Category: French Canadian Immigration

Marthe Arnu (1632–1700)

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Marthe Arnu was baptized on 28 March 1632 in the parish of Sainte-Marguerite at La Rochelle, Aunis, the daughter of Marc Arnu and Louise Brodeur, who had married there about 1630. After Marc’s death, Louise Brodeur married Jean Sauviot in 1640, leaving Marthe part of a blended household in one of the principal Atlantic ports connected to the Canadian trade.¹

In 1658 Marthe crossed the Atlantic to Montréal in the company of her mother and her half-sister Marguerite Sauviot. Both young women were among the filles à marier — marriageable women who emigrated before the royal sponsorship program began in 1663.² Their arrival formed part of the continuing migration from La Rochelle that supplied the colony with wives and families during its earliest decades.

On 2 September 1658 a marriage contract was drawn before the notary Basset for Marthe and Pierre Richaume dit Petrus. Marthe could not sign the document, though her husband could — a detail recorded in the act itself and repeated in the biographical literature.³ Pierre, born about 1634 at Hiers-Brouage in Saintonge, had come to Canada as a child with his widowed father. In the 1666 census his surname appears in the form “Richomme,” possibly derived from riche homme.⁴

The couple established their family in Montréal. Their first children, the twins Gabriel and Barbe, were baptized on 22 June 1659; Gabriel was buried that December. Jacques followed in 1661, Marie-Madeleine in 1662, Marie-Marthe in 1665, Élisabeth in 1666, Jeanne in 1668, a daughter Marie who died in 1671, and Madeleine in 1672.⁵ These baptisms and burials are preserved in the parish registers of Notre-Dame de Montréal and in the compiled genealogies of the colony.

Pierre Richaume died at Repentigny between 8 May 1688 and 1 March 1689.⁶ Marthe survived him by more than a decade. On 26 August 1700 she died at the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal and was buried the same day, her death occurring during the epidemic that swept the town that year.⁷

Marthe’s life reflects the early La Rochelle migration to Montréal: the remarriage of widowed parents, the movement of half-siblings to the colony together, the use of notarial contracts to establish marriages and property, and the steady growth of families that transformed a fragile settlement into a permanent community.

Sources

  1. Baptism of Marthe Arnu, 28 March 1632, parish of Sainte-Marguerite, La Rochelle (Aunis), France.
  2. Peter J. Gagné, Before the King’s Daughters: The Filles à Marier, 1634–1662 (Pawtucket, RI: Quintin Publications, 2002), 50–51.
  3. Marriage contract of Pierre Richaume dit Petrus and Marthe Arnu, 2 September 1658, notary Basset, Montréal; Québec, Canada, Notarial Records, 1637–1935.
  4. Census of 1666, Montréal, entry for Pierre Richaume (“Richomme”).
  5. Registers of Notre-Dame de Montréal, baptisms and burials of the children of Pierre Richaume and Marthe Arnu; Québec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621–1968; Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes (Montréal, 1871–1890).
  6. Burial of Pierre Richaume dit Petrus, Repentigny, 1688/1689; parish registers; Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique.
  7. Burial of Marthe Arnu, 26 August 1700, Montréal; parish registers; Gagné, Before the King’s Daughters, 51.

Catherine Forestier

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Catherine Forestier was born in 1637 at La Rochelle in the old province of Aunis, a port city whose departures fed the population of New France throughout the seventeenth century. She was the daughter of Jean Forestier and Julienne Coifée. Her mother died there on 20 April 1650, a loss that occurred while Catherine was still in her early teens.¹

By 19 November 1657 she was in the colony, where she married Jacques Ménard dit Lafontaine at Trois-Rivières.² The timing of the marriage and the origin at La Rochelle place her among the early marriageable women who came before the King’s Daughters program, part of the movement of young women whose arrival helped stabilize family life in the small river settlements.³ Jacques Ménard was already established in the colony, and their marriage is recorded in the parish register that documents the earliest generation of families in that region.²

The first years of their married life were spent at Trois-Rivières, where their earliest children were born. The parish registers record the burial of their daughter Marguerite, born in 1658 and deceased before 1666.⁴ By 1671 the family had moved to Boucherville, part of the seigneurial expansion along the south shore of the St. Lawrence. There Catherine gave birth to the younger children who would grow up in that seigneurial community.⁴

The baptisms at Trois-Rivières and Boucherville trace the growth of the household over nearly two decades:

Marie (1659), Jean-Baptiste (1660), Louis (1662), Maurice (1664), Jean (1666), Marguerite (1668), Jeanne-Françoise (1669), Anne (1671), Catherine (27 September 1673), Marie-Madeleine (1675, buried the same month), Thérèse (1676), and Jacques (1678).⁴

These entries show the familiar rhythm of seventeenth-century colonial life — repeated pregnancies, the loss of small children, and the gradual establishment of a large family that would remain in the Boucherville area.

René Jetté’s reconstruction of the family and the parish records confirm that Catherine spent the rest of her life in that community.⁴ The genealogical notice preserved by Gagné identifies her La Rochelle origin and situates her among the women whose arrival in the 1650s contributed to the permanent settlement of the colony.³

Catherine died at Boucherville on 31 March 1694 and was buried there the same day.⁵ Her husband survived her by more than a decade, dying in 1707.⁴

Her life follows the arc seen in so many of the earliest immigrant women of Canada: departure from a French Atlantic port, marriage soon after arrival, years marked by the cycle of baptisms and burials in the parish register, and permanence in a seigneurial river community that was still new when she first saw it.

Sources

  1. Parish registers of La Rochelle (Aunis), burial of Julienne Coifée, 20 April 1650.
  2. Trois-Rivières parish register, marriage of Jacques Ménard dit Lafontaine and Catherine Forestier, 19 November 1657.
  3. Peter J. Gagné, Before the King’s Daughters: The Filles à marier, 1634–1662 (Pawtucket, Rhode Island: Quintin Publications, 2002), entry for Catherine Forestier.
  4. René Jetté, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles du Québec des origines à 1730 (Montréal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1983), 823–824; Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes (Montréal, 1871–1890), sub Ménard; PRDH, family file of Jacques Ménard and Catherine Forestier; parish registers of Trois-Rivières and Boucherville (Drouin Collection), baptisms and burials of the Ménard children, 1658–1678.
  5. Boucherville parish register, burial of Catherine Forestier, 31 March 1694.

Madeleine Chrétien

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Madeleine Chrétien was born about 1646 in the parish of Saint-Eustache in Paris, the daughter of Toussaint Chrétien and Françoise Bertault.¹ Both of her parents died in 1670, the same year she left France for Canada.² She was about twenty-four years old.

After her arrival in Montréal, she was lodged at the Maison Saint-Gabriel, the reception house established for the filles du roi while they awaited marriage.³

On 20 October 1670 Madeleine married Pierre Chicoine in Montréal.⁴ The marriage contract had been drawn five days earlier, on 15 October, and is notable because Madeleine signed the document while her husband could not — an indication that she was literate.³ The contract was witnessed by Madeleine-Thérèse Salé and Françoise Goubiliau, with Gabriel Souart also present.³

Pierre Chicoine was born about 1641 at Channay-sur-Lathan in Anjou, the son of Gilles Chicoine and Perrine Boisaubert.³ At the time of the 1667 census he was a servant in Montréal in the household of Mathurin Langevin.³

The couple first settled at Longueuil, where their eldest daughter, Marie-Madeleine, was baptized on 11 March 1672.³ They later moved to land above Verchères when Pierre acquired a concession in the seigneurie of Bellevue in 1678, becoming known as seigneur de Bellevue.³ From there the family established themselves at Contrecœur, where several of their children were born and where they spent the remainder of their lives.

Their children included Marie-Madeleine (1672–1745), Marguerite (1674–1717), Pierre (1676–1736), François (1678–1708), Agnès (1681–1746), Marie-Madeleine (1684–1687), Angélique (1686–1687), Marie-Thérèse (1688–1764), and Paul (1691–1743).³

Two of their young daughters were buried in December 1687, most likely victims of the smallpox epidemic that struck the colony that year.³

Pierre Chicoine died at Verchères between 25 March and 31 May 1698.³

On 19 June 1702 at Contrecœur, Madeleine married Louis-Odet de Piercot, sieur de Baillieu, an officer in the troupes de la Marine and a chevalier of the Order of Saint-Louis.³ They had no children together.

Madeleine died at Contrecœur on 25 February 1709 and was buried there two days later.³

Sources

  1. Peter J. Gagné, King’s Daughters and Founding Mothers: The Filles du Roi, 1663–1673 (Pawtucket, RI: Quintin Publications, 2000), 150.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Ibid., 150–151.
  4. Québec, Registre paroissial de Notre-Dame de Montréal, 20 octobre 1670, mariage de Pierre Chicoine et Madeleine Chrétien (Drouin Collection).
  5. Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes, vol. 2 (Montréal: Eusèbe Sénécal, 1871), sub Chicoine.
  6. Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH), fiche familiale Pierre Chicoine – Madeleine Chrétien.
  7. Yves Landry, Les Filles du roi au XVIIe siècle (Montréal: Leméac, 1992).

Françoise Curé (c. 1643–1709)

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Françoise Curé was born about 1643 in the parish of Grévillers in Artois (today Pas-de-Calais), the daughter of Pierre Curé and Barbe Charles.¹ The parish registers of Grévillers record the deaths of both of her parents on 19 December 1669, a reminder of the losses that shaped the lives of many of the young women who left France for Canada in the seventeenth century.¹

She came to New France in 1669 as one of the Filles du Roi, the women whose passage was financed by the crown in order to strengthen the colony’s population.² Like the majority of these immigrants, she brought with her a modest dowry provided by the king, generally valued at about 200 livres, intended to help establish a household in the new colony.³

On 19 December 1669, shortly after her arrival, she signed a marriage contract before the Montréal notary Bénigne Basset with Lucas Loiseau, a settler originally from France.⁴ The marriage followed soon after. Together they established their family at Boucherville, one of the seigneurial communities along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River.

Their children were baptized in the parish of Sainte-Famille de Boucherville:

  • Marie-Madeleine, baptized 25 April 1671
  • Joachim, baptized 28 February 1673
  • Jeanne, baptized 31 January 1675, buried 5 November 1687
  • Roger, baptized 30 April 1677, buried 4 January 1689
  • Marie, baptized 7 June 1680
  • Françoise (recorded in the parish registers)⁵

These parish entries place Françoise firmly within the rhythm of colonial life: repeated pregnancies, the baptism of infants within days of birth, and the burial of children lost young.

Lucas Loiseau died at Boucherville on 4 March 1704.⁵ Françoise survived him by nearly five years. She was buried at Boucherville on 19 January 1709.⁵

Her life traces the path of many of the king’s daughters: from a small parish in northern France to the growing rural settlements of the St. Lawrence valley, where marriage, land, and family created the permanent foundations of New France.

Sources

  1. Parish registers of Saint-Martin de Grévillers (Artois), burial entries for Pierre Curé and Barbe Charles, 19 December 1669.
  2. Peter J. Gagné, King’s Daughters and Founding Mothers: The Filles du Roi, 1663–1673 (Pawtucket, RI: Quintin Publications, 2000), 165–166.
  3. Yves Landry, Les Filles du roi au XVIIe siècle (Montréal: Leméac, 1992).
  4. Bénigne Basset, notary, marriage contract of Lucas Loiseau and Françoise Curé, 19 December 1669, greffe de Montréal.
  5. Registres paroissiaux de Sainte-Famille de Boucherville (baptisms of the Loiseau children; burial of Lucas Loiseau, 4 March 1704; burial of Françoise Curé, 19 January 1709), Drouin Collection; Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes, Loiseau family.

Françoise-Marthe Barton (1651–1699)

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Françoise-Marthe Barton was baptized on 10 January 1651 in the parish of Saint-Michel at Poitiers in the old province of Poitou, the daughter of Jacques Barton and Renée Pestre.¹ Her mother died when she was still very young.¹

Her father belonged to the administrative elite of seventeenth-century France. He was described as a chevalier — a member of the minor nobility — and seigneur of Montaiguillon and Villenaux, meaning that he held feudal rights over landed estates. He also served as a conseiller ordinaire du roi, a royal councilor who sat in the king’s governing councils, and as an intendant in several provinces, the Crown’s chief administrative officer responsible for justice, finance, and policing.²

Despite this privileged background, Françoise-Marthe left France for Canada in 1670 as one of the filles du roi, the young women whose passage was financed by the Crown to encourage marriage and settlement in New France.³ After her arrival she stayed for a time at the Maison Saint-Gabriel in Montréal, where many of the king’s daughters were received and lodged while their marriages were arranged.³

On 7 October 1670 she married Joseph Chevalier at Notre-Dame de Montréal.⁴ Their marriage contract, drawn up the previous day sous seing privé (a private agreement rather than one passed before a notary), was prepared by the priest Gilles Perrot.³ Several other king’s daughters were present as witnesses.³ Neither bride nor groom signed the document.²

Joseph Chevalier, a maître menuisier (master carpenter), had been born about 1644 in the parish of Saint-Jacques at Dieppe in Normandy, the son of Jean Chevalier and Madeleine L’Heureux.³ He had been in Canada since about 1662 and later served as marguillier (churchwarden) of the parish in 1682.²

The parish registers of Notre-Dame de Montréal record the baptisms of the thirteen children born to the couple between 1671 and 1695:

Marie-Françoise (1671), Pierre (1674), Jean (1675), Jean-Baptiste (1677), Élisabeth (1679), Anne-Angélique (1682), Geneviève (1683), Barbe (1685), Paul (1687), Marguerite (1688), Madeleine (1690), Thérèse (1692), and Joseph (1695).⁴

Several of these children died young. Paul was buried on 7 June 1687, Pierre on 1 June 1694, and the younger Joseph on 1 January 1696.⁴

Françoise-Marthe died at Montréal on 13 August 1699 and was buried the same day.⁴ Her death occurred in a year marked by disease in the colony, and the immediate burial reflects the urgency that often accompanied such losses. Joseph Chevalier survived her by more than twenty years and died on 26 May 1721 at the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal.⁴

From her baptism in Poitiers to her burial at Montréal, the surviving records trace the life of a woman born into a family of rank in France who became in Canada the wife of a skilled artisan and the mother of a large colonial household.

Sources

  1. Poitiers (Vienne), paroisse Saint-Michel, registre des baptêmes, 10 janvier 1651, baptême de Françoise-Marthe Barton.
  2. Peter J. Gagné, King’s Daughters and Founding Mothers: The Filles du Roi, 1663–1673 (Pawtucket, R.I.: Quintin Publications, 2000), 73–74.
  3. Yves Landry, Les filles du roi au XVIIe siècle (Montréal: Leméac, 1992), notice de Françoise-Marthe Barton.
  4. Québec, Registres paroissiaux (Collection Drouin), Notre-Dame de Montréal:
    – mariage de Joseph Chevalier et Françoise-Marthe Barton, 7 octobre 1670;
    – baptêmes des enfants Chevalier, 1671–1695;
    – sépulture de Françoise-Marthe Barton, 13 août 1699;
    – sépulture de Joseph Chevalier, 26 mai 1721.
  5. Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes, s.v. “Chevalier.”
  6. Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, entrée pour l’arrivée de Françoise-Marthe Barton, 1670.

Catherine Charles (c. 1637–1691)

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Catherine Charles was born about 1637 at Charenton-le-Pont near Paris, the daughter of Samuel Charles and Françoise Gauchet. She was orphaned before leaving France for Canada.¹ Her departure came in 1659, when she sailed for Montréal aboard the Saint-André, one of the recruitment voyages that brought marriageable women to the colony.

She arrived in Montréal on 29 September 1659 and, less than a month later, on 26 October 1659, married Urbain Jetté dit Durivage.¹ The marriage contract had been drawn earlier that month before notary Basset. Present at the ceremony were several leading figures of the settlement, including the Sulpician Gabriel Souart and the garrison commander Zacharie Dupuis, illustrating how closely these early marriages were tied to the survival of Ville-Marie.

Urbain Jetté, a maisonnier and scieur de long (longsawyer), had come to Canada with the Grande Recrue of 1653 and was established on land at Pied-du-Courant in the Sainte-Marie sector of Montréal.¹

The parish registers of Notre-Dame de Montréal record the baptisms of the children born to this couple between 1661 and 1680: Catherine, Marie-Barbe, Nicolas, Urbain, Élisabeth, Pierre-Nicolas, Anne, Paul, Madeleine, Louis-Charles, Pierre, François, and Françoise.² One son died in infancy.²

The family was living at Pied-du-Courant at the time of the Iroquois attack of 6 May 1662 and escaped unharmed.¹ In the following years several of their children married into the Demers family, creating close ties between the two households.

After Urbain Jetté’s burial at Montréal on 13 May 1684, Catherine remained a widow.¹ André Demers, husband of their daughter Anne, was appointed guardian of the minor children.¹ Notarial records drawn up at the time of Catherine’s death show the settlement of her estate and the continuation of family obligations.³

Catherine Charles died on 2 December 1691. An inventory of her property was prepared on 14 December 1691 before notary Adhémar, bringing her life to its close in the documentary record of the colony.¹³

Sources

  1. Peter J. Gagné, Before the King’s Daughters: The Filles à marier, 1634–1662 (Pawtucket, R.I.: Quintin Publications, 2002), 85–86.
  2. Québec (Province), Registres paroissiaux, Notre-Dame de Montréal, baptisms of the children of Urbain Jetté and Catherine Charles, 1661–1680.
  3. Québec (Province), Greffes de notaires, inventaire après décès de Catherine Charles, 14 décembre 1691, notaire Adhémar.
  4. Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes, vol. 4, s.v. “Jetté.”
  5. Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH), fiche individuelle de Catherine Charles.
  6. Benjamin Sulte, Histoire des Canadiens-Français, 1608–1880, household entry for Urbain Jetté.

Marie-Marguerite Jourdain (1648–1720)

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Marie-Marguerite Jourdain was baptized on 12 November 1648 in the parish of Notre-Dame du Bois-Robert near Dieppe in Normandy, the daughter of Claude Jourdain and Marguerite de La Haye.¹ Her life in France ended in 1667 with the death of both of her parents, and in that same year she crossed the Atlantic to Canada as one of the filles du roi, the young women whose passage was financed by the Crown in order to help establish families in the colony.² As with the other King’s Daughters, she brought with her a trousseau—a chest containing clothing and household linens—and a royal dowry intended to make marriage and settlement possible in New France.³

Soon after her arrival at Montréal she entered into a marriage contract before notary Basset. Neither she nor her future husband signed the document, a common situation in a colony where many settlers were unable to write.⁴ On 25 November 1667 she married Bernard Delpeche dit Belair, a former soldier of the Carignan-Salières Regiment.⁵

Their first years were spent at Montréal, where their earliest child was baptized in 1669. In the following decade they moved into the expanding agricultural settlements along the St. Lawrence River, particularly at Repentigny and Pointe-aux-Trembles, where long, narrow riverfront farms gave each family access to transportation and fertile land.⁶ Their children were baptized in the parish churches that served these new communities:

Marie-Barbe (1669–1669),
Marie (baptized 1670),
Catherine (baptized 1672),
Denise (baptized 1673),
Marie-Madeleine (baptized 1675),
Françoise dite Marguerite (baptized 1678),
François (c. 1679),
an unnamed child who lived only briefly (1681),
Jean-François (baptized 1682),
and Jean-Baptiste (baptized 1685).⁷

Bernard Delpeche died at Repentigny on 9 December 1687 and was buried the following day, leaving Marie-Marguerite with a large family to support.⁸

On 8 January 1689, again at Repentigny, she married Louis Majeau dit Maisonseule, another former soldier of the Carignan-Salières Regiment.⁹ Their marriage contract had been drawn up a few days earlier before notary Fleuricourt, and as in her first contract neither spouse signed.¹⁰ Louis formally assumed responsibility for the children of her first marriage, an important legal step that ensured the continuity of the household and its property.

Two children were born to this second marriage: Denise, who later married Jean-François Labelle in 1711, and Joseph-Pierre, baptized at Lachenaie on 31 March 1692.¹¹ Louis Majeau died at Repentigny in January 1700.¹²

Marie-Marguerite lived for another twenty years and was buried on 19 May 1720 at Saint-Sulpice.¹³ By the time of her death she had spent more than half a century in the colony, raising a large family and taking part in the gradual movement of settlement from Montréal into the surrounding seigneuries.

Sources

  1. Parish register of Notre-Dame du Bois-Robert (baptism of Marie-Marguerite Jourdain), cited in Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes, vol. 3.
  2. Peter J. Gagné, King’s Daughters and Founding Mothers (Pawtucket, RI: Quintin Publications, 2000), 315–316.
  3. Yves Landry, Les filles du roi au XVIIe siècle (Montréal: Leméac, 1992).
  4. Marriage contract of Marie-Marguerite Jourdain and Bernard Delpeche, 23 November 1667, notary Basset, Montréal, Quebec, Canada, Notarial Records, 1637–1935.
  5. Parish register of Notre-Dame de Montréal, marriage of 25 November 1667, Drouin Collection.
  6. Parish registers of Montréal, Repentigny, and Pointe-aux-Trembles, baptisms of the Delpeche children, Drouin Collection.
  7. Gagné, King’s Daughters and Founding Mothers, 315–316.
  8. Parish register of Repentigny, burial of Bernard Delpeche, 10 December 1687, Drouin Collection.
  9. Parish register of Repentigny, marriage of Marie-Marguerite Jourdain and Louis Majeau, 8 January 1689, Drouin Collection.
  10. Marriage contract of Louis Majeau and Marie-Marguerite Jourdain, 29 December 1688, notary Fleuricourt, Quebec, Canada, Notarial Records, 1637–1935.
  11. Parish register of Lachenaie, baptism of Joseph-Pierre Majeau, 31 March 1692, Drouin Collection.
  12. Parish register of Repentigny, burial of Louis Majeau, 18 January 1700, Drouin Collection.
  13. Parish register of Saint-Sulpice, burial of Marie-Marguerite Jourdain, 19 May 1720, Drouin Collection.

Anne-Antoinette de Liercourt (c. 1632–1707)

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Anne-Antoinette de Liercourt was born about 1632 in the parish of Sainte-Marguerite at Beauvais in Picardy, the daughter of Philippe de Liercourt and Jeanne Patin.¹ She came to New France in 1650 and is recorded at Montréal as godmother to a child on 29 August 1651 under the name “Anna Juillet.”¹

In February 1651 she married Blaise Juillet dit Avignon, probably at Trois-Rivières. Notary Gatinau drew up the marriage contract there on 2 February 1651, and a copy was deposited with notary Ameau on 10 February.¹ Blaise, a peat worker from Avignon, had come to Canada under contract in 1644 for three years at seventy-five livres per year for the Compagnie de Notre-Dame de Montréal.¹

The couple settled at Montréal, where their children were baptized: Mathurine (1651), Marie (1653), Charles (1656), and Louis (1658).²

Blaise Juillet drowned on 19 April 1660 near Île Saint-Paul while fleeing the Iroquois with Dollard des Ormeaux. He was buried the following day at Montréal.¹

Two months later, on 11 June 1660, notary Basset drew up a marriage contract between Anne-Antoinette and Hugues Picard dit Lafortune. Neither could sign the document, although Governor Maisonneuve did. Hugues was appointed guardian of the children from her first marriage, and Lambert Closse was named trustee. The couple married at Montréal on 30 June 1660, and Hugues was confirmed by Bishop Laval on 24 August.¹

Hugues Picard, born about 1627 in Brittany, had enlisted for Canada in 1653 and arrived at Montréal on 16 November of that year with the Grande Recrue — the large recruitment organized by Maisonneuve to save the settlement. Before departure he acknowledged receiving 137 livres in advance wages. After completing his contract he returned to France and came back to Canada in 1659 as a woodworker for the Sulpicians of Montréal.¹

Anne-Antoinette and Hugues established their household at Montréal, most likely on the property that had belonged to Blaise Juillet. Hugues served as a soldier in the 12th squad of the Sainte-Famille militia in 1663. Together they had five children: Michelle (1661), Marie-Anne (1663–1697), Marguerite (1666–1727), Jean-Gabriel (1669), and Jacques (1672). The two sons later became engagés ouest, contracted workers in the western trade.¹

On 19 May 1702 Anne-Antoinette had her will drawn before notary Adhémar.¹

She died 29 September 1707 and was buried the following day at Montréal.² Hugues Picard dit Lafortune died later the same year and was buried at Montréal on 22 December 1707.¹

Her life is documented in the notarial marriage contracts of both her marriages, the early parish registers of Montréal, the militia record of the settlement, and her will.

Sources

  1. Peter J. Gagné, Before the King’s Daughters: The Filles à marier, 1634–1662 (Pawtucket, R.I.: Quintin Publications, 2002), 102–3, Anne-Antoinette de Liercourt.
  2. Québec (Canada), Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621–1968, baptisms of the Juillet and Picard children; burial of Anne-Antoinette de Liercourt, 30 Sept. 1707, Montréal; Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes, s.v. “Juillet” and “Picard.”
  3. Québec, Canada, Notarial Records, 1637–1935, marriage contracts of 1651 and 1660; will of Anne-Antoinette de Liercourt, 19 May 1702, notary Adhémar.
  4. Canadian Genealogy Index, 1600s–1900s.
  5. Canada, Find a Grave Index, 1600s–Current.
  6. Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s–1900s.

Marie-Madeleine Raclos (c. 1655–1724)

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Marie-Madeleine Raclos was born about 1655, a daughter of Idebon Raclos, écuyer — a member of the lesser nobility — and Marie Viennot of Paris.¹

In 1671 she came to Canada with her father and her sisters Françoise and Marie. She is listed among the filles du roi, the young women whose passage to New France was paid by the king in order to promote marriage and permanent settlement in the colony.²

A marriage contract was drawn before the notary Claude Larue on 11 November 1671 for her marriage to Nicolas Perrault, and the couple was married at Cap-de-la-Madeleine.¹ Nicolas Perrault was an interpreter, fur trader, and officer who later served as commandant in the pays d’en haut — literally the “upper country,” meaning the interior beyond Montréal reached by traveling up the St. Lawrence and Ottawa River routes into the Great Lakes and western fur-trade region of New France.³

The parish registers record the baptisms of their children at Champlain, Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Québec, Nicolet, and Montréal:

  • François (1672–1745)
  • Nicolas (1674–1725)
  • Clémence (1676–1776)
  • Michel (1677–1723)
  • Marie-Françoise (1678–1744)
  • Marie-Anne (1680–1745)
  • Claude (1684–1741)
  • Jean-Baptiste (1688–1705)
  • Jean (1690–1773)⁴

Through Nicolas Perrault’s work in the western trade, the family was connected to the network of alliances, travel routes, and military posts that linked the St. Lawrence valley to the Great Lakes and Mississippi regions.³

Nicolas Perrault died 13 August 1717 and was buried the following day at Bécancour.³

Marie-Madeleine Raclos was buried 8 July 1724 at Trois-Rivières after several years during which the burial record notes that she had lived “dans la démence la plus complète,” indicating a state of complete mental decline.¹

Her life is documented in the notarial record of her marriage, in the parish registers where her children were baptized and buried, and in the demographic lists of the filles du roi.

Sources

  1. Peter J. Gagné, King’s Daughters and Founding Mothers: The Filles du Roi, 1663–1673, vol. 2 (Pawtucket, R.I.: Quintin Publications, 2000), 198–99, Marie-Madeleine Raclos.
  2. Yves Landry, Les Filles du roi au XVIIe siècle (Montréal: Leméac, 1992), entry for Marie-Madeleine Raclos.
  3. Peter J. Gagné, King’s Daughters and Founding Mothers, biography of Nicolas Perrault.
  4. Québec (Canada), Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621–1968, baptisms of the Perrault children and burial of Marie-Madeleine Raclos; Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes, s.v. “Perrault.”
  5. Canadian Genealogy Index, 1600s–1900s.
  6. Canada, Find a Grave Index, 1600s–Current.
  7. Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s–1900s.

Marguerite Charlot

On By NancyIn Ancestor Profile, Fille a Marier, Marriageable womenLeave a comment

Marguerite Charlot was born about 1632 in the parish of Saint-Jean-en-Grève in Paris, the daughter of François Charlot and Barbe Girardeau.¹ She came to Canada in 1647, most likely in the company of Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve on his return to Montréal.¹

She married Louis Loisel at Montréal on 13 January 1648.² No marriage contract has been found for the couple. Marguerite was unable to sign her name, while her husband could.¹

Louis Loisel, a master locksmith, had been born about 1617 at Saint-Germain-le-Blanc-Herbe in Normandy, the son of Louis Loisel and Jeanne Le Terrier.¹

The parish registers of Montréal record the baptisms and burials of their children:

  • Jeanne, baptized 24 July 1649
  • Françoise, baptized 26 February 1652
  • Joseph, baptized 25 November 1654
  • Charles, baptized 2 June and buried 28 June 1658
  • Marie-Marthe, baptized and buried 15 August 1659
  • Charles, baptized 5 October and buried 7 November 1661
  • Barbe, baptized 30 August 1663
  • Louis, baptized 14 August and buried 5 September 1667²

Jeanne, their eldest child, is regarded as the first child born at Montréal to survive. In November 1653 Marguerite Bourgeoys wrote that Monsieur de Maisonneuve had given her Jeanne to raise, and both Jeanne and Françoise were among the first pupils in the school established by Bourgeoys in the stable at Montréal.¹

Louis Loisel was buried at Montréal on 4 September 1691.²

Marguerite Charlot died at Pointe-aux-Trembles and was buried there 3 October 1706.² The notarial records of the Montréal district place members of the extended Loiselle family in that seigneurial community in the last decades of the seventeenth century.³

Her life is documented in the earliest parish registers of Montréal from the foundation generation of the settlement through her burial at Pointe-aux-Trembles in 1706.

Sources

  1. Peter J. Gagné, Before the King’s Daughters: The Filles à marier, 1634–1662 (Pawtucket, R.I.: Quintin Publications, 2002), 86–87, Marguerite Charlot.
  2. Québec (Canada), Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), marriage of Marguerite Charlot and Louis Loisel, 13 Jan 1648, Montréal; baptisms and burials of their children; burial of Louis Loisel, 4 Sept 1691, Montréal; burial of Marguerite Charlot, 3 Oct 1706, Pointe-aux-Trembles; see also Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes, s.v. “Loisel.”
  3. Montréal notarial records, inventory of the property of Urbain Tessier dit Lavigne and subsequent partition, 28 July 1690, demonstrating the presence of the Loiselle family network at Pointe-aux-Trembles.