Arsenault & Virata Genealogy Pages

The Arsenault name originates in the historic province of Saintonge, located in the Charente‑Maritime region of southwestern France. This area—centered around Saintes, Cognac, and La Rochelle—was the homeland of the family in the 1500s.

The surname was originally spelled Arsonneau. More than 300 parish records for the family have been identified in Migré, the nearest church to their ancestral hamlet of La Flamancherie.

Family researchers visiting Migré around 1997 reported that the Mayor noted no Arsonneau families currently live in the immediate area. However, many Arsonneaus still reside throughout Charente‑Maritime and trace their ancestry back to La Flamancherie. Today, descendants can be found in La Rochelle, Île de Ré, Vienne, and other parts of southwestern France.

Migré lies approximately 70 km from La Rochelle, which helps explain why earlier research and oral traditions often described the family’s origins simply as “La Rochelle, Province of Saintonge.”

The North American branch of the family descends from two brothers who arrived on the ship L’Orange in 1657 and settled in early Acadian communities in present‑day Nova Scotia. Their first home was Port Royal (now Annapolis Royal), the principal Acadian settlement on the Annapolis River. Over time, members of the family also lived in Beaubassin, a separate Acadian village located near today’s Amherst on the Isthmus of Chignecto, the land bridge between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Early Canadian census records list the surname under several variations of Arceneau. By around 1880, the standardized French “ault” ending became common. Today, six major spellings of the surname appear across North America, yet all trace back to the same two brothers and the families of La Flamancherie.

A graphic illustrating our branch of the Arsenault family traces this journey—from the brothers’ arrival in Acadia to our family’s eventual migration to the United States centuries later:

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