Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

When the Sault Saint Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians sent out “disenrollment” notice letters in Feb of 2018 to the descendants of Thomas Joseph Vallier of Engadine, Michigan, little did I know how big an impact that event would have on my life.  The Tribe was letting all registered members know that there was a mistake in the genealogy and we were not related to the person on the Durant Indian Census Roll used to determine eligibility to be in the tribe.  After more than 40 years, they want to remove us from the tribe.

How could there be a case of mistaken identity when it was such a small town and our Vallier family was the only one living in Engadine? (AKA Garfield Township or Rapinville, as it’s called at different times)  I don’t know what the population of Engadine, Michigan was in 1906 but probably not more than three hundred at the most.  I was convinced the Tribe was mistaken.  What do you think the chances are that there could be two Thomas Valliers who are not related living in that tiny community at that time?  My answer was: so slim it’s highly improbable.  If that was your answer, we were both wrong.  I’ll tell you about that another time.     

Thomas Joseph Vallier(e), husband of Mary Elisabeth LaMarbe, was my great-grandfather, and my goal with this site is to present all the information I learned over 10 months of research into the genealogy of this couple, known in this site as The Engadine Valliers.

While they are my focus family, I learned that the Vallieres who came to North America were extremely proficient at procreation ~ okay, they reproduced like rabbits!  Seriously, one of our umpteen-great-grandfathers had 26 kids!  Since I traced all Thomas and Mary’s ancestors back to the forefathers who first came to Canada, I have information on a LOT of people to share with you.  I’m still pondering exactly how to do that most effectively but there are people with many more family names you will meet if you follow along on this journey with me.

If you know me and you’re related to Thomas and Mary, too, please say hi and follow this site to hear about all the interesting stuff I found out.  I promise I’m not going to keep clogging up the Vallier Family Facebook Group Page with my Fun Family Facts ~ this is their new home!

If you don’t know who I am but think you’re related to The Engadine Valliers, too, please introduce yourself and let’s see if we can swap information and stories!

If you are from one of the many, many lines of Valliers and Vallieres, LaMarbes and Savards, Brien dit Desrochers, etc, etc, spread throughout the US and Canada who are related to these Engadine Valliers in some way, please join us and we’ll see just how large that family tree can grow!  We’d love to hear from you.

With all the prolific baby-making done by our ancestors, adding all the information I have will take quite a while ~ currently there’s about 5,000 in my tree, which I have been intentionally limiting due to software limitations.  Check back often for progress and updates. 

If you have information on the ancestors or descendants of The Engadine Valliers, I’d really appreciate you sharing it with me so I can add it to the site for everyone in the family to enjoy.  Edmund Joseph Vallier was my grandfather so I have more information on his family than I do for the families of his siblings.  You can help me change that.  Photos and documents are so fun to discover, and new cousins are even better!

Hopefully, I’ll see you around!  Drop me a line and say hi if you come by.

Marianne Frontino McCreight (Daughter of Shirley Ann Vallier of Engadine, Michigan)