Friday, September 16, 2016

Famous Descendants of Jean Guyon

An article on the famous descendants of Jean Guyon was posted on one of my genealogy sites. As I've discussed in previous posts, most French-Canadians have some shared ancestry, so it's no surprise that those of us descended from the LeFebvres (through the Cunninghams) are also descendants of Jean Guyon. He was, in fact, my 11xgreat-grandfather.

Jean Guyon was part of the Percheon Immigration, which came to New France in 1634 from the Perche region. He was very successful, with ten surviving children and (by some estimates) the second-largest number of descendants out of the early French settlers. According to Guyon's wikipedia page, 3/4 of old-line French-Canadians are descended from him. He (or his wife) were also the source of the mutation that caused Friedreich's ataxia in many generations of the family.

Some of his famous descendants include Celine Dion, Camilla the Duchess of Cornwall, and Madonna. Because of the on-going U.S. election, though, I was most interested to see Hillary Clinton on that list. In fact, while we share Guyon ancestry with Secretary Clinton, our relationship is closer. Clinton and I are 9th cousins once removed, through my 8xgreat-grandfather, Mathurin Gagnon.

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