Famous Relatives: Justin Trudeau

Recently, I was looking for my 6x great-grandmother Barbe Cartier’s burial record. When I did a Google search for other details about her life, I came across Justin Trudeau and his family tree. I noticed the surnames Lalonde and Bray in his ancestry and decided to see if they tied in with my ancestors by those names. They did.

Here is a tree showing how Justin Trudeau, the 23rd and current Prime Minister of Canada, is my sixth cousin once removed through our common ancestor Marie Barbe Dazé, younger daughter of Barbe Cartier (1678-1705).

Copyright © 2017, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Famous Relatives: Queen Elizabeth II

Last year, I prepared a chart for my family that showed how Queen Elizabeth II and I were distantly related. Our closest common ancestor is Robert Gaillard, who lived in Picardy, France in the 15th century. Through him, I am the 16th cousin twice removed of Queen Elizabeth II. With Her Majesty celebrating the 60th anniversary of her coronation as sovereign this year, I thought I’d show my readers how we are related.

Closest Common Ancestor of HM The Queen and Yvonne (Belair) Demoskoff

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Famous Relatives: The Dionne Quintuplets

This article is the first in an occasional series about some of the famous relatives I’ve uncovered in my family tree.



The Dionne quintuplets, accompanied by Mrs Olive Dionne and Frère Gustave Sauvé, take part in a program of religious music at Lansdowne Park, during the five day Marian Congress which prayed for peace and celebrated the centenary of the Ottawa archdiocese. 18 – 22 June 1947, Ottawa, Ont.

(Photo source: National Film Board of Canada / Library and Archives Canada / PA-155518. Online MIKAN no. 3192103.)

Born on a spring day in May 1934 in Corbeil, a village near Callander, Ontario, the Dionne quintuplets were the first quintuplets to survive their infancy. The identical girls, born two months prematurely, were the younger children of Oliva (father) and Elzire (mother) Dionne.

Growing up in northern Ontario in the 1960s and 1970s, I was aware of the famous Dionne quintuplets, but knew very little about them except that they I was born somewhat near where they were born, that my first name was the same as one of theirs, and that they were about the same age as my Mom.

I had been researching my family tree for many years and knew that, as a French-Canadian, it was likely I’d be related to some famous French-Canadians, but I didn’t know who they were. Then one day I came across the ancestry of the Dionne quintuplets on the Internet and saw a name that looked familiar: Geneviève Lalonde. I thought, “Could she be related to my ancestor Angélique Lalonde?”

It didn’t take me too long to find the names of Geneviève’s parents. That's when I realized they were my great-great-great-grandparents, Jean-Baptiste and Angélique (Bray) Lalonde, who married on 24 October 1796 in Les Cèdres, Soulanges County, Quebec.

The Dionne quintuplets descend from their daughter Geneviève (who married Joseph Legros in 1831), while I descend from their younger daughter Angélique (who married Paul Janvry dit Belair in 1845). 

And that’s how I discovered that Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Emilie and Marie Dionne and I are fourth cousins. So cool…

Copyright © 2012, Yvonne Demoskoff