aubry hesitated because he felt the story would be of little interest to the public.
“There’s nothing here that’s going to grab anybody,” he had told his uncle in the fall of 2000. That’s when Louis Aubry spelled out for him that Tec Cornelius Aubrenan was Canada’s first recorded Irish settler. Aubry said his uncle had “buried the lead” in his own research.
That autumn marked the beginning of a close collaboration between uncle and nephew. Louis Aubry had the research; Jack Aubry, a colourful account of his adventures in Ireland.
“I had more or less promised my uncle that I would get this in the paper in some form or another,” says Aubry. Originally, the story was going to run on St. Patrick’s Day, but the daily decided to print it on Canada Day.
“I felt that this was news in a sense even though it was history. We believe we’ve identified the first Irish settler,” says Aubry. “I know anyone who’s Irish in Canada is interested in that.
“When you’re writing a magazine piece you have to have colour,” says Aubry, who is known for his investigative journalism. “You have to bring the story alive. I didn’t think I could do that if I just stayed here in Canada.”
In 1990, Aubry received a Canadian Association of Journalists Investigative Journalism Award and a National Newspaper Award for his story on Marc Lepine (1989 Montreal Massacre). He was also nominated for the Canadian Association of Journalists computer-assisted reporting in 2000 for his story on Liberal patronage.
Aubry sat next to me where his daughter had sat. His long legs stretched past the coffee table, a round, glass pane supported by antique gold branches merging into a solid base.
Thumbed paperbacks and magazines spoke of someone fond of reading.
Aubry rested his hands on his lap. His voice, like the first movement of Rachmaninov’s Fantaisie-tableaux, was a soothing stream of sounds hovering over “undulating pasture land bisected by winding river valleys.” These words written by Aubry romanticize the Irish landscape he depicts in the Canada Day article.
“It’s still a guess that he (Tec) is from Dysart-on-the-Dinen,” says Aubry. “It’s possible we’re not even in the right county.
“We do know he was an O’Brennan,” says Aubry. “It seemed very logical that that place (Tec’s birthplace) would be Kilkenny because that’s the land of O’Brennans.”
One evening when the sun was setting over the Dinen and Avril was playing with an Irish setter, Aubry said he had a feeling of “calm” and “contentment” and thought to himself, ‘I’m in the right place.’