The Saga of the English speaking side of the Cloutier family in Ontario, begins withandand indeed with them came a myriad of mysteries, some of which, have yet to be solved.

It was extremely difficult to establish a link between the Clutcheys of Ontario and the Cloutiers of Quebec, since coming to Ontario a change in the spelling of the family name had occurred and this caused many difficulties in tracing our ancestry.

Headstone of Jean Francois Cloutier

Jean Francois Cloutier's headstone was discovered in a Catholic cemetery in Borelia Ontario (near Port Perry). It clearly shows the anglicizing of the name in this case from Cloutier to Cluchey (later Clutchey). The discovery was made by Catherine Seemann who took the photo.

The original name 'Cloutier' was established with a search of family records in St. Joseph's church in Beaverton Ontario, where baptismal records show the name as it is spelled in Quebec. This gave us the clue that the family was originally from Quebec. Eventually the marriage certificate of Jean Francois and Charlotte Salois was discovered in the records of St. Michele parish church in Yamaska Quebec.

With this certificate we could establish that we were related to the Cloutiers of Quebec and for the first time we saw the beginning of a cultural and genealogical link.

The same document also identified Charlotte's name as Salois. On the documents in Ontario her name had been listed as Lawwa. Again the name had been spelled as it sounded to English speaking census gatherers.

Anctil Tremblay's book Les Grandes Familles,Volume 2 P.50 played a vital role in providing a link between the family of Jean Francois Cloutier and the lineage begun by the patriarch Zacharie Cloutier I. In the family listing of , Pierre Cloutier and Felicite Tremblay, Jean Francois is found.

Anctil Tremblay lists the family of Pierre Cloutier and Felicite Tremblay as follows:

URSULE born 10/11/1793 Les Eboulements married 29/01/1811
FELIX b 14/04/1795 Eb.
ANONYMOUS b. 15//09/1796 Eb. died same day
JOSEPHTE b. 26/03/1797 Eb.
PERPETUE b. 20/04/1798 Eb.
M. ROSALIE b. 01/09/1799 Eb.
JEAN-FRANCOIS b. 17/02/1801 Eb.
ADELAIDE. b. 13/06/1803 Eb.
HYPPOLITE b. 11/09/1804 Eb.
MARIE b. 21/01/1806 Eb died 28/09/1809
PIERRE b. 12/08/1807 Eb died 17/10/1809
MARIE b. 01/02/1812 Eb.

The Eb. after the birth date refers to the town of Les Eboulements on the North shore of the St. Lawrence River where all of the children were born.

An inexplicable absence from this list is the name of Paul Cloutier. We know he existed because the record of marriages from St. Michel church in Yamaska show he was married on January 20 1826 to Therese Salois the sister of Charlotte Salois, wife of Jean Francois Cloutier. the noted Cloutier genealogist J. Roger Cloutier seems to have resolved this problem by pointing out that Paul is really Hyppolite. We accept the explanation of J. Roger.

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