Student/Teacher

The Acadian Families of Yesterday and Today

Setting

From the middle of the 17th century, many families came from France and settled in Acadie, including the Arseneaus, Benoits, Cyrs, Oudys and Richards. The Deportation, however, dispersed these Acadian families all along the Atlantic seaboard, which explains why Acadian descendants can be found in Québec, France, and Louisiana.

Nowadays, Acadie is in the provinces of Atlantic Canada: Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. It is there that many deportees and their descendants resettled, rejoining some families that had escaped the Deportation. Today, Francophones from elsewhere in Canada, Europe, Africa and Asia come to settle in this new Acadie.

In this context, let's try to define what an Acadian is.

Start-up question

What is an Acadian?

Guidelines

• Do your family tree up to your great-grandparents (homework).
• With your group, answer the questionnaire by using the list of family names that were in Acadie / Nova Scotia in the 18th century.
• Participate in the discussion to find elements of the answer to the start-up question.

Keywords

Here are a few keywords which you will learn during this activity:

• Change
• Culture
• Deportation
• Group
• Identity
• Society

Essential and optional resources

Essential resources

• List of family names that were in Acadie / Nova Scotia in the 18th century (PDF | HTML)
• Family tree (PDF | HTML)
• Questionnaire (PDF | HTML)
• Phone book
• Subject matter seen in class

Optional resources

• Web site: 1755: The History and the Stories
  History section: A Reinforced Identity
• Web site: Francophonies canadiennes: Identités culturelles
  Acadie section
  http://www.francoidentitaire.ca/acadie/accu/accucadr.htm