Ryan Gosling is currently portraying the role of Ken, Barbie’s companion, on half the world’s big screens.
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After winning the 2017 Golden Globe for Best Actor for the film La La Land, his meteoric Hollywood career took him to the feet of the iconic Mattel doll in the summer blockbuster.
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His roots in Ontario
Ryan Thomas Gosling was born on November 12, 1980 in London, Ontario. Although handsome Ken was raised in a Mormon and English speaking family in Cornwall, he has multiple French speaking origins, both on his mother’s and father’s side. In fact, he has a French Ontarian grandmother and three great-grandmothers.
His father, Thomas Ray Gosling, traveling salesman, was the son of Marie Ivette Brown (1926-1997) and the grandson of Marie Anne Bélair (1907-1988) and Joseph Brown (1903-?), a Franco-Ontario native of Ontario Glengarry, a French-speaking stronghold east of Ottawa near the Quebec border, where the majority still speak the Bélais of America language.
Photo WireImage
In Ontario, the Bélairs, known as Robidou, came from Vaudreuil from the mid-19th century. The ancestor André Robido (1640–1678) came from Burgos, Spain.
The Robidou have an impressive history and have spread to all corners of the continent. Joseph (1783-1868) founded Saint Joseph in Missouri and named the famous Roche-Jaune (Yellowstone) Park in Wyoming. His St. Louis-born brother Antoine (1794–1860) was the first mayor of Santa Fe; he spoke French, English and Spanish. And his other brother Louis (1796-1868) founded Rubidoux and Riverside, California. The Robidoux: one of the great families of the diaspora, alongside the Trudeaus and the Thérouxs, which we will talk about one day.
Joseph Brown was the son of Rosalie Proulx (1864-1930), whose great-grandparents – Jean-Jacques Robinson and Marie Trottier from the parish of Saint-André d’Argenteuil – were black. An amazing story has long remained hidden under the magnifying glass of many genealogists.
Photo Laurent Koffel/ImageCollect.com
Ryan’s mother
Donna Wilson, Ryan’s mother, has two French-speaking grandmothers: Victoria Dextras (1899–1986) and Rose-Emma Lalonde (1901–1990).
Victoria was the daughter of Joseph Dextras (1868-1961) and Élizabeth Quenneville (1871-1959), the eldest of a family of 16 children from Saint-Anicet. The couple rest in peace at La Nativite Cemetery in Cornwall.
The ancestor of Pierre Destroches, known as Béziers (1732-1800), was a grenadier in the Béarn regiment during the Seven Years’ War. He came from Béziers in southern France. From Destroches the name evolved over the generations to Dextras.
Elizabeth Quenneville and Joseph Dextras, Ryan Gosling’s maternal great-grandparents, rest in peace in a Cornwall cemetery. Photo Jacques Noël
Rose-Emma Lalonde (1901-1990) was the daughter of Alexandre Lalonde (1863-1931) and Catherine Harriet Piché (1877-1962) and granddaughter of Alexandre Édouard Lalonde, born in Saint-Raphaël, Glengarry, Upper Canada. in 1817.
For more than two centuries, Ryan Gosling’s family has deep roots in French-speaking Ontario on the Quebec border.
BELAIR LINE BY RYAN GOSLING
I. Gosling, Thomas Ray
WILSON, Donna
II. GOSLING, George Bigelow (1926-1998)
BROWN, Marie Ivette (1926-1997)
Married 14 January 1944 in Toronto, Ontario
III. BROWN, Joseph (1903-?)
BELAIR, Marie Anne (1907-1988)
Mister. 1 June 1925, Alexandra, Sacred Heart, Glengarry, Ontario
IV BELAIR, Jules (1873-?)
SEGUIN, Mathilda (1876-1957)
Mister. April 28, 1898, Hawksbury, Prescott, Ontario
v. BELAIRE, Olivier Levi (1834-1891)
ROCHON, Marie-Anne (1842-?)
Mister. January 10, 1858, L’Orignal, Prescott, Ontario
VI. BÉLAIRE called ROBIDOU, Olivier (1785-?)
BALTHAZAR called BELLEVILLE, Marguerite (1790-1871)
Mister. January 7, 1812, Vaudreuil
vii ROBIDOU, Etienne (1752-1837)
DION, Marie-Thérèse (1760-1787)
Mister. October 20, 1777, Vaudreuil
viii ROBIDOU, Etienne (1724-1801)
CLEMENT, Catherine (1726 -1787)
Mister. February 4, 1743, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue
IX. ROBIDOU, Etienne (1699-1723)
LAROCHE, Marie-Anne (1702-?)
Mister. November 24, 1721, Longueuil
X ROBIDOU, Guillaume (1675-1754)
GUERIN, Marie-Francoise (1680-1757)
Mister. June 11, 1697, Montreal
XI. ROBIDO, André named the Spaniard (1640?-1678)
LEDUC DENOTTE, Jeanne (1647-1701)
Mister. June 7, 1667, Notre-Dame-de-Québec
XII. ROBIDO, Manuel (1612-1618)
BY NAPOLEAS OF ALAVA, Catalina (1614-1667)
Burgos, Spain