In tribute to our ancestors

This site is in tribute and honor to our ancestors, who were pioneers in New France in the mid 1660s, and to their descendants who settled along the Saint Lawrence River and then migrated to the Upper St John River Valley in Northern Maine, as well as the descendants who migrated from Quebec, through Beauce County to the Augusta and Waterville, Maine area.

You can visit our family genealogy site and use the search function to inquiry on ancestors in our database who might also be in your family tree. The Roy and Boucher Family tree is the main anchor on our genealogy site. The Roy Family is of course my line and the Boucher Family is my wife's line. You can also visit our Nadeau and Soucy family, which is my mother's and grand-mother's family line.

Société généalogique de l'Yonne

The chairman of the Société généalogique de l'Yonne, Monsieur Pierre Le Clercq, recently sent me an email message that their society was opening up their member registration to overseas members. See Société généalogique de l’Yonne Membership on how to become a member of their genealogical society.

DNA and Genealogy

Recent advances in DNA genealogy and changes in our site software make it feasible to start linking DNA information into our Roy and Boucher Family genealogy site. See the French Heritage DNA project run by the Southern California Genealogy Society for additional information on using DNA to substantiate the genealogy paper trail.

Your DNA test results came back and do not show any French ancestry. For an explanation, see Ethnicity Testing – A Conundrume and Québec and Acadia who walked with Champlain.

You can also search for some of the early pioneers in our database and find their descendants. If you click on the links on the following pioneers, you will get a chart generated by Genealogica Grafica of their relationship to myself or to my wife. If the chart is too large to be displayed as in the case of Zacharie Cloutier and Noel Langlois, it was generated as two separate tng/charts -- one to my mother and to my father linked to the separate spouse.

Pioneers in Québec

Francois Belanger and Marie Guyon, Marin Boucher and Perrine Mallet or Julienne Barry, Gaspard Boucher and Nicole Le Maire, Robert Caron and Marie Crevet, Zacharie Cloutier and Xainte Dupont, Jean Cote and Anne Martin, Robert Drouin and Anne Cloutier, Jean Guyon and Mathurine Robin, Louis Hebert and Marie Rollet, Noel Langlois and Francoise Garnier, Olivier Tardif and Louise Couillard, Abraham Martin and Marguerite Langlois, Claude Poulain and Jeanne Mercier, and Etienne Racine and Marguerite Martin.

Pioneers in Acadia

Pierre Arsenault and Marguerite Dugas or Marie Guérin, Antoine Babin and Marie Mercier, Antoine Bourg and Antoinette Landry, Vincent Brun and Renee Breau (Brode), Pierre Comeau and Rose Bayol, Thomas Cormier and Madeleine Girouard, Olivier Daigre and Marie Gaudet, Pierre Doucet and Henriette Peltret, Abraham Dugas and Marguerite Louise Doucet, Jean Gaudet and Nicole Colleson, Antoine Hébert and Genevieve Lefranc, Etienne Hébert and Marie Gaudet, Daniel Le Blanc and Françoise Gaudet, Barnabé Martin and Jeanne Pelletret, Pierre Melancon and Marie D'Entremon-Latour, Claude Petitpas and Catherine Bugaret, Michel Richard and Madeleine Blanchard, Pierre Sire and Marie Bourgeois, Jean Terriau and Perrine Beau (Breau), Pierre Thibodeau and Jeanne Terriau, Guillaume Trahan and Madeleine Brun or Francoise Corbineau, and Pierre Vincent and Anne Gaudet.

This site is powered by The Next Generation (TNG) of Genealogy Sitebuilding, which allows dynamic language switching between English and French (Francais) using the Change Language option in the left menu.

TNG also allows suppressing the names of living relatives, which is the option we have chosen. If you are related to us, you can request a logon id, indicating your grandparent, great-grandparent, or great-great-grandparent what is direct line relative in our database to whom you want access. The logon id will allow you to view names in your living cousins and to provide tentative updates to information for your immediate family.

Our most wanted page includes some photos we need help to identify. If you have additional information, we will greatly appreciate it.

This site also provides a tribute to our military veterans through the ages. The genealogy section also allows you to view reports on people who served in the different wars. Here again, living veteran relatives are not identified by name. If you are aware of other deceased relatives who should be added to this page, please send us an email using the Suggest link.

The following page provides information on Antoine's relatives in France and in Canada. It is my English translation of Monsieur Pierre LeClercq's research as published on la Société généalogique de l'Yonne which is published here with permission from the author.

The Ste Luce Cemetery plot maps are also anchored on this site with permission of the Ste Luce Parish. A search of the headstones database is available where I have added parental relationships when known. Note that not all relationships have been added, it is still a work in progress. The early church and its first pastors are also available on this site. A simple cemetery search has been added that allows searching for all occurences of a last name amongst the last name of the buried person, his/her spouse's last name, maiden name, father's last name and mother's last name columns if the information is available.

Upper St John Valley web site

The Upper St John Valley web site at upperstjohn.com now provides the following from the Ste Luce Church Registers for the years 1843 to 1860, the Father Henri Dionne years:

  • the baptisms with both a simple and an advanced search
  • the abjurations
  • the marriages with both a simple and an advanced search
  • the burials with both a simple and an advanced search
  • Search All the acts in the Ste Luce parish register. The Search All functions searches the baptisms, marriages, and burials databases for the occurence of the entered last name in all the last name fields in those databases.

Excellent census information and history of the St John Valley can be found on the Upper St John River Valley web site. The 1860 U.S. census for communities in the Upper St John River valley in Aroostook, Maine is now in a searchable database.

The 1872 census of the St Bruno parish was recently added to the Upper St John Valley web site. This cenuses provides the location where the family resided if you know the head of the family.

The 1858 census of the Ste Luce parish and the mission of St François Xavier de Madawaska was recently added to the Upper St John Valley web site. This census provides the location where the famiy resided if you know the head of the family.

For extensive information on Acadians see the Acadian & French Canadian Ancestral Home which contains genealogy, historical research, and the Acadian censuses, From the Desk of Stephen A. White, genealogist at Moncton University, and his genealogy of 37 Acadian families See also the Acadian-Cajun Genealogy and History web site. See my research resourcea page for other valuable research sites.

Historical Novel

Sergine Desjardins has written a historical novel inspired by the lives our our ancestors. The title of her novel is Marie Major. Roman historique inspiré de la vie d'une Fille du Roi dont l'époux, Antoine Roy dit Desjardins, fut assassiné. For more information see her web site and click on Publication. (Note that her site and the book are both in French.) This is a very well written historical novel that makes you feel like you are there witnessing the events.

Photos of gravestone and military service plaques in the Ste Luce Cemetery if available are being added to the Details display page on the search results. Don Raymond has taken pictures of all the tombstones still in existence in the Ste Luce cemetery.

The Catholic Community of Daigle, Maine was originally served by the St Louis Parish in Fort Kent and the Ste Luce Parish in Frenchville before it became the Holy Family Parish. Thanks to Don Raymond, a very brief history of the Holy Family Parish, its pastors, and a database search of the Holy Family Cemetery has been added to the web site. See the menu entries on the left. The details page from the cemetery search results includes a link to the photo of the tombstone provided by Don Raymond, if the tombstone still exists.

The Frenchville World War I Veterans database was added on D-Day 2007 as a tribute to our ancestors who served their country. Two young men born in Frenchville died in the service of their country in World War I -- Denis Cyr and Eddy Plourd, for whom the American Legion Post 145 in Frenchville is name, the Cyr Plourde Post.

Franco-American Interviews

Lisa Desjardins Michaud and her colleagues have digitized and made available on the Franco-American web site interviews conducted by Dr. Marc Chassé, Dr. Normand Beaupré, and the Franco-American Center at the University of Maine in Orono. These interviews on their web site reach a wider audience of folks from the St John Valley who are now spread around the United States than is possible through local access at the Acadian Archives at the University of Maine in Fort Kent.

Top 30 Surnames in my genealogy database

Hover your mouse over the names to get a count

icon Last updated 19 March 2023