Nous les canadiens-français (222 English…. Louis Hebert
We French-Canadians have a very interesting history, and if we must identify ourselves, our first title would be « We are the first European settlers of Canada »( because, there were people here long before us.) The proof is that if you develop your genealogy completely to the 10th or 11th generation, you’d have as your ancestors many of those who first arrived from Europe to Canada. Those were the very courageous European people who toiled very hard to survive here.
If you use a chart to list your ancestors, you may have to place 1024 or 2048 names then use even some other additional sheets to enable the reader to get a clear understanding of your ancestral line. For today’s generation (2015) the number of generations can number 12, 13, 14, although 14 is rather rare…
The first generation: 2 parents (one couple of two people)
The second generation: 4 grandparents
The third generation; 8 grandparents
The fourth generation; 16 great-great grandparents
The fifth 32 ancestors
The sixth 64 ancestors
The seventh 128 ancestors
The eighth 256 ancestors
The ninth 512 ancestors
The tenth 1024 ancestors
The eleventh 2048 ancestors
I’d say that by the sixth generation you’d be connecting to the families of your friends and neighbors. Who were these first European settlers? Amongst the very first European settlers, history tells us that Louis Hébert arrived in Canada in 1608, the same year as when Champlain founded Quebec City, 400 years ago.
Louis Hébert was a pharmacist by trade and dwelt in Port Royale in Acadia. One winter he decided to go to Quebec and arrived at the site of the future city in the spring of 1608. But Louis Hébert, the first person to live off his farm, returned to France in 1610 and then came back with his wife, Marie Rollet (1580-1649) and their three children.
Although Louis Hébert had two sons, one who died in childbirth and the other, at the age of 25 (married to Hélène Desportes), he left no descendants named Hébert, from Louis Hébert and Marie Rollet.
Louis and Marie also had two daughters, Anne whom, with her husband, we credit as having the first marriage in New France, died one year later . Only Guillemette, born around 1604 in Paris, France, arrived in Quebec with her parents in 1607 and lived to a respectable old age.
A few years after her arrival she married Guillaume Couillard. He was the first settler to have a plow to cultivate his farm. Guillaume had inherited from his father who had died in 1627, and his mother, in 1649. She and Guillaume had several children; seven married and left a numerous number of descendants: over 250 when she died in the Hotel Dieu Hospital in Quebec City at the age of 80. She had sold some farm land to Bishop François de Laval, to Jean Talon, and had given some land to the ecclesiastical authorities for a future church, that of Notre Dame at Quebec City.
In 1629, the Brothers Kirk who had “conquered” Canada but after having spent one winter in Canada had had enough of the cold winters. Therefore they asked King Charles 1 to sign an accord to re-give Canada to France. At this point there was only about 50 French in New France. This was the St. Germain Treaty signed in 1632. Then France got organized and encouraged French migrants to Canada. In 1633 Champlain re-organized ships with about 200 settlers, married men with families were the most encouraged to go. Bachelors and single women were the least encouraged. The following year in the month of June 1634 Champlain arrived with many settlers, families with marriageable daughters. The year sixteen hundred and thirty four was exactly 100 years on the very day that Jacques Cartier had come to discover Canada (except Newfoundland) for the Europeans.
It was on these ships amongst the many families that one finds the Cloutier, Zacharie and his wife, Xainte Dupont and their children: a son in France who already had children. Zacharie and Xainte also had many older daughters who were married within the space of a few years and they brought an abundant number of grandchildren to Zacharie and Xainte. Naturally the Cloutier family was related to many of the settlers in the new colony. Gabriel Drouin, the specialist in genealogy has said that it is impossible to fill-in the chart for his family without entering into the Zacharie Cloutier and his wife’s family tree. This is one meeting point where all French-Canadians have in common. In other words, we are all related at least through the Cloutier family; we are all cousins.
In summary, the years 1633 to 1670 were the years of settlement..
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