England’s Camilla has American ancestry

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Think you’re up-to-date on royal genealogy? Well, there’s more to it than those lines back to Edward I, William the Conqueror and St. Margaret of Scotland.

It turns out that Camilla (Shand) Parker Bowles, who married Prince Charles on Saturday, has roots that are not limited to merry old England. In fact, some of them are Franco-American.

Allen Voisine, who is active in the Aroostook County Genealogical Society, sent along information on Camilla’s Canadian ancestry received from his cousin Patrick Voisine from Illinois.

It turns out that Camilla’s great-great-grandfather was Sir Allan Napier MacNab, who was Canadian prime minister from 1854 to 1856.

His wife, Mary (Stuart) MacNab, was the granddaughter of Marie-Charlotte Coursol, who married Ephraim Jones of Weston, Mass.

Coursol was the great-great-granddaughter of several sets of early Quebec ancestors:

. Jean Guyon and Mathurine Robin, married June 2, 1615, St. Jean de Mortagne, Perche, France. He died May 30, 1663, and she died April 16, 1662.

. Guillaume Couillard and Guillemette Hebert.

. Zacharie Cloutier and Xaintes Dupont, married July 18, 1616, St. Jean de Mortagne, Perche, France. He died Sept. 17, 1677, and she died July 13, 1680. They came to Quebec in 1634 and are buried in Chateau Richer, just above Quebec City.

. Jean Aymard or Emard and Marie Bineau or Bureau.

. Etienne St. Pere and Madeleine Cousteau.

. Jules Trottier and Catherine Loiseau.

. Etienne Lafond and Marie Boucher.

Zacharie and Xaintes Cloutier are the ancestors of countless descendants, many of whom go by the Anglicized version, Clukey.

Like my husband, Camilla is descended from Zacharie and Xaintes’ son (Pierre) Zacharie Cloutier and wife Madeleine Emard.

From that couple, my husband descends from Rene Cloutier, who married Elizabeth Leblanc. Camilla’s ancestor is Rene’s sister, Genevieve Cloutier, who married Louis Guillet dit Saint-Mars.

Based on their shared ancestry of Pierre Zacharie and Madeleine Cloutier, my husband and Camilla are ninth cousins.

My husband also has other lines back to Zacharie; in fact, he’s descended from three of the five children who survived. He is also a cousin to Camilla through Jean Guyon and Mathurine Robin, and probably through the Boucher line.

William Addams Reitwiesner has compiled Camilla’s ancestry and listed it at http://members.aol.com/eurostamm/camilla.html.

Other surnames in her ancestry include Dutton, Monson, Wray, Hotham, Lennard, Campbell, Douglas, Stewart, Home, Drummond, Maitland, Stone, Treadway, Edmonstone, Howard, Mordaunt, Dalrymple, Hamilton, Cunningham, Macintosh, Watson, Wentworth, Cavendish, Lockhart, Cromwell and Upton.

Also listed as her ancestor is Charles I, king of England, Scotland, France and Ireland.

Back to Chateau Richer for a moment. My husband and I enjoyed visiting that town on L’Avenue Royale, one of the oldest roads in North America.

There’s a nice little cultural center in Chateau Richer, where you can get a history lesson on the Beauport region.

Many of the older homes in the 8000 “block” are marked with plaques indicating which early settlers lived on each site.

Names we found included Marin Boucher, Thomas Granderie, Jean Cochon, T. Toupin, Robert Drouin, Jean Gagnon, Mathurin Gagnon, G. Thibault and Pierre Lemieux.

Here’s some good news. An “extremely generous person,” as Charlene Clemons puts it, has purchased a new Minolta digital microfilm reader-printer for Ellsworth Public Library.

Mainely Celtic Harps, an exhibit, workshop and celebration of the Celtic harp, will be held 12:30-4:30 p.m. Saturday, April 16, at the Maine Irish Heritage Center, at the corner of State and Gray streets in Portland. Admission is $5. A 7:30 p.m. concert with Castlebay is $15, $10 if you attend the workshop. Call 529-5438 or visit www.maineirish.com

Send genealogy queries to Family Ties, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; or send queries by e-mail, familyti@bangordailynews.net.