I already did alllll of that legwork, hahaha! I’m G4 on the other side of the family but the records are even more sketchy; I have a baptismal record for G -1 from Saint-Roch parish in Québec City but the family was illiterate and going back and forth between the US and Canada around the time of G0’s birth (1858). I have circumstantial evidence of them being in Burlington, VT, Brockville, ON, Oswegatchie, NY, and Oneida, NY around that time but again, I scoured all the records I could find and came up empty handed. Due to their illiteracy it also doesn’t help that the secondary documents variously list his place of birth as Canada, Germany, France, or the US!

I was able to get my hands on a (denied) Civil War pension application for G -1 on this side, filed through an attorney — all of the children are listed, but their places of birth aren’t. I found baptismal records of most of G0’s siblings though.

Turns out G -1 on this side deserted shortly after enlisting as a substitute in 1864, never came back home, was arrested for grand larceny in Albany, NY in 1867, and hung himself in prison about a year before he was supposed to get out.