About this book

This book is based on a hundred-sixty-page three-ring binder that my mother, Mae Annette Fox Sharp, put together to show the results of her research into the history of the family of my father’s mother. In completing this work, I have relied on genealogical work by my sister, Carolee Renae Sharp.

—Tom Sharp

Cover. Portrait of the Geffray family. Standing: Claire, Alfred, and Leon. Seated: Virginia Gauthier, Frank, Jean Baptiste (John) Geffray, and Merle.

Pronunciations

The French E has three pronunciations:

• é as in “uh”
• è as in “hey”
• e as in “bet”

The French “dit” (pronounced DEE)

Some French families adopt an additional last name to distinguish themselves; the new last name is preceded by the French word dit, which is pronounced “dee,” and which can be translated as “called.”

Links and shortcuts

In any page, you can click on or touch links to jump around in this book.

• Each entry in the contents links to the poem.
• The title for a poem links back to the contents, highlighting the entry for the poem.
• Words in the headers and footers link to the index, the contents, a listing of books by the author, to this page, and to the previous and first poems in the book.

You may find the following keyboard equivalents to be convenient. Here I use the symbol ⌥ for the option key on Mac/OS or the alt key on Windows, ⇧ for the shift key, and ⏎ for the return (enter) key. Arrow keys are ◄ (left), ► (right), ▲ (up), and ▼ (down).

Keyboard shortcuts for navigating this book

Context	Keys	Jump to / Behavior
cover	⌥ ◄	Sharpgiving Press
	⌥ ►	About this book (this page)
	⌥ ▼	contents
	⇧ ⌥ ▼	contents
contents	⇧ ⌥ ▲	cover
	⌥ ▼	select the next item in the contents
	⌥ ▲	select the previous item in the contents
	⌥ ►	open the selected page
	⌥ ⏎	open the selected page
chapter	⇧ ⌥ ▲	contents
	⌥ ◄	contents
	⌥ ▲	open the previous section
	⌥ ▼	open the next section