Gautherot (Gaut(h)reau(x) The Family History, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana Submitted by Jim Conway ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** From La Voix des Praries: Evangeline Genealogical and Historical Society, October 1997, Vol. 18 No. 71, pages 76 & 77. Contributor unspecified. Francois Gautherot was born in France, most likely in the province of Touraine, in 1612 or 1613. He came to Acadia in 1632 with Commander de Razilly. In 1664, he married Edmee Lejeune, a union of two of the earliest Acadian families. Edmee was his second wife, the first was named Marie although her family name is unknown. Edmee Lejeune, born in 1623 near Port-Royal, was one of the first Acadian children born in Acadia. Her father came to Acadia in 1611 with Pointrincourt and Biencourt and married a woman of the Micmac tribe. Francois Gautherot and his two wives had at least eleven children for whom at least some record has survived. The five girls Mariel'aisnee, Marie la cadette, Renee, Marguerite, and Jeanne, married into well known Acadian families like Dupuis, Theriault,(Theriot), Giroir, and Lanoue. The six boys were Charles l'aisne, Jehan(Jean), Francois, Claude, Charles le cadet, and Germain. Of these six boys, three became coureures de bois (wood-runners) with Micmac cousins and disappeared from the Acadian censuses. Charles l'aisne married Francoise Cousin in Quebec in 1665 and lived the rest of his life there. He died in 1714 at the age of 76. Claude married Marie Therriot, the daughter of Bonaventure Therriot and Jeanne Boudrot (Boudreaux) in 1685 at Port Royal. He and his family were participants in the founding of the community of Riviereaux-Gaspereaux near Grand-Pre. Claude and Marie had at least four boys and five girls. One of these sons, Charles, married Marie-Josephe LeBlane, the daughter of Jacques LeBlanc and Catherine Landry on Oct. 8, 1725 at Grand-Pre. It is known that one of his sons, also named Charles was made prisoner during the deportation era but was held at Fort Beausejour rather than deported. He married Marie Marguerite Bourgeois in captivity at the fort on Sept. 4, 1762. They eventually moved to the French North Atlantic island of Miquelon but later returned to Acadia, thus helping to re-establish the Gautreau name there. Charles le cadet also married in 1685 to Francoise Rimbaultand and also participated in the founding of Riviere-aux-Gaspereaux. They had eleven children. There oldest son, Francois, married Marie Vincent, the daughter of Michel Vincent and Marie-Josephe Richard in 1709 at Grand-Pre. They were among the Acadians who went to live on the Ile St-Jean (prince Edward Island) during the mid 1700s in order to avoid English rule. In 1758, the English took the island and a second wave of deportations began from the island. Francois and Marie were caught up in the deportation and perished at sea en route to exile in Europe. The youngest son of Charles le cadet and Francoise Rimbault, Pierre-Mathurin married Anne-Rosalie Daigle, the daughter of Jean Daigle and Marie Anne Beau sometime around 1755. They managed to escape the deportation and fled to Quebec. Twenty years later he and his family moved to the banks of the St. Jean River in New Brunswick, but with the arrival of the Loyalists fleeing the aftermath of the American Revolution, Pierre-Mathurin was again expelled from his land by the British and had to flee north. He moved to the north-east coast of New Brunswick near Tracadie where he died between 1795 and 1798. Following the deportation of the Acadians in 1755, two Gautreaux families made their way to Louisiana during the 1760s. The first of these families, headed by Simon Gautraux and his wife, Marie-Madeleine Breaux, arrived around 1765 and settled along the Acadian coast in St. James Parish. Simon eventually acquired a plantation of over 50O acres on the west bank of the Mississippi near the present day community of Welcome. The plantation was called St. Joseph and remained in the family for over a century. Simon's seven sons remained in St James and Ascension parishes and firmly established the Gautreaux name along the Mississippi River. The other Gaautraux arrival in Louisiana was Amand Gautreaux and his wife Marie Landry, along with their only son, Jerome. This family settled first at St. James, but moved to the Affakapas country along the upper Bayou Vermillion by the 1790s Jerome married Marie-Sophie Dugas and established a homestead in south-central Louisiana. Jerome's five sons remained in the general area of Attakapas(Opelousas) Jerome Jr., and Onesime settled near Grand Cateau. Pierre and Symphoriem established themselves on the Bayou Teche near Breaux Bridge, and Joseph setiled to the \vest on the prairie near Church Point. During the 1800s one of Simon's Grandsons, Alexandre (m. 1829 Euphemie LeBlanc), moved from St. James to the Opelousas district. His sons, Adolphe, Dozelien, and Joseph all married into the LaMorandiere family. Nine Gautreaux families came to Louisiana with the 1785 migration of deported Acadians from Nantes, France. Most of these families were sent to Bayou LaFourche, and their descendants established Assumption and LaFourche families as the center of the Gautreaux name in south Louisiana by the 1880s. Among the 1785 arrivals, the family of Joseph Gautreaux and his wife Anne Pitre, with their five sons produced the largest Gautreaux clan along the Bayou LaFourche. Several of their descendants, including grandson, Euselin (m. 1839 Celeste Boyer) settled near Labadieville. Others, including a grandson named David (m. 1 832 Marie-Gertrude Honore) moved closer to the southern end of Bayou LaFourche. Some of their sons settled near Lockport and LaRose, while others moved to Bayou Terrbonne, near Houma and Montegut. Today, in Louisiana, this Acadian family name is spelled various ways, including Gauthreaux, Gauthreaux, and Gautreau. In Canada, where the name is present in New Brunswick, Quebec and Nova Scotia, the Gautreau spelling predominates. Klaus> Arrived in this country around 1840, it is of German origin. The original spelling was probably KLAUESSFN. But over the next few generations under went many changes. The first was a shorting of the name to Klaussen, : fr()(77 (<~1~( s.~~~/(/ then to Klauss, Clauss, and finley to its present spelling of Klaus. Blunk> is another name that has been rewritten many ways over the few years it has been in the USA. It also arrived in the mid 1 800's, from Germany and started in as Blunker, and has been spelled Plunker, Plunkett, Blunkett and finley to the spelling of today BLUNK. Most of these changes were due misunderstanding in the immigration centers and the interperturs. 77