Bauche1909–2009
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The First Settlers

How the Bauche family connects to the families from Redu who opened the colonies of Grande Clairière (Manitoba) and Bellegarde (Saskatchewan).

Short answer. The Bauche family were not among the original settlers. They crossed between 1905 and 1909, some twenty years after neighbours from their own village of Redu opened the colony. The links we can show run through two other Redu families: the Copets (Emile Joseph’s wife was a Copet, and Alphonse Copet was one of the first homesteaders at Bellegarde) and the Mahins (two Bauche sons married Mahin women at Bellegarde). The step we cannot yet prove is exactly how Marie Felicie Copet was related to Alphonse Copet; the Belgian civil records should settle it.

How sure are we?

Each finding below is marked. “Verified” means a published record says it; it does not mean we have seen the original document.

  • verified stated by a published record that names these people or places
  • probable fits several records, but no document says it outright
  • speculative a reasonable idea with no direct evidence yet
  • lead an online family tree: a pointer, never proof

What the records show

verified

Families from Redu were among the very first settlers of Grande Clairière.

The Manitoba Historical Society’s history of the district says that in April 1889 new settlers began to arrive from Redu, among them the Delaite, Stringer and Copet families. [S8] Two printed rosters of the colony, from 1891 and 1892, independently list three households “de Redu (Luxembourg)”: Edmond Delaitte with his wife and three children, Alphonse Copper (or Coppet) with his daughter, and Cyrille Libert. [S10][S11]

verified

The same group took the first homesteads at Bellegarde, Saskatchewan.

A parish history quoted in a 1996 Saskatchewan Education book says that in 1891 Alphonse Copet, Cyrille Delaite, Joseph Delaite and Cyrille Libert took the first homesteads at the Fourth Coulee, where Bellegarde now stands, and adds: “Tout ce monde nous vient du village de Redu” (all these people came to us from the village of Redu). [S12] Another book gives 1898 instead of 1891; see the conflicts table on [S19] Research & Sources.

verified

Two local histories name Bauche among the families from Redu.

An undated family history on the Manitoba Historical Society’s website lists the Belgian families of Bellegarde by home village, including “Redu (Bauche, Deloitte, Mahin, Mahy)”. [S9] A contributor to Find a Grave quotes the 1988 history Settlers, Sand and Steeple as naming Bauche among the early families of Grande Clairière. [S25]

Neither says which Bauche, or when. We have not seen the book itself.

verified

Two Bauche sons married women of another Redu family, the Mahins.

The family source has Louis marrying Louisa Mahin in 1915 and Henri marrying Odile Mahin on 27 February 1924. [S3] St. Maurice cemetery at Bellegarde holds Louis Amand Bauche (1890–1966) with Louisa Mahin (1895–1967), and Henry Bauche (1895–1985) with Odile M. (1903–1982). [S13] The Mahins also came from Redu: Léandre Mahin’s obituary says he was born there on 25 February 1869. [S14]

probable

Louisa and Odile were daughters of Léandre Mahin and Marie Alphonsine Copet.

Léandre’s obituary names his wife as née Marie Alphonsine Copet, who died ten years before him; the cemetery lists her as Marie Alphone Copet, 1872–1928, “wife of L.”, beside Léandre (1869–1938). [S14][S13] The funeral report in the same newspaper names Mrs Louis Bauche, Mrs Henri Bauche and a Mrs Coumont of Winnipeg together, which fits daughters but does not say so. A 1982 notice for Odile gives her birthplace as Lesse, Redu, and her arrival in Canada as September 1909 (a fragment of machine-read text). [S28] Online family trees agree. [S21]

What would settle it: the 1915 and 1924 marriage registers at Bellegarde, which name the brides’ parents.

probable

Marie Felicie Copet was a close relative of the settler Alphonse Copet.

Alphonse Copet (1860–1942) came from Redu, as did Marie Felicie (1863–1943). He reached Manitoba in April 1889, the year after her wedding. [S8][S10][S13] Online family trees make Alphonse, and Marie Alphonsine Copet who married Léandre Mahin, first cousins of Marie Felicie, their fathers being brothers. [S21] No document we have seen says so, and the closeness could be greater or less than that.

What would settle it: the Redu birth acts of 1860, 1863 and 1872, which name the parents. [S24]

probable

The June 1909 crossing appears in a passenger-list index.

A free index of the Quebec passenger lists, made by the Nanaimo Family History Society, has seven Belgian passengers named “Banche” on the same page of the list for the Mount Temple, which arrived on 21 June 1909. The first names are those of the seven who crossed together (two are mistyped, “Emilei” and “Felicic”), and every age is within a year of the family source. [S17][S18]

Mount Temple, arrived Quebec 21 June 1909, page 007-006 (microfilm reel T-4761)
As indexedAge in indexFamily sourceAge on 21 June 1909
Banche, Emile55Emile Joseph54
Banche, Felicic47Marie Felicie46
Banche, Emilei15Emile16
Banche, Henri13Henri14
Banche, Paul11Paul12
Banche, Julia9Julia10
Banche, Seraphine7Seraphine8

The Mount Temple was a Canadian Pacific steamer on the London–Antwerp–Canada route. The index does not show where the ship sailed from, so an Antwerp departure is likely but not shown. Ages on passenger lists were often approximate. [S29]

What would settle it: the page image itself (list 007-006 on microfilm reel T-4761, viewable through FamilySearch’s “Canada, Passenger Lists, 1881–1922” or at Library and Archives Canada). It shows the port of departure, the destination and who the family were going to join. We have not seen it, and we cannot rule out another family of seven with the same first names.

speculative

The marriages, and René’s early crossing, were part of a chain.

If the trees are right, Louis and Louisa, and Henri and Odile, were second cousins through the Copet side, so the marriages of 1915 and 1924 took place inside a small network from Redu rather than between strangers on the Prairies. René, aged 15 or 16 when he crossed alone in 1905, may have been going to join relatives or neighbours already settled; we have not found his passenger record. Online trees give the Mahin children born at Redu in 1905 and 1907, which would put that household’s crossing after 1907, in the same window as the Bauches. None of this is documented yet. [S21]

Added in the second research round

Everything here comes from public sources. People who died after 1960, and anything private, are left out of this site and passed to the family’s elders for review.

verified

Manitoba’s indexes give exact dates for the parents and four of the children.

The free index of Manitoba deaths has Emile Joseph Bauche (born 9 July 1854) dying on 12 October 1942 at Cameron, and Marie Felicie Copet on 14 January 1943; Emile junior died on 13 August 1936. The marriage index has Emile junior marrying Alice Charles on 16 June 1917 at Cameron, René marrying Marie Boulanger on 6 July 1921 at Sifton, Paul marrying Alice Hardy on 25 June 1924, and Julia marrying Vital Bertholet on 12 April 1932. [S36] The indexer read Alice as “Olive” in two entries; that looks like a reading habit. Marie Felicie is indexed with a birth date of 18 April 1862, which differs from the family database (see the conflicts table).

Index entries show that a record exists and what the indexer read; the registrations themselves have not been opened.

verified

The 1942 obituary of Emile Joseph says he was born at Redu, and names a daughter who became a nun.

La Liberté et le Patriote of 28 October 1942 reports the death of Emile Bauche, “aged 88”, born at Redu in the province of Luxembourg, and names his daughter Sister Seraphine, a canoness of the Five Wounds of the Saviour. The same paper gives René’s wife as Marie Boulanger (22 December 1944), notes René’s death in May 1956 (12 May 1956), and describes Louis, who died in April 1966, as “native of Redu” (21 April 1966). [S37]

Read from machine-scanned snippets; the page images are free to view and should be read to confirm exact wording and survivors’ lists.

probable

The Mahins crossed three months after the Bauche, in September 1909, and Louis arrived through Halifax.

Léandre Mahin’s obituary (23 November 1938) says he came to Canada with his family in September 1909, not in the 1890s. In the passenger-list index the Mahin children appear (as “Mahan”) at Quebec in September 1909, Louis Bauche appears on a Halifax list, and the June 1909 Bauche party is on the Quebec list already described above. In the 1911 census index a household of seven Mahins is in Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, with Louisa (born about 1895) and Odile (about 1903). In 1921 Emile Joseph, Louis, Henry and Julia are indexed in the Souris district of Manitoba, and René at Brandon. [S14][S36]

Probable, because relationships are masked in the free indexes and the manifest images have not been viewed.

verified

Homestead registers have entries for the families from Redu, but none for the Mahins.

The Saskatchewan homestead grant register index has entries under Bauche (Emile, René and Louis, the last indexed as “L. Bauche”), Copet, Delaite, Libert, Boulanger and Bertholet. There is no entry under Mahin. The free index hides the dates and legal land descriptions, so we do not yet know which quarter-sections these were. [S36]

Next: the Library and Archives Canada land-grant search and the Saskatchewan Archives township registers (Township 6, Range 31 west of the first meridian).

probable

Marie Felicie’s parents are probably Victor Joseph Copet and Eugenie Perpete, which makes her a first cousin of Alphonse Copet, not a sister.

Several public online trees give Marie Felicie’s parents as Victor Joseph Copet (1831–1890) and Eugenie Perpete, and Alphonse Copet and Marie Alphonsine Copet as children of Nicolas Joseph Copet and Rose Lambert; Victor and Nicolas Joseph were brothers. The dates agree: Marie Felicie’s brother Leopold was born on 18 December 1859 and Alphonse on 28 April 1860, so they cannot share a mother. It follows that Louis and Louisa, and Henri and Odile, were second cousins, not first cousins. [S21]

Lead-level evidence: the trees quote civil acts but we have not seen them.

probable

The Bauche line is traced back, through Lesse, to Mettet and Graux in the province of Namur.

Trees that quote State Archives acts give Emile Joseph’s father as Amand Joseph Bauche (born 23 July 1813 at Corenne, died 25 September 1870 at Lesse; a shepherd, later a farmer) and his grandfather as Amand Joseph senior (born 3 December 1772 at Mettet, died 16 August 1846 at Lesse). The line goes back to Bartholomeus “Boche” (about 1657) and Agnes Busiau, who married in 1682 at Graux, near Mettet. Spellings in these acts include Boche and Beauche. This line is not connected to the hamlet of Bauche on the Bocq. The trees do not agree on the surname of Emile’s mother, so the name “Clarinval” in the family database is held as unconfirmed. [S21]

A trade note: nurserymen (forest-tree growers) were still listed at Lesse and Redu in the 1928 Belgian horticultural directory. Redu’s parish church is Saint-Hubert (1851).

verified

Henri Bauche wrote a pioneer history of Bellegarde, and a 2002 Belgian book lists the family among emigrants from Redu.

The Saskatchewan Archives’ 1983 guide to francophone sources lists “Bellegarde, Pioneer History” by Henry (Henri) Bauche, in English, from the Redvers Optimist jubilee edition (probably 1965). The text has not been found online and is the single most useful thing still to obtain. Jean Ducat’s Les Luxembourgeois partis dans le monde (2002) lists Emile Bauche, Marie-Felicie Copet, Louis and René Bauche with Redu as their place. [S38][S39]

probable

Daily life in the parishes: a brass band, parish concerts and a council seat.

Newspaper columns place Emile junior and Henri in the new parish brass band at Grande Clairière in April 1917, and René in parish concerts and plays in 1928, 1930 and 1936. A “Harry Bauche” appears as a councillor of the Rural Municipality of Antler No. 61 in 1953–54, probably Henri. Paul Bauche served as a newspaper subscription collector for Grande Clairière in 1931 and 1941 and was still living there in the 1950s. [S37]

Machine-scanned snippets: to be confirmed on the page images.

Background that the records add

  • Bellegarde’s parish, St. Maurice, dates from 1892; its post office opened on 1 August 1898 and the first church stood about 1899. The 1901 census sub-district of Bellegarde already counted 398 people. The 1905–1909 Bauche crossings were therefore a later wave, joining a settlement that had been growing for fifteen years. [S41]
  • Grande Clairière School No. 1121 was formally established in May 1905 and closed in 1968. [S40]
  • Le Club Belge in Winnipeg was founded in 1905 with 45 members, mostly from West Flanders. We found no Belgian club or association tied to the Redu families in the Bellegarde district. [S42]
  • Bellegarde and St. Maurice cemetery lie in the Rural Municipality of Storthoaks No. 31. [S13]

Searched for, and not found

  • Kenosee Lake. No source ties the Belgian settlers to Kenosee Lake or Moose Mountain; the only connection on record is that the 2009 reunion was held there. The park was created in 1931–32 and the lake was a popular summer place for the district.
  • Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and British Columbia. No record places this family’s households in Regina before 1960. A few reports of households in Brandon, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver are surname-only and unconfirmed. Louis is reported to have spent some months in British Columbia in 1949 and in Europe in 1954.
  • Other Bauche and Debauche families. No evidence links the Lesse family to any other Bauche or Debauche line. A Bauche family is named in the 1890 party of settlers at Grande Clairière; whether it was related is not known. Please do not assume it was.
  • Not reachable. Police, court and municipal records of any living or recently deceased person were not searched, on purpose. Library and Archives Canada land-grant pages, MemorySask and several genealogy search engines refuse automated access.

Who is related to whom

Parents above, children below. Green-edged claims are in the family source or a published record; “lead” and “probable” rest on online trees and circumstantial evidence.

  • Victor Joseph Copet and Eugenie Josephine Perpete Redu, Belgium [S3]
    • Marie Felicie Copet (1863–1943) · married Emile Joseph Bauche (1854–1942) in 1888 [S2]
      • Louis (1890–1966) married Louisa Mahin (1895–1967) [S3][S13]
      • Henri (1895–1985) married Odile Mahin (1903–1982) [S3][S13]
  • Nicolas Joseph Copet lead brother of Victor Joseph, according to online trees [S21]
    • Alphonse Copet (1860–1942) · settler at Grande Clairière 1889, Bellegarde 1891 [S8][S12][S13]
    • Marie Alphonsine Copet (1872–1928) · married Léandre Mahin (1869–1938) of Redu [S14][S13]
      • probable daughters Louisa and Odile, who married Louis and Henri Bauche

The chain, step by step

  1. 1888 — Father Gaire founds Grande Clairière; Emile Joseph Bauche marries Marie Felicie Copet at Redu. [S5][S2]
  2. April 1889 — Delaite, Stringer and Copet families from Redu arrive. [S8] verified
  3. 1891 — Men from Redu take the first homesteads at the Fourth Coulee (Bellegarde). [S12] verified
  4. 1905 — René Bauche crosses. 1908 — Louis Bauche crosses. [S2]
  5. 21 June 1909 — The Mount Temple reaches Quebec with a family of seven indexed as “Banche”. [S17] probable
  6. September 1909 — Odile Mahin is said to arrive. [S28] lead
  7. 1915 · 1924 — Louis marries Louisa Mahin; Henri marries Odile Mahin. [S3]
  8. 1928 · 1938 · 1942–43 — Marie Alphonsine Copet and Léandre Mahin die and are buried at Bellegarde; Emile Joseph and Marie Felicie die and are buried at Grande Clairière. [S13][S14][S2]

What this does not show

  • The hamlet called Bauche. A hamlet of that name lies on the river Bocq in Évrehailles (Yvoir), in the Province of Namur, in another valley and about 40 km from Redu. We found nothing linking the Redu family to it. [S23]
  • Earlier generations. Online trees trace the Redu Bauche line to the Mettet and Corenne area (Namur) in the early 1800s. That is a lead, not a finding, and it awaits the civil registers. [S21]
  • A shared surname is not a shared ancestor. “Bauche” seems to have arisen in several places independently. [S30]

Other families named Bauche

We list these only to prevent confusion. None is shown to be related to the family of Lesse Redu.

Other families named Bauche
FamilyWhat we found
Debauche, WisconsinWalloon emigrants of the 1850s and later to Door, Kewaunee and Brown counties; the Belgian Debauche records found are from Namur province and Walloon Brabant. [S32]
Bauche dit Morency, QuebecA settler from Montmorency on the Île d’Orléans about 1653; descendants use the name Morency. [S33]
Bauche, Jersey, Gaspé and OntarioA family documented at St Ouen, Jersey, from 1629, some of whom emigrated to Canada. [S31]
A Bauche household at Deleau, ManitobaNamed in a 1967 local history among families still living at Deleau. Which Bauche family this was is not known, and it is worth asking within the family. [S27]

What to do next

In order of how much each would settle:

  1. Read the Redu civil registers. The births of Emile Joseph (9 July 1854), Alphonse Copet (1860), Marie Felicie (1863) and Marie Alphonsine (1872); the 1835 marriage of Emile’s parents; and the 1888 marriage act, whose witnesses are likely to be kin. This one step answers most of the questions above. Free with a FamilySearch account. [S24]
  2. Open the Mount Temple page image. List 007-006 on reel T-4761: port of departure, destination, and who the family were joining. [S17]
  3. Read the 1915 and 1924 marriage registers at Bellegarde. They name the brides’ parents and may note a family relationship between the couples. [S13]
  4. Find the two local histories. Henri Bauche’s “Bellegarde, Pioneer History” (Saskatchewan Archives) and Settlers, Sand and Steeple (1988), page 9: which Bauche, and when. [S26]
  5. Look at the newspaper page images. Le Patriote de l’Ouest, 23 November 1938 (Léandre Mahin) and La Liberté et le Patriote, 28 October 1942 (Emile Bauche), free on the Internet Archive. We read only machine-scanned text. [S14]
  6. Check homestead files and the 1911 and 1916 censuses. Where each household lived, who lived with whom, and when they arrived. [S26]
  7. Look for René (1905) and Louis (1908) in the passenger lists. Under other spellings, and in the Saint John and Halifax lists as well as Quebec. [S18]

If you hold any of these documents, or know a family story that fits, we would like to hear it. I can help

How this research was done. In October 2026 the family’s own files were searched together with public sources (digitised books and newspapers, cemetery transcriptions, a free passenger-list index and online family trees), with the help of Claude, an AI assistant. Every finding links to its source and is labelled. Text read by machine from newspapers, and online trees, may contain errors: they are pointers to the original records, which have not replaced them. Only people recorded as deceased are named.