The companies and private interests favoured the immigration of male employees and apprentices, The French State and the religious communities undertook to rectify this according to the demographic repartition of the colonies. Women began to immigrate to Canada around 1630, but King’s Daughters term, designate only these 800 women who came to "Nouvelle-France" (actually Canada) within these 11 first years of the monarchial regime. These girls were provided with a bride’s trousseau and in rare cases with a small dowry. Most of these women quickly found a husband. Some of these women were beggars or orphans in Paris, some others were recruited in Rouen or in La Rochelle in France. Administrative reports tend to make believe that most of these women were born in urban area, and were not prepared for the hard life of settlers’ wives. The arrival of the first contingent of the King’s daughters gave rise to a certain opposition within the colony where seemingly, the decision to arrange marriages was badly perceived. On November 28 1663, the Quebec Council intervened in order to forbid all persons from preventing the girls who came from France at the King’s expense to marry where they would feel doing so (……). Ten years later, Jean Talon (Intendant of Nouvelle-France) in an official report makes note that some priests/pastors still resisted and hesitated in some circumstances to bless hasty marriages. On February 11 1671, preceding by many months the arrival of a new contingent of King’s Daughters, COLBERT (Controller general of finances of France) wrote to the Intendant in order to reassure him concerning the freedom of these women. {COLBERT wrote:"I also gave orders to send you certificates of the places where the said women came from, and these certificates will also let it be known that they are free and ready to get married without any difficulty}. Thus we know through this document that Jean Talon made available to each of these women a sum of 50 pounds, Canadian money in provisions to be used for their daily shores of settlers’ wives. We know over and above that 800 King’s Daughters were transported within three distinct contingents and a number of 50 only were Ladies of noble birth and that some of them were bringing with them a personal dowry. Anne-Marie Van Zeigt arrived in Canada with the very last contingent.

Anne-Marie Van Zeigt: She was the daughter of a cavalry captain, an ennobled military man, (deceased before Anne-Marie’s marriage in Montreal) . We are led to believe that following her father’s death, her whole family was left broken and without any money for survival. (no dowry); these facts shows that our ancestor tried to ascertain a better life for her in the colonies…! Anne-Marie later left her second husband Gabriel Cardinal on March 11 1692 and her children were assigned under guardianship. It also known that she ran a business (a public house) on St-Jacques street in Montreal which was considered illegal and immoral by the authorities of the colony and she was sentenced to jail for these offenses and she was still in jail on December 1698 and she died alone on December 4, 1722 within St-François-de-Sales parish of Ile Jésus (Laval, Qc.) Canada.