BOUCHARD It is believed that the name Bouchard was originally a Christian, or given, name. Over time, it fell into use as a family name.
There are two Bouchard families in my direct line. They do not appear to be related. We will deal with them one at a time.Claude BOUCHARD & Louise GAGNE Claude, called "le Petit Claude" for his diminutive stature, was born to Jacques Bouchard & Noelle Touschard about 1626 in St. Cosmie-Verde, Perche, France; nothing else is known about his parents. He was a tailor by trade.4
The White Horse Inn, near the county seat of Saint-Come, on the road leading to Rouperoux and owned by one Gervais LAVYE was the place; March of 1650 was the approximate date. A series of lectures was being given by Sir Robert Giffard, famous Canadian colonizer, to entice young Frenchmen to begin a new life in Canada. Claude and his friend Julien Fortin went to the meeting and liked what they heard. I am not sure if the aforementioned Julien Fortin is this Julien Fortin or not. At any rate, Claude and Julien threw in their lot with Mr. Giffard and sailed to New France.4Claude married Louise GAGNÉ 25 May 1654 in Quebec. Louise was the daughter of Louis Gagnè & Marie Michel; and was baptized in St. Martin, Ige, France;godparents Marthe Bouillie and René Gueve. She came to Canada in 1644 with her parents.4,5
Claude and Louise had the following 12 children:Marie- Born 11 October 1659 at Cap Tourmente, Québec she was given a conditional baptism on the same day; her official baptism came on the 27th of the month. She took her vows to become a nun on 5 August 1698 and officially became Sister Saint-Paul. When Father François Fillon of St.-Anne-de-Beaupre drowned in St. Paul's Bay on 14 June 1679, she brought the body to Cap Ste. Anne. She put a cross on his birch coffin, placed that on a raft and followed it in a canoe. She arrived at the Cap with her precious cargo on 13 July. Her death information is not known.4
Claude Bouchard was buried 26 November 1699. Louise Gagné died in April 1721.4
It seems worth mentioning that in 1952, the Bouchards of America placed a plaque at the White Horse Inn at Saint-Côme-de-Vair to commemorate the 300th anniversary of ancestor Claude Bouchard's journey to New France.4Étienne BOUCHARD - Marguerite BOISSEL
This Bouchard family is not known to be related to the Claude Bouchard family.Étienne was born about 1622, probably in France. His parents are Pierre & Nicole CHARLAND, about whom nothing else is known.1
Marguerite was a native of Québec, baptized 20 September 1643. Her parents were Jacques BOISSEL & Marie ERIPERT.1
Étienne and Marguerite were married in Québec City on 6 October 1657. At some point, the couple moved their family to Montréal, where Étinene made their living as a surgeon. Their known daughter was Marie Anne.1
No death information for this couple is available.GAGNE The name Gagne is a derivative of the original name Gasnier. Gasnier was believed to be a derivative of Garnier, meaning "to gather the harvest". The name has evolved from Gainer, Gaigne, and Gagnier.
Louis & Marie are from the area of Igé, France; it is possible that Louis Gagné Sr's father is Christophe Gagné. Louis was a miller at Guemansais, France.5
Although no marriage details are available for Louis and Marie, we know of the following four sons:
- Louis
- Nicolas
- Marie Marguerite
The birth places of the children are unknown and Pierre and Marguerite's immigration information is also shrouded in mystery. Pierre Gagné died 30 April 1656 in Beaupré.5Marie Launay died in 1640 at St. Martin, Igé, France. No death information for Louis Gagné is available.5
Louis was baptized 13 September 1612 in St. Martin, Ige, France; the son of Louis GAGNÉ & Marie LAUNAY. His godparents were François Launay, René Lareau, and Françoise Launay. Louis was a miller, a trade most likely learned at his father's knee. He had some education, as he was able to easily write his name.5
Louis married Marie on 11 June 1638 in St. Martin-du-Vieux, Belleme, France.
Marie was the daughter of Pierre MICHEL & Louise GORY; Pierre died 28 September 1632 at St. Martin-du-Vieux, Belleme, France. That is all that is known about them.5
Louis and Marie had 8 children:The family is believed to have immigrated in 1644, as mentioned in the birth details of daughter Marie. Catholics, especially back in those times, believed that if a baby died before baptism their soul would not go to Heaven and bask in the love of God--but would exist in a kind of limbo (my family called it Purgatory). The most logical conclusion that has been drawn by historians is that Marie was born at sea during the crossing from France to Canada; and that she was unable to be baptized until the family reached Quebec. Did Marie Michel throw caution to the wind and embark on such a long journey knowing that her child's birth was imminent? Or did little Marie's birth come earlier than expected, brought on by the stress of a difficult trans-Atlantic sea voyage? No one knows.5
Unfortunately, Louis Gagné "disappears" in 1661. He is last known to be alive in the spring of that year. On 18 June 1661, at 8:00 AM, the massacre and capture of several people of Beaupré by the Agnier tribe of the Iroquois Indians began. Beaupré was their second stop; they had been on the Île d'Orleans the hour before and performed the same atrocities on those residents. François Hertel, who was also captured on this day, witnessed the horrible torture and death of Louis Guimont, a man who also "disappeared" from the record books in the same fashion as our Louis Gagné.
Louis Guimont and Louis Gagné shared something else: On 14 July 1661, an inventory of their property was completed by René Cauchon di Laverdier--something that is customarily done when one is dead or believed to be dead. In the final assessment of the estate of Louis Gagné, there is an interesting debt--that of 35 livres to the Hôtel-Dieu du Quebec, which was the Catholic hospital. It is entirely possible that Louis Gagné made it to the hospital--and that the good Sisters of that institution nursed his wounds until he succumbed to them. Since we have no concrete evidence of this, the events surrounding the death of Louis Gagné are shrouded in mystery.
Marie Michel took 5 years to remarry, accepting the marriage proposal of Paul deRainville and becoming his wife on 1 September 1666. They were married for 20 years when Paul deRainville died in Beauport on 10 December 1686. Marie Michel was buried at Ste. Anne de Beaupré in the old cemetery less than a year later on 12 November 1687--the closest she could come to being buried near her husband, Louis Gagné.5,9The In-Laws Back in Roman times, Juvenal stated in his Satite IV that one cannot be happy while one's mother-in-law is still alive. I certainly hope that these folks enjoyed a more harmonious relationship with the family! They are listed in alphabetical order by husband's surname. Note that any links for in-laws that appear in the above sections won't be repeated here.
Jacques was born in France in 1601. Marie was also born in France, in 1611. The couple were married in 1639 in France. Their parents are not known.
Jacques and Marie came to Canada sometime before September 1643, which is when their known daughter, Marguerite, was baptized in Québec. Jacques was a butcher at Québec.
Marie Eripert was buried 1 November 1697. Jacques Boissel's death information is not known.1Anything and everything that you could want to know about the Simard family can be found on the The Simard Family History page. The information was translated from a book by Paul Médéric. For those of you that don't want to take the time to read the text (it's rather lengthy), I'll hit the high points in Noel & Pierre Simard's sections .Noel's parents were Pierre & Suzanne Durand; he was born to them in 1638. As detailed below, he and his father came to Canada in 1657.10
The Simard men initially settled on the Beaupre coast; their near neighbors were Etienne RACINE & Marguerite MARTIN. Noel married their daughter, Madeleine, after the signing of a long and detailed marriage contract. The wedding took place 22 November 1661 at Chateau-Richer.1,10.
Like all the pioneers of New France, Noel acquired as much land as he could afford. While many men did this land swapping-wheeling-dealing for profit, Noel did not have time for that; his interest in acquiring land was to have some to pass on to his sons when they married.10
Of their fourteen children, these four marry into the lines of our family:
An epidemic ravaged the area in the summer of 1715 and claimed Noël Simard on 24 July. He was buried at Baie-St.-Paul, most likely on the same day, as was the custom for those who died of a contagious illness. About a year later, Marguerite had an inventory of her substantial estate drawn up. Marguerite Racine died in 1726.Pierre was born about 1602 or 1603 in Puymoyen, France; his parents were Marsault & Ozanne Saulot. Pierre, a mason, had been widowed by Catherine Boudier before he married Suzanne Durand. In 1638, their son Noël was born. A few years later, they had a daughter named after her mother.
In the mid-1650's, there was much talk of New France. Son Noël was seduced by the siren song of the new, raw country and tales of unlimited opportunity and wanted to go. Pierre shared his son's spirit of adventure. The building of a new country would certainly need the services of a mason, so he could make a decent living. And there was land--an abundance of land! And they were just giving it away!!!!
The Irish have a saying: "The devil you know is better than the one you don't know". Both mère and fille Suzanne were of that same mindset. Things were bad enough where they were, without ditching it all and starting over again in some godforsaken wilderness. No. They would not go. Out of the question. Fini.
Pierre and Noël decided to go anyway. They left in May of 1657; never to see their wife, daughter, mother, or sister again. Although Pierre set aside a dowry for daughter Suzanne in hopes that she would come to Canada, that never happened.
As for his wife, Suzanne Durand, she took a drastic step in the opposite direction: On 27 October 1666, she has her will drawn up and leaves everything to one Marie Baurye, a woman who had given her a place to live. I am sure it was hurt feelings that caused Suzanne Durand to identify herself as the "widow of Pierre Simard".
Pierre Simard died sometime after the census of 1681, probably at Baie-St.-Paul, where he was living with son Noël and his family.Sources:
1. Tanguay's Dictionary
2. PRDH
3. The Drouin Collection at Ancestry
4. "Our French Canadian Ancestors" by Thomas Laforest, Volume 3
5. "Our French Canadian Ancestors" by Thomas Laforest, Volume 12
6. "Before the King's Daughters: The Filles à Marier" by Peter Gagné
7. "King's Daughters and Founding Mothers: The Filles du Roi" by Peter Gagné
8. "Our French Canadian Ancestors" by Thomas Laforest, Volume 1
9. The Louis Guimont site at Rootsweb.com
10. The Simard Family History Page
This page was updated March 2012 .
Noel Family of Brockton, MA by Jolynn Noel Winland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States LicenseWhat does this mean? .
Email: littleangeljw@yahoo.com
