Hi, I'm Dave Bouchard.

I started Root & Quill after tracing my own family from Connecticut back through the farming towns of northern Maine, the river parishes of New Brunswick and Quebec, and eventually to France and Sicily.

That research became a three-volume hardcover set for my family, and I found I loved every part of the work: reading 19th-century French parish registers, piecing together a family from a single census line, and writing it all into a story my children will want to read.

Careful work is what I bring to every book. I served as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, and my career since has been about following a process carefully and documenting every step, so you can always see where each conclusion came from. I also hold three master’s degrees and have taught and spoken to groups for years, which helps me explain what I find in plain language. I bring all of that to your family’s story.

I live in the Simsbury, Connecticut area and work with families everywhere. Most of my research is done through digitized archives, so your ancestors don't need to have come from New England for me to find them.