User:Pierre-France
Pierre-France Bondesen-David, BSocSc (born in January 1964) is a Canadian who was born and raised in the province of Quebec, the eldest child and only son of Joan Bondesen, a Danish Canadian, and Pierre David, a Québécois father who worked in chemistry. He is Roman Catholic but was quoted in university as being an atheist. His parents divorced in the late 70s and Pierre-France has three other siblings. Pierre-France and his sisters were raised by his mother and were close to their maternal grandparents, his father being an absent figure in his life. The family is medically unique for having three family members to have succumbed to complications of muscular dystrophy from his Danish family. The ALS gene is believed to have been transmitted by his maternal great-grandfather, Frode Valdemar Bondesen. Frode's son (Pierre-France's maternal grandfather) was Svend "Jimmy" Aage Bondesen who was born in Grenaa, Denmark, in 1909, and died in 1978 of Lou Gehrig's Disease in Montreal, Canada. Svend's half-brother and half-sister also died of complications from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease). Svend was raised into the Lutheran faith but converted to Catholicism to marry his French Canadian bride to be. The surname Bondesen means in Old Norse: son of a Viking peasant (Bonde). The earliest recorded Bondesen ancestor was Bondo Jørgensen (1825-1892) from Odense, Denmark. Pierre-France's maternal grandmother was of French and late aboriginal ancestry. His patrilineal descent begins in 1150 France in the Forez, Lyon, region. According to d'Hozier's Armorial général de France, the first family member is recorded as being Julien David, seigneur de Pravieux, in the year 1150 and the family is of French nobility (David de Pravieux) [1]. Pierre-France is a direct descendant (through the David lineage) of the ill-fated Louis de Bois-Bourdon (sometimes spelled as Bosredon), lover of the French Queen Isabeau of Bavaria. Louis was eventually ordered to be drowned by Charles VI of France. In 1388, his sixteenth great-grandfather, Pierre David, was given the title of "Sergent du Forez" by King Charles VI. He is also a descendant, in a matrilineal descent, of the Le Gardeur family. Henry I of England [2] is his 29th great grandfather [3], by Henry's illegitimate daughter Alice FitzRoy [4]. In 1608 the David family arrived in New France, more precisely in Quebec City, and is considered to be among the very first North American families of French origin to settle in the New World. His family origins are a mixture of French, Danish, Irish, Dutch, German, Scottish, Flemish, English, Huron, and American Indian from the Sauk and Fox nation. He also holds a bachelor's degree in the social sciences (BSocSc) from the University of Ottawa, Canada. In 1989 he was married to a lawyer, in Outremont, Quebec, and had three children. In 2000, the married couple separated and the divorce was finalized in 2003 in Montreal, Canada. The divorce was one that had Pierre-France being separated illegally from his progenies by his estranged ex-spouse. Legal battles were commenced in relation to custody rights and are still on going as of most recently. Pierre-France worked as a dancing extra in the 2005 Bollywood film Bewafaa [5]. It was an experience he's not soon to forget. He recalls that the actors were some of the most beautiful and talented people he had ever seen. The boat scenes were shot on the outskirts of Montreal's South Shore near Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Quebec. Pierre-France's political views vary, but he does appreciate Queen Margrethe II [6] of Denmark on account of how she ascended the throne in a complicated but very democratic way. Being a motion picture fan, his favorite movie directors are Alfred Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman, and considers All About Eve, Fanny and Alexander, and Gone with the Wind as the greatest movies ever made. The motion picture that marked him as a child was 1941's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with Spencer Tracy. Pierre-France Bondesen-David resides today in Gatineau, Quebec, and is currently writing a book.
References
[1] Généalogie de la Famille David - Seigneurs de Pravieux, en Forez et Lyonnais. Louis-Pierre d'Hozier et D'Hozier de Serigny, d'après les manuscrits du Marquis Pierre de La ROCHE-LAMBERT (1728-1768);
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_England
[3] Bibliographie: Le Sang de Charlemagne; Histoire de la maison royale de France (Père Anselme); Mémoires (Société généalogique canadienne-française);
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_FitzRoy