The Raymo Ancestry - François Raimond

Most of the Raymo ancestry past Mitchell Raymo that I have uncovered come from two main sources. First the Drouin Collection of French Canadian church records, which is available online as well as in microfilm form at the New England Historical Genealogical Society library in Boston. Second, is the book Genealogy of the French families of the Detroit River region, 1701-1911 by Fr. Christian Denissen, which is also available at the NEHGS library. It is likely that Denissen's tome drew heavily on the same primary sources that make up the Drouin Collection.

With these sources as a guide, I can trace the Raymo ancestry back a few more generations.

Mitchell Raymo's father was François Raimond, born in Montréal, Québec in 1769. His surname can be found in records also as Rémond, Raymond and Ramo. As a young man, François came to settle in Fort Détroit for an unknown reason. At Ste. Anne's Church in Detroit, on 17 May 1802, he married Rose Lemay, a young woman also of French descent.

Partial translation (C'est difficile pour moi.):

The year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Two and on the seventeenth of May, after having publicly read three consecutive Sundays, the banns of marriage between François Raimond, adult and legitimate son of Michel and Josette Leduc, of the the City of Montréal, diocese of Québec...and between Rose Lemay, minor and legitimate daughter of Théophile and the late Marie Pelletier...

François then settled in the farmland of Nankin, west of Detroit where he begins to show up in the U.S. Census records. In 1830, he is listed as Francis Ramo.

François and Rose had at least ten children.

• Marie Raimond, born 1804
• Catherine Raimond, born 1806
• Archange Raimond, born 1808
• François Raimond, born 1809
• Michel Raimond (aka Michel Rémond aka Mitchell Raymo), born 1813
• Alexandre Raimond, born 1815
• Marie Des Agnes Raimond, born 1817
• Jean Baptiste Raimond, born 1819
• Unnamed infant, born and died 1822
• Marguerite Raimond, born 1826

Daughter Archange went on to marry Warren Fenton in 1825. Their daughter Rosanna Fenton (1831-1898) married Samuel Denniston (1822-1885), the younger brother of Margaret Denniston, Mitchell's second wife. (Rosanna was Mitchell's First Cousin and Margaret's Sister-in-Law.)

François died in 1834 at the age of 65, leaving his Nankin farm to son Mitchell, who later passed it down to his son Theodore.