Jeanne Françoise Petit was born 19 January 1656 in the parish of Sainte-Marguerite at La Rochelle, the daughter of Jean Petit and Jeanne Gaudreau.¹ Orphaned as a young girl, she came to New France in 1672 at about sixteen years of age as one of the King’s Daughters.²
She married François Séguin dit Laderoute at Boucherville on 31 October 1672.³ Their marriage contract had been executed the previous month before the notary Frérot, and both bride and groom signed the document.²
François Séguin had previously served as a soldier in the Carignan-Salières Regiment, the force sent to Canada between 1665 and 1667 to secure the colony; after his service he settled as a habitant.⁴
The parish registers of Boucherville and Pointe-aux-Trembles record the baptisms of their children:
- Marie-Françoise, baptized 1 November 1674
- Marie-Madeleine, baptized 16 August 1676
- Marie-Jeanne, baptized 9 August 1680
- Pierre, baptized 24 August 1682
- Simon, baptized 24 September 1684
- Jean-Baptiste, baptized 10 November 1688
- Geneviève
- Joseph
- another Joseph
Several of the children died young.²
François Séguin was buried at Montréal on 9 May 1704.³ In the will of Pierre de Saint-Ours he was left a gift of fifty livres, which passed instead to his children because he predeceased the testator.²
Jeanne Françoise Petit died 29 March 1733 and was buried the following day at Longueuil.³
Her marriage in 1672 and the large family that followed are typical of the young women who came to the colony under royal sponsorship and formed households in the seigneurial settlements along the St. Lawrence.²
Sources
- Upper Brittany, France, Births and Baptisms, 1501–1907, baptism of Jeanne Françoise Petit, 19 Jan 1656, Sainte-Marguerite, La Rochelle.
- Peter J. Gagné, King’s Daughters and Founding Mothers: The Filles du Roi, 1663–1673 (Pawtucket, R.I.: Quintin Publications, 2001), 451–52, Jeanne Petit; Yves Landry, Les Filles du roi au XVIIe siècle (Montréal: Leméac, 1992), table entry for Jeanne Petit.
- Québec (Canada), Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), marriage of Jeanne Petit and François Séguin dit Laderoute, 31 Oct 1672, Boucherville; baptisms of their children; burial of Jeanne Petit, 30 Mar 1733, Longueuil; see also Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes, s.v. “Séguin.”
- The Carignan-Salières Regiment (1665–1667), for the service of François Séguin dit Laderoute.