Marche As Seary (E. R. Seary) notes, confusion can arise between the English form MARCH and the French MARCHE (and, indeed, the English MARSH). The former is widespread in Newfoundland, whereas MARCUS is common on the west coast. Seary refers to family tradition claiming a MARCHE from Acadia settled at the Creek (du Cric) in St. George's Bay. Butler (228) notes a MARCHE from France, settling at St. George's before 1834. Indeed, in the 1839 listing there is a Rose MARSH, a native of Cape Brelon, with a family of two, a Francis MARCH, Sr., with a family of four, and a Francis MARCH, Jr., also of Cape Breton and also with a family of two. There is a John MARSH, with a family of seven, and a widow R. MARSH with a family of six, noted in the 1858 Forrest document. It is not known if the Rose MARSH of 1839 is the same person as the widow R. MARSH of 1858. It is clearly a distinct possibility. A Victor MARCH is noted in the 1871 Petition.
In his notes on the Jesso family (see above). Stride (Allan T. Stride) includes the name MARCHE amongst those deportees from Acadia who were at St. Pierre between 1764 and 1789, and again, as MARSH, as a prominent family of French descent at Little Bras d'Or in 1818 and later in the century at Bay St. George. Butler (36-37) includes a marriage entry from Fr. Belanger's records noting the marriage in 1854 of Guillaume SIMON, native of Brittany, domiciled at Bay St. George, and Marie Pauline Marche, a minor, daughter of the late Francois MARCHE and Emilie LeJeune of Port-a-Port (the more common earlier form of Port-au-Port). Stride (1990), proposes that as far as he can determine, the Newfoundland Marches, as well as most of the Nova Scotia Marches, are descendants of Jean-Joseph MARCHE. He died in Cape Breton, but a number of his sons and some "...of his daughters emigrated from Petit Bras D'Or—the area called the French Village -to Bay St. George in the 1830-35 time frame. It's possible a family or two may have arrived at a later date. Prior to Cape Breton, Jean-Joseph Marche had lived a number of years at St. Pierre after previously having come from France" (72).
Sources:
French Family Names of Newfoundland and Labrador, 1999, by Gerald Thomas
Copyright © 2003 Jasen Benwah
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