Awakenings Routes and Roots

A book to read and to consult! Whether you're a descendant of the Girouard/Girroir/Giroire/Gerrior family or not. If you are, though, you may be wondering after reading this why so many members of that family are musicians, possibly an Acadian trait as music, in both Northern Acadian regions and Southern Cajunland, was the best way to transmit culture and get whole families and communities to take part in joint fun. Starting with Bill himself, who is working in immersion schools in Nova Scotia with a French folk group, Héritage that tries to bring to kids the knowledge of traditional Acadian and French-Canadian folksongs.

Due to the massive size of that project (600 pages 8"1/2 by 11", more than 2,000 pictures and other visual documents, 200 original charts and subcharts), the first version of Awakenings will be in English only.

The format given to Awakenings , already proving interesting for other people who want to finalize a study on their own family origins, is meant to be not only a compilation of charts and bare genealogical data, but to give - in addition to the quest by the author itself, over two continents - anyone interested in European, Acadian, Canadian, Québécois and American history an understanding of the relationship between individual families and the "major" events they've been involved in or part of. The Girouards/Giroir(e)s have been present not only for the founding of Acadie, but also for many events in France before that (some were knights, some were sculptors in the Poitiers area), for the 1755-1780 deportations of Acadians, for the resettlement of Cajuns in Louisiana, for the U.S. War between the States, for the Patriot uprising in Quebec, to quote but a few. Two-page spreads meant for teaching purposes are included in the book, and will be part of a Web site designed specifically for this project.

This is from Bill Gerrior the author of Awakenings, Routes & Roots:
.... I wish I could say it is ready but it is not. The publishing stage is very time consuming and slower than I anticipated, however everyone has to remember also that my publisher is also a full time professor and acting Head of Languages Department at Acadia University as well as heavily involved in many other Acadian writing projects which I am sure takes a great deal of his time also. However, I just retired in June and I now have more time to work and collaborate with him to assist in bringing this project to its final stage. It is a huge project and I hope to have it out by late spring or summer. I am in the final stages of editing and scanning photos etc but that will take a few months and then the printer will also take the same amount of time, I am sure because it is over 600 pages and more than 2000 photos and visuals.