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Our Ancestor
Simon Lereau dit L'Heureux
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Who is Simon? | Where
are his descendants? | Are you one? | Our
Database | Genographic Project
| Other Links
Who is Simon Lereau?
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The ancestor of the Lereau and the L’Heureux, had a family name
with many variations according to notarized writings: Levreau, Lerreau,
Leureau, L’Hérault, l'Heros, etc… Of all the spellings maybe
only one carries in its veins an historic sense: Héraut,
public officer who carried messages. So writes Gérard
Lebel in an article reproduced in the collection Nos Ancêtres.
View the full text of the article translated in English
or view the original French version.
But the facts are that Simon Lereau, son of René
Lereau and Marguerite Guillin, and the ancestor of the L’Hérault
and L’Heureux families emigrated from France (Pays de Loire) to
the "Nouvelle France" around 1652. He came from Saint-Cosme-de-Vair,
Maine, France, a town now named
Saint-Cosme-en-Vairais in the department
of Sarthe. He most likely sailed
from La Rochelle.
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Church of Saint-Martin in Igé
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 New
information from the Université de Caen Basse Normandie
lists Simon as having been born in the parish of Saint-Martin in
Igé and baptized on October 10, 1624. Simon Guiet and Marguerite
Lereau are listed as his godparents. Igé
is a few miles North of Saint-Cosme-en-Vairais in the department
of Orne.
He spent his early years in the Côte-de-Beaupré,
possibly at a place now called Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré. The
first recorded event is his marriage contract on October 31, 1655
- a celebration at the time - to Suzanne Jaroussel, daughter
of the late Pierre Jarousseau and of Jacquette Touraude, de Périgny
(Charente Maritime),
East of La Rochelle. Following their marriage
in l'Ile d'Orléans on November 27, 1655, the newlyweds moved
in their just finished new house and started farming on a plot
of land on the Ile d'Orléans, which at the time was in
the Seigneurie de Beaupré. This area of l'Ile d'Orléans
later became the parish of Ste-Famille, one of six
parishes on the island.
Simon is my eight great grandfather via his son Sixte. See my
connection.
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Where are his descendants? What if you
are one?
Simon's descendants by now must number about 2,000,000 (3 13
by my estimate) and are spread all over Canada and the US with
the heaviest concentration being in Québec. Of these, I would
guess that about 8,000 (2 13 - assuming
an average of 2 sons per family) are descendants with the last name
of L'Heureux (and variations).
At the time of this writing, I now have close to 100 Internet cousins
and collaborators. Two in particular are very active. Robert L'Heureux
and Martin van Kuilenburg (married to Louise L'Heureux) have become
indispensable in the maintenance of this site and of the LHEUREUX
database.
This does not mean that we cannot use your help.
- What you can do:
- If you already have a database of your own, see if your lineage
ties up with ours at some point and if it does, send us a gedcom
(if your data is in a genealogy program) or otherwise a text
file so that your data can be compared and possibly merged with
ours. If you do not know how to organize your information, use
the forms that we provide for you.
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If you do not yet have any data but suspect that someone
in your family may be a descendant, go right to our Index
of Surnames and see if your family name is in our database.
If it is, then start collecting information on your own so
that someday you may be able to contribute to this project.
My Genealogy Home Page may be
a good place to find information as to how to get started.
- What is currently being done:
- Collaboration - There are currently more than 80 of
us who have exchanged their data. Our cousin/collaborator
tree shows the branches from which we derive, where
we live, how we can be reached, and for some of us, how we look.
The collaborators also have access to an ftp site where we exchange
more personal data. If you would like to be part of this team
or just would like to be on the mailing list for update and
news, state so in your email to me.
But before you do so, verify that your return email address
is correct. It has been very frustrating for me to receive very
interesting messages from possible cousins and cousines and not
being unable to respond because of a mistyped Email return address.
- List-Served Discussion Group - A discussion group
for the sole use of the L'Heureux surname has been created using
a List Server at RootsWeb where I am a member. For more information
on what it is and how to join, link
here.
- Message Boards - Two boards exist on Ancestry.com
- A Reunion on September 19, 1998 in Montreal was attended
by over 100 cousins. A summary of what went on can be found
at the Reunion
Home Page. You can also view the pictures
that I took at the reunion. If you would like to plan a
reunion, we will be glad to help you and advertise it.
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Our Database of Descendants
- HTML Format Database
 In 1996, I started a database and updated it and it grew
to 8,000 entries. Now the LHEUREUX database is maintained by
our cousin Robert L'Heureux and contains over 506,000 names
with over 116,000 being descendants of René Lereau, the
father of Simon.
- Descendants of René Lereau
- Missing Links
- During our research, we have come across numerous branches
which we have not been able to connect to Simon. If you are
interested in helping us, have a look at our Missing
Links Page
- Surname Statistics
- The spelling of the last name has changed quite a bit over
the years. Our database currently contains about 5,500 + descendants
with the L'heureux name and variations: L'Heureux (5,130), L'Hérault
(350), Lereau (120), Lurix (51), Happy (46), Louria (38), L'Héreault
(17), L'Héros (5), Laraux (5).
- To learn more about "dit names" and surname variations, see
the AFGS
Site.
- The Youngest and the Oldest Descendant
- Moïse L'Heureux and Sophie Pichette
- Moïse and Sophie left
the good life of Chateau Richer for the wild west of Saskatchewan
after marrying in 1881. Their 15 children have now grown to
over 2,000 descendants. A centennial reunion took place in
1987 near the ancestral farm in Jackfish Lake, SK..
- Another reunion is
being planned for 2005.
- Simon's Family and the Bisson Connection
- Simon is the son of René Lereau dit L'Hérault
and of Marguerite Guillemin. His sister, Marie Lereau dit L'Herault
married Gervais
Bisson in France and sometimes later, they emigrated to
Québec at the same time as Simon. Three sons are the
ancestors of the Bisson in Québec.
- Yves Phlem dit Yvon
- I have also created an information page for Yves
Phlem dit Yvon who married Marie Lereau, the daughter of
Simon Lereau.
- Famous Descendants of Simon and his sister Marie Lereau
- Bibliography
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Genographic Project
One of our L'Heureux cousins participated in 2008 in the Genographic
Project of the National Geographic to learn about the migrations
routes of his ancestor. Since he is a direct descendant of our ancestor
Simon Lereau, the DNA testing of his Y-Chromosome also applies to
all male descendants of Simon Lereau.
To learn more about this project and to see the migration routes
that may also apply to you, click
here.
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Other Genealogy Links
- Home Pages of L'Heureux Internet Cousins
- Genealogy Reference Sites
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Send your comments and suggestions to Jacques
L'Heureux.
Copyright © Jacques L'Heureux
- All rights reserved.
Last modified:
July 10, 2013
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