Figure 1: This bumpersticker was sold at some Reunions

Violette Family Association members are coming in contact with a new set of “numbers” now that they have access to search in their Family Tree. Knowing this may be confusing to some, let’s explain the three different systems that apply to us Violettes.

The system in Rita Violette Lippé’s Book

Figure 2: The cover of Rita’s book – The Descendants of Francois Violet

Rita Violette Lippé (VFA #1) is famous in our family for doing the extensive research to trace our family roots and for publishing a book (now out of print) listing the results of her work. Violette Genealogy: The Descendants of François Violet was published in 1984 and became very popular with Violettes who were suddenly discovering their family roots and learning more about the family history. “The book” has become a cherished family item and is passed down from one generation to the next.

Rita, with the help of several others, searched all around the U.S. and in Canada and found thousands of Violettes and made the genealogical connections among them. They also searched records in both of those countries as well as in  France to find birth, marriage, death, and other records of historical Violettes.

As interest in family grew people became excited to learn more about their history and about their current new-found “cousins”, and they decided to have a family reunion. That first event in 1978 was so large they had to change its venue to hold everyone.

That early group went on to add family members to the tree, resulting in “the book” being published to document that work. Violette Genealogy contains about 9,600 individuals.

Figure 3: This listing from the book shows Francois’ families

Rita’s work is organized around families, with each family being assigned a number. Let’s start with François Violet – he was assigned #1, as you can see in Figure 3 at right. He was married three times, and each family was assigned a different number. For example, his first wife was Marie Luce Thibodeau and you can see the number 2 on the right beside her name. Marie Rose Cormier was 3 and Genevieve Tardiff was 4.

Now look down below that group in Figure 3 and you can see the list of children for family number 2, starting with Marguerite, Augustin, Marie Genevieve, and so on. Note that in front of each name is a letter: Augustin has b) in front of his. In this system, his “number” is 2b. Now look to the right and find the number 6 beside the entry for Augustin’s first wife, Elizabeth Cyr. This is the number for that family.

Figure 4: This listing from the book shows Augustin’s families

Next turn to Figure 4, which shows the children of family 6. This starts with 6a) Marie Claire, 6b) Jacques, and so on. Thus Marie Claire’s “number” is 6a.

This establishes the first set of numbers that apply to the Violettes who were immortalized in Rita’s book.

Member numbers in the Violette Family Association

At that first reunion the group did not want to lose touch with each other and they decided to form an association. This was called the Violette Family Association. It was normal and necessary to assign member numbers to that growing group, so a new set of numbers was established. Rita was assigned VFA #1 in honor of her work; her husband was assigned VFA #2 and daughter Celeste became VFA #3. These numbers were assigned to individuals, instead of families, roughly on the basis of the order of joining the Association and had nothing to do with the family numbers from the book. The latest number assigned is 2971, so you can see the family group has grown enormously.

We use these numbers when communicating with Association members as well as on name badges at reunions. Unlike the family numbering system Rita used in her book, this system continues to grow as new members are added.

RIN numbers in Family Tree

Now suddenly a NEW number system has been introduced for Violettes and people are wondering if their “old” numbers are no longer valid. The answer is that both the other systems are still valid and in use in their respective situations.

Rita’s book was out of date the day it was published, for new Violette families were added to the family tree and new Violettes were being born. The early Association members quickly realized that something different was needed; the work and expense of publishing updates to “the book” was too much to continue forever.

Rod Violette (VFA #12) had become very interested in family genealogy and had worked extensively with Rita in her research. As an airline pilot, Rod traveled extensively and in every city he landed he looked for Violettes in phone books and put them in touch with Rita. He was also part of that first reunion in Methuen MA in 1978.

Rod was familiar with computers and decided to continue documenting the genealogy using the Personal Ancestral File (PAF) software developed for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormon church). The system used by this program, which was also in use by many others, was to assign a Record Identification Number (RIN) to each individual. This made it easier to keep track of people than the family-based system used in Rita’s book. This system also assigns a separate numbering system to families.

Rod started with all the families and individuals Rita had recorded in her book. By the time Rod started doing his work additional research had been done and the family tree had been traced back to François’ grandparents, but no records have been found for ancestors prior to that. So Rod started by assigning RIN 1 to Louis Viollet, and his family with Marie Doux was assigned Marriage Record Identification Number (MRIN) 1. The numbers were assigned consecutively from there. In this system, François becomes RIN 6, Marie Luce Thibodeau RIN 759, and Augustin RIN 277. Marguerite, François and Marie Luce’s first child, has RIN 276.

This has become the THIRD set of numbers we are known by.

In summary

All who are listed in the Family Tree have a “number” – their RIN. But not all in the Family Tree are members of the Association and those non-members do not have a VFA number.

Members of the Association have both a VFA number and a RIN, since you can’t be a member of the Association unless you are a descendant of François and we prove that lineage by genealogy.

Some members of the Association also have a “number” if they are listed in Rita’s book, but since that publication was 34 years ago many have been added both to the Association’s rolls and to the Family Tree and they will not have been listed in “the book”.