My New Cousin
Originally Posted on July 19 2010:
It’s been a while since I wrote anything. I will try to change that from now on and write as much as I can. When I started researching my family history and my wife’s family history, the only thing that she told me was “Don’t get us related!” Since we both come from large French Canadian families from the Essex County area of Ontario, I was kind of surprised that I hadn’t yet. There were a couple of marriages that connected the families, but that’s it.
Last week I was researching my 4 times great-grandparents – Alexis Rivet & Marguerite Turcot. I decided to start following the Turcot line. Marguerite’s parents were Jean Baptiste Turcot and Marie Dorothe Gagnon. Then I found Jean Baptiste’s parents, Louis Gabriel Turcot and Angelique Pigeon. I then went to enter Angelique’s parents (Louis Pigeon & Agnes Caron) into my software and realized that I already had them. Before I connected them I check how they were related to me. It came back to say that they were my wife’s 7 times great-grandparents.
Whoops!
When I connected Louis Pigeon & Agnes Caron to Angelique Pigeon I found out that they are my 7 times great-grandparents as well! So now I’ve discovered that I’m 8th cousins to my wife. 
Sorry, honey! Love you!
Where did Rivait come from?
Originally Posted on January 23 2010:
As I have mentioned, before I started looking, I knew nothing about the Rivait’s. I did not know how large of a family it was or how long we had been in Canada for. My dad gave me a name of another Rivait that he said we were related to. I contacted him and found out that we were second cousins. With his father’s help I was able to piece together my grandfather’s brothers and sisters. I now knew who my great-grandparents were, William Rivait & Alexina Guilbeault. After further research, I found out that my great-grandfather was born Guillaume Rivet. When I searched for Rivait, there was never very much. My line of Rivait’s was only 3 generations old. When I started investigating the Rivet name, I found a lot more historic documents. After e-mailing another Rivait, she shared her research that took the Rivet’s back to Maurice Rivet (b. 1642 in La Rochelle, France). Maurice is my 7 times great-grandfather. He came to Canada around 1664 and settle in Cap-de-la-Madeleine. Maurice married Marie Cusson, who was born around 1657 in Cap-de-la-Madeleine. They had 12 children and being good French Catholics, they all had large families. Now the fun begins finding all the connections.