Nicolas Audet was baptized in Maulais, in what would later become the French department Deux-Sevres, in the Poitou region, on the 12th of July, 1637.  He came to Quebec around 1663, and was granted land on the Ile d'Orleans in 1667.  He married Magdeleine Despres on September 15th, 1670.  She was from Paris, one of the Filles du Roy, gathered in France to provide brides for the settlers in Quebec.  She was fifteen years old at the time.  They were married in the parish church of Ste-Famille, on the Ile d'Orleans.  Nicolas lived on until December 10, 1700 and Magdeleine until December 19, 1712, and they had, it is thought, ten children.  Early in his life in New France, Nicolas began to use the surname "Lapointe", hence, "Nicolas Audet dit Lapointe", or, in English, "Nicolas Audet, called Lapointe".

Those children had descendants who have spread across Quebec and North America.  My great-grandfather William Audett (May 27, 1854 - Feb. 26, 1921) who married Maggie Cunningham from Arnprior, Ontario on October 3, 1883 in Ludington, Michigan, came from a branch of the family that had settled in the Maria and Carleton area of the Gaspe peninsula in Quebec.  William and Maggie moved across the western part of the United States before eventually settling in the Seattle area. 

In her later life, Maggie Cunningham Audett (Sept. 24, 1867-Nov. 3, 1950) owned and ran a hotel in Port Angeles, Washington.  Their second son, James Durward Audett, was born in San Bernardino, California on August 7, 1892 and died in Oswego, Illinois on August 19, 1977.  He was my maternal grandfather. 

At his funeral, I met his cousin, Yvonne Goulet Cunningham.  Afterwards, my sister and I met her and she gave us all the genealogical information she had, which had been researched by Joanne Marie Audett Griffin (1942-2006).  That was the beginning of my interest in my family's history.

There is an association of descendants of Nicolas Audet, to which I belong.  They have a website at www.audetditlapointe.ca.  Dee Dee and I attended the annual family reunion in September, 2011 at Gatineau, Quebec, and enjoyed meeting all of our relatives there.