The hobby of which I am most fond is genealogy. Most of my family has been on this continent since the 1600s, and, consequently, has gotten the opportunity to participate in a lot of neat adventures. I am currently engaged in researching the period from 1680 to 1700, roughly the time taken up by King William's War.

One of my ancestors was Jean Lavallée dit Petit-Jean, a member of St-Ours Company in the Carignan Regiment. This is the "good regiment" that the King promised to send to protect the settlers of New France. Jean was married to Marguerite Dusson, who was in New France under the auspices of a program designed to bring more women to the new world. The group of women who participated in this program came to be called the "King's Daughters".

Jean Lavallée and Margeurite Dusson were living near Montréal during King Willams's War, one battle of which took Jean's life on the 12th of July, 1692.

Many of Jean Lavallée's descendants were involved in the fur trade. During the 1700's they travelled extensively in the areas around the Great Lakes. Most went out as simple voyageurs, but a couple, like Ignace Lavallée, married native women and became part of Métis culture. Noël LeVasseur, an associate of Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard, is often referred to as the earliest settler of Kankakee County, Illinois.