A few weeks ago I wrote about Pope Leo XIV being my 9th cousin twice removed on the Vadnais side of the family because of shared great-grandparents Gaspard Boucher and Nicole Lemaire; my 10th great-grandparents and Pope Leo XIV’s 8th great-grandparents.
I received a comment from one of our cousins on the Peltier side asking if there was “Anyway to find a connection on the Ellen Peltier side of the family? I’d be so proud to have that cousin [Pope Leo XIV].”
I immediately thought that it was worth the effort to see if there were any other connections to the Pope in our family tree. Little did I know that it was much more complicated than I had first thought. As it turns out, the Vadnais-Peltier family tree has 7 branches that connect us to Pope Leo XIV: 5 through Vadnais ancestors and 2 through Peltier ancestors. One of them is through the relationship mentioned in the first paragraph and all the others are through Gaspard Boucher’s parents, Jacques Boucher and Francoise Paigne, the Pope’s 9th great-grandparents and my 10th and 11th great-grandparents.
Here’s Pope Leo XIV’s branch, created by American Ancestors, showing his connection to Gaspard Boucher and Nicole Lemaire.

The 5 Vadnais branches and the resulting relationships are as follows:





The 2 Peltier branches and the resulting relationships are as follows:


I think I can now safely say that Pope Leo XIV is a cousin on both sides of the family: Vadnais (9th twice removed, 10th once removed or 10th twice removed) and Peltier (10th once removed or 10th twice removed).
Thanks for visiting, come back soon,
Cynthia
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Cynthia–you are A M A Z I N G!!! Thank you for sharing your super power with us!!! The timing is perfect for celebrating with fireworks! oxoxoxo
You are a super hero!!! This must have taken you days. It is exciting news. Something to be proud of. Thanks so much.
Did I miss something here? I don’t see the Popes lineage. I even looked at the previous post again.
Hi Al,
I updated the post to show the Pope’s branch. It can also be found at Americanancestors.org, The Popes French-Canadian Cousins.
Cynthia
Cynthia, how do we ever thank you for all of this incredible information & for sharing your gift of knowledge with us! God bless you! 💚🙏🏻💚