Trusting Family Stories...Ernest and Marriane Kent

We ask family members questions...

Family members tell us stories...

And it's our job, as a family historian, to doubt all information until proven. I'm sure many of us all have stories we've been able to prove and disprove.


My grandmother once told me she believed her grandmother, Marriane, was really in love with Phillip, her sisters husband, but her sister was older and in those days marriages in the "upper class" were always arranged. So Marriane had to marry Ernest the younger brother. Marriane had 2 sisters, one older, Cecilia Agnes Brown (April 13, 1870) and one younger, Helena Cathrine Brown (1879). If the story is true then Cecilia would have married Phillip. However, the documents I've found show Cecilia as marrying a man named Pascal Deslauriers (when she was 25). Now maybe she married a Phillip earlier, but I have no proof of that.

The other part of the story is that Ernest was the "younger brother"...now Ernest did have a brother Phillippe Kent (1885, which would make him younger then Ernest)...but again the records I've found show he married Marguerite Renaud in 1906 when he was 21.

I'm not sure whether to disregard the story my grandmother told me...but as of now I'm unable to prove it.

Besides, Ernest sounds like he was a doll! He'd sit at his piano and sing "Silver Threads Among The Gold" to her and to the grand kids when they were there.

Marriane Brown and Ernest Kent

Ernest Edonard Kent is my 2nd great grandfather. He married Marriane (Marie Anne) Brown on November 7th, 1898.

Marriane was a painter. She'd sign all her painting "MOTHER", which I think is so clever. I have one of her paintings hanging in my bedroom. Another treasured heirloom.

Marriane's painting

Ernest was born in Quebec, Canada on June 25, 1874.

Marriane Brown was born in Quebec, Canada on November 20, 1877.

They had 7 children:

• Norma Kent (My great grandmother), July 19, 1902

Norma Kent

• Edonard Kent, May 9, 1901
• Bernadette Irene Kent, 1905
• Margaret Agnes Kent, May 1907
• Marie Helene Kathleen Kent, Dec 1909
• Leonard Ernest Kent, Nov 6, 1898
• Mary Ruth Kent, Dec 31, 1908

Ernest Kent's Family Tree:

Marriane (Marie Anne) Brown's Family Tree: