Welcome
At A Glance
NEW ADDITIONS TO THE FAMILY
Recent births in the Goyetche family
include Deklin Ian, son of Ian Rimmer &
Chelsea Goyetche of Spruce Grove, AB;
Lucy May, daughter of Scott Goyetche &
Cheryl Talbot-Goyetche of Port
Hawkesbury, NS; Isaac, son of Zack &
Jess Goyetche of Medina, OH; Calvin
Royce Stay, son of Melissa Burns &
grandson of Dave Goyetche of Dartmouth,
NS; and Priya Wendy Singh, daughter of
Jeevan & Amy (Boudreau) Singh &
granddaughter of Colleen (Goyetche)
Boudreau of Petit de Grat, NS.
FONDLY REMEMBERED
Sadly, we mourn the loss of family
members who are no longer with us.
Recent deaths include Charles Goyetche
of Boston, MA; Ronald Frederick Goyetche
of Halifax, NS; Shirley (Goyetche)
Anderson of East Chezzetcook, NS; Henry
Goyetche of Everett, MA; Francis Gail
Goyetche of Massey, ON; Thomas
“Tommy” Goyetche of Everett, MA; and
Dorothy Goyetche of Bathurst, NB.
SUZANNE GOYETCHE HONOURED
WITH TOURISM AWARD
Suzanne Goyetche of Cochrane, AB has
been honoured with the 2017 AMMY
Award for Travel Counselling Excellance at
the Alberta Visitor Information Providers
Conference. The recognizes individual
travel counsellors who have shown
dedication and passion in delivering
exceptional customer experiences in
providing convenient, relevant and
innovative visitor services.
GENEALOGY
The Goyetche genealogy database now
includes 2,015 descendants of Jean
Goyetche, who first settled in Nova Scotia.
It includes 625 family groups and 446
surnames, with the earliest birth year
1763.
PHOTO GALLERIES
We've gathered together a collection of
more than 5,000 family photos. The
majority have been contributed by dozens
of Goyetche family members from across
Canada, the U.S. and around the world.
To view a sampling of the collection, visit
any of our photo galleries.
CAPE BRETON TO TEXAS - MARIE’S
STORY
In the late 19th century, a young girl
named Marie Goyetche and her family
from Cape Breton joined a great out-
migration of more than 250,000
Maritimers destined for the “Boston
States”. To read more about Marie’s story,
as told by her granddaughter Wanda
Cuniff, see Cape Breton To Texas – Marie’s
Story.
It began with one Basque fisherman
With only a very few exceptions, those who share
the Goyetche surname in North America trace their
origins to Jean Goyetche, a Basque fisherman born
in 1763 in the Bayonne region of France. He arrived
in North America sometime before 1793 and may
have spent time on the islands of St. Pierre &
Miquelon or at Louisbourg before coming to Arichat
on Isle Madame in Nova Scotia.
The Goyetche family in North America has grown to
include more than 2,000 descendants. Beginning
with Jean Goyetche (1763 - 1844), descendants
now span nine generations and encompass more
than 620 family groups. The genealogy pages on
this site provide extensive information about family
members. This includes family group descendant
trees as well as all-inclusive trees.
Over the generations, the Goyetche family has
included its share of interesting and some colourful
characters. Among them was Martin Goyetche, who
travelled with the pirates Pierre and Jean Laffite, and married one of the Laffite
daughters; Dominique Goyetche, who was sentenced to prison on the island of New
Caledonia in the South Pacific; and Billy Goyetche, freight-hauler, undertaker and police
constable in St. Peter's, NS.
Historical profiles of the islands St. Pierre & Miquelon, off the coast of Newfoundland,
and of Isle Madame in Nova Scotia both include references to Goyetche family
members.
Basque origins
The Basque region, or
Euskal Herria as it is
traditionally called by the
Basques, straddles
southern France and
northern Spain. It is
located where Spain and
France connect on the Bay
of Biscay, extending 8,056
square miles (20,864
km2). It encompasses the
western end of the
Pyrenees Mountains on
the Iberian Peninsula,
down to the Bay of Biscay.
The region is made up of
seven provinces spanning
both sides of the
Spanish/French border,
and has its own unique
culture and language.
While there continue to be imaginative theories about the origins of the Basque people
(everything from a lost tribe of Israel to refugees from Atlantis), there is no evidence
that the Basques of ancient times lived anywhere other than where they are now, in
France and Spain. The Basques are known to have had their distinctive language as
early as 7,000 BC, and they have the last remaining non Indo-European language in the
area. Their language, Euskara, is the oldest surviving in all of Europe. Through history,
the Basque people were renowned as fishermen, traders and shepherds.
For more on the origins of the Basques and the
Goyetche family, please see our Historical Profiles.
