It all began with the old family tree that sat on the wall of my grandparents’ house. The tree had been given to my grandfather Art Baubie by Chick Stodgell (husband of Marie Bâby and navigator for Charles Lindbergh) who surveyed a boat once owned by my maternal great-grandfather Lynn G. Stedman. You may know it as “Appendice B” from “Mémorial des familles Casgrain, Bâby et Perrault du Canada”. For many years no one knew how we connected with the tree.

Years later, my mother met Dorothy Pennefather Arble aka “Penny”, who was able to connect my great-grandfather, James Byron Baubie with his father William Francis Bâby.

So my first thank you goes to my mother Katherine Stedman Raulston, for getting me interested in genealogy…including the Stedman’s, the Manvilles and the Hallett’s.

My second thank you goes to Penny Arble for all of her dedicated work in researching the Henderson information as well as the many countless hours in the Burton Collection tracing records and correcting the incorrect information in the Christian Dennisen books.

My third thank you goes to my great-grandfather Edward Britton Manville whom I never knew (either did my mother for that matter) and for who I am named. He created a family tree book that intrigued my mother in the first place.

My last thank you, goes to my new friend W. Charles Hollier. Charles is a Perrault cousin who lives in Louisiana. He is the only other person that has contacted me regarding the origins of the Babie de Ranville family in France. We share the same theory that we are actually Babin’s, but spelling standards did not exist in those days. (See my DNA theory link for more information).