Welcome to the Spring 2025 issue of our journal Sent By The King. This issue and our website contain interesting content and links to support our effort to provide education to members and the public on the Filles du roi and the Carignan-Salières soldiers, as well as accurate genealogical practices to help us find our links to these ancestors.

We held a successful Annual Meeting for our Société via Zoom on December 2, 2024, and 22 voting Full members attended in person, with another two Associate members present and the support of 70 proxies of Full members, for a total of 92 voting members present.At the Annual Meeting, the membership elected our new Directors for this fiscal year: Rick Hudon, Susan McNelley, Michele Nadeau Hartmann, Christine Racine, Lisa Elvin-Staltari, and me. I thank my colleagues for their service.

I reported to the Annual Meeting that the Société is in good shape in terms of its finances and its activities. Our main challenges are (1) the need for new volunteers and new members, and (2) the need to decide on the future of our website. So, I ask that you consider volunteering to assist us in our mission of educating the public on the history of New France and French-Canadian genealogy. Send me an email atinfo@fillesduroi.org if you can help.

There are several options for you to provide help to your Société this year, including:

1. Volunteer to be an editor for our Journal. We could use your help finding new content; writing an article or short piece; providing photos or artwork; or helping with editing. My co-editor Michele Nadeau-Hartmann will be leaving her volunteer position after the Fall issue and we thank her for her hard work and the quality of the issues she has produced over the past six years.
2. Volunteer to help recruit new members and publicize our group and its work. Our Membership chairperson Lisa Elvin-Staltari has a good plan to seek out new members, but your ideas and assistance could be an important addition to our current effort.

Lisa reported that we admitted 26 new members this past fiscal year (Nov. 1, 2023, to Oct. 31, 2024), of which 23 are Full members and 3 are Associate members.  The total membership of the Société was 223 as of this meeting. Thank you, Lisa, for your work to support our members, including by answering their emails.

This past year (2024), we obtained tax-exempt status through the IRS. As a result, we can accept charitable donations, and a few members have generously sent us a contribution. As you know, we are a non-profit corporation registered in the State of Florida. I wish to thank our Genealogy chairperson and Assistant Treasurer Christine Racine for her work on those two important projects and in support of our applicants for membership and additional certificates.

As mentioned, our group’s finances are in good shape at this time, with a budget surplus and healthy bank account. I thank our Treasurer Rick Hudon for his work to organize our group’s financial tracking and to bring transparency and regularity to our financial reporting. Part of this effort has been to welcome Christine as Assistant Treasurer this past year, to help with bank deposits and to provide a backup to handle banking matters.

Our outgoing Website Manager Susan McNelley has done a wonderful job with our website, and I thank her for her hard work over the past eight years. She has started us on a journey to explore alternatives to provide a fresh new website format with better accessibility for smartphone users, more flexibility and new links to informative content, including videos. I welcome our new Website Manager Diane Hill and Assistant Manager Brian Montpellier, who will be assisted by Pam Rawson to set up a new website later this year.

Plus, we are working on producing video podcasts, to be posted on YouTube, with links on our new Facebook page and our website, as a further attempt to connect with potential new members. Please see the list of our outreach programs later in this issue.

I wish to thank our other volunteers, including Pam Rawson, our Journal Desktop Publisher, Brian Montpellier, Certificate Preparation and Vice-President, Joyce Adams, Secretary, and Steve Arter, Insignia.

Also, I thank and honor Bill Kane, who is retiring as our Historian, for his many years of service to our group, including as a previous Journal Editor and Vice-President. And I thank Susan McNelley for assuming the position of Société Historian. She is well-qualified, with a background as a thorough researcher and author of two published books on French-Canadian history.

On December 9, 2024, we held our annual Directors Meeting of the new fiscal year via Zoom, which was open to members to attend. The new Officers elected at that meeting are: President: Dave Toupin (F003); Vice-president: Brian Montpellier (F661); Treasurer: Rick Hudon (F394); and Secretary: Joyce Adams (F917). The new committee appointments were: Genealogy Committee Chairperson: Christine Racine (F730); Certificate Preparation: Brian Montpellier (F661); Journal Co-Editors and Chairpersons of the Journal committee: Michele Nadeau Hartmann (F583) and Dave Toupin (F003); Journal Technical Editor: Pam Rawson (F618); Correspondence Secretary – snail mail: Christine Racine (F730); Correspondence Secretary – webmail: Lisa Elvin-Staltari (F887); Website Manager: Diane Hill (F879); Assistant Website Manager: Brian Montpellier (F661); Historian: Susan McNelley (F577); Membership Chairperson: Lisa Elvin-Staltari (F887); and Insignia Coordinator: Steve Arter (F601).

If you can join our effort, we would greatly appreciate your help! Please contact me at info@fillesduroi.org to discuss your interests and how you might assist us in our mission to provide public education on French-Canadian history and sound genealogical research skills.

Dave Toupin, President