A long long time ago in a far off land a man named Zacharie Cloutier was born. He grew up to be a fine young man and marry a woman named Xainte Dupont. Zacharie and Xainte decided to move to Canada and begin a new life here. Zacharie and Xainte settled in an area of Quebec called Chateau Richer and so begins the story of my heritage.

If it were only that simple. The above little blurb is just a wee tiny fraction of what I've found out about my Ancestry.

I became interested in my family tree a few years ago when talking with some family members about where we came from. There was a great interest in our family to research our ancestry but nobody ever started the job because they thought it would be too much work and they just didn't have the drive needed to take on a task this large. You see, my family is huge. My father's mother's parents had 10 children and each one of those children had about 5-6 children who then had a few kids of their own who are now having children too. My father's father's parents had 14 children. My paternal family is all French Roman Catholic which about sums up why the families were so large. I have also been lucky in that many of the surnames I have been searching have already had substantial genealogical research done on them. There have been books written on the Cloutier and Chenier names which has helped immensely. The french churches in Quebec have kept incredible records dating all the way back to the early 1600's when the majority of my paternal ancestors came over from Europe (mainly France). Most stuff is fairly easy to trace (at least it has been for me so far). and so by submersing myself totally in this project, I was able to amass over 6000 names in about 6 months.

My maternal family is English Anglican and the family sizes are considerably smaller. I have barely touched my maternal ancestry because the names I have to search are Smith and Thompson and frankly I don't know if I'm quite up to that challenge yet. I do know that my maternal ancestors came to Canada from England, Scotland and Ireland and I believe they arrived after 1800 which will make the search much easier.

There isn't a more simple way to put it than I love my family and don't want to see them get hurt or taken advantage of by some con artist out there. So, bearing that in mind, I have done what I can to share my genealogical information with yo, and to protect my family at the same time.

The surnames listed below (under "The Primary surnames I am researching") are mainly those of my great-great-grandparents traced as far back as possible and then the descendants listed for the surname.

Arcand, Aubri, Aubry, Baulne, Beaulne, Beaune, Belisle, Bernard, Bertrand, Bouchard, Boudrias, Bougie, Brisebois, Brosseau, Brunet, Carriere, Chartre, Chavigny, Chenay, Chene, Chenier, Clement, Clouthier, Cloutier, Coste, Couvillon, Croteau, Danys, Daoust, Daout, Dau, Denis, Deslauriers, Dion, Dubois, Ducharme, Dufresne, Dumas, Dupont, Emond, Fillion, Frenette, Fortin, Gariepy, Gauthier, Gautier, Gendron, Germain, Girard, Giroux, Groulx, Jolicoeur, Labelle, Lacasse, Lalande, Lalonde, Lamothe, Langlois, Larocque, Larocbrune, Lecomte, Leduc, Lefebvre, Lefevre, Legault, Legaut, Leger, Legris, Lesage, Loguer, Loyer, Mainville, Marcotte, Martin, Mathieu, Mayrand, Meloche, Merlot, Michaux, Moreau, Morin, Morrissette, Naud, Naut, Ouimet, Page, Paquet, Paquin, Paran, Pare, Parisien, Perier, Perron, Pilon, Pitre, Prejean, Prou, Proult, Proulx, Proux, Rapidieu, Ribou, Sabourin, Sarrasin, Sarrazin, Sauve, Seguin, Sera, Serrat, Simard, Solet, Tessier, Thibodeau, Tommelet, Touzin, Trottier, Viau, Viaut.

When viewing these family outline pages please keep in mind I am not a genealogy expert - I do this in my spare time as a hobby and I cannot guarantee that the information is 100% correct. I hope that if you are searching your ancestry, you will use this information as a starting point but remember to verify it yourself. I have taken some information from other people's pages on the net and have found a couple of mistakes (not many given the amount of information I have accumulated). I will eventually be verifying all of the information I have acquired.

I have been very happy with the competition in the long distance telephone market lately. I have been able to contact family all over Canada and have paid relatively little to do it. This makes gathering information and keeping in touch with relatives so much more affordable. I strongly suggest that anyone who has not subscribed to one of those "20 dollars a month maximum" long distance plans do so. You won't regret it!

Email me if you want to help out or make general comments - *constructive* criticism and ideas are always appreciated.
If after searching the genealogy outlines you find we might be related, be sure to let me know - especially if you have a webpage of your own on genealogy.

This page last updated 20 March 1999