Dax's 9th great-grandfather, a man named Toussaint Beaudry, was baptized here in 1639, and his family may well have lived in the area for centuries.

But that was about to change.

In 1664, when Toussaint was 25 years old, he booked passage on a ship bound for Canada.

He was taking an extraordinary risk.

Wow!

That's 44 years after the Mayflower.

Oh my gosh!

I mean, Skip, you and I would not cross the Potomac on this boat.

I mean, can you imagine boarding that thing?

No.

Oh my Lord.

I would've been terrified the whole time, plus sea sick.

And probably days with no wind that you're sitting there wondering if you'll ever resume your- yeah, it's mind blowing.

When Toussaint boarded his ship, France was a rigidly class-based society, where he likely had few opportunities for advancement.

So almost certainly, he came to the New World hoping to improve his life.

Unfortunately, those hopes would take time to materialize.

Two years after he arrived in Canada, we found Toussaint performing an unusual job.

He was employed as a domestic servant.

Oh!

At a hospital in Montreal.

And was working on the hospital's small farm with 11 other men.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Working at a hospital.

Yes!

Farming.

Farming for the, you know...

The patients presumably.

Patients and the staff.

Yeah, weird!

Do you think he found that work satisfying, worth the long perilous journey across the Atlantic?

Absolutely not.

I would- He most certainly got here, then got that job, and thought "well I could've done this back in France and the food was better."

Toussaint seems to have shared Dax's point of view.

Within a year, he left his hospital job behind, and found a new occupation, trading and transporting animal furs for export.

These furs were in huge demand in Europe.

So he was industrious, he wasn't content to stay in that field outside that hospital.

Yeah.

He said, "there's gold in them there woods, and I'm gonna shoot it and skin it!"

Yeah.

And that's what he did.

Yeah, entrepreneurial.

Can you relate?

Well, yeah, and it certainly explains my Pippi's aptitude for business and entrepreneurship.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that work, Dax.

Forget it!

Forget it.

I'm looking at this just going, no way could I have done any of this.

We don't know how long Toussaint spent in the fur trade.

There are no records to tell us.

But by 1672, he'd returned to Montreal, married a woman named Barbe Barbier, and started a family.

Barbe is Dax's ninth great-grandmother, and she and Toussaint would have at least nine children together.

But their happiness would not last.

"On 24 January 1694, Barbe Barbier, wife of Toussaint Beaudry, was buried in our church, in the presence of almost the entire parish."

Your ancestor died in childbirth in 1694.

She was 40 years old.

Wow.

The child was a boy named Simon, who was born three hours prior to her death.

He died about eight months later.

Oof.

What's it like to learn this?

It's hard to imagine, you know?

I often think about Lincoln having lost, what, two children while he's in the White House.

I can only imagine the expectations were much different.

I mean, this must've maybe even felt like he was one of the lucky ones if he only lost one of nine children.

Yeah.

That was the brutal part of being alive then, I think.

Dax's ancestors would soon face another brutal blow.

Toussaint himself would pass away just a year after his wife, leaving their children alone.

They likely struggled mightily just to survive.

But somehow the family endured, and their descendants would eventually make another immense journey, to Michigan.

Roughly 600 miles from Montreal, and more than 3,000 miles from Toussaint's birthplace in France.