The Bigamist’s Daughter

My 8G grandmother, Barbe Nepveu, was an illegitimate child after the fact.  Her parents, Jean Nepveu and Anne Leodet, married in Quebec during January of 1653.  Barbe was born later that year in December, and her younger sister arrived in 1655.  But then, everything blew apart.  Jean Nepveu was convicted of bigamy and exiled from Canada.  Barbe was no longer a legitimate child.

Barbe’s mother seems to have landed on her feet.  Anne married another man, Gilles Pinel, in 1657 and they stayed together until his death in January 1700 (she died in December of the same year.)  They had nine children together.  The bigamy incident seems as though it was hardly a blip in Anne’s life.  But what did it mean for Barbe?

My first gleanings of Barbe’s life came through the entries in biographic dictionaries compiled by Cyprian Tanguay and Rene Jette.   In these works, Barbe’s story is one of early marriage and many kids.  Indeed, she was thirteen when she married Nicolas Sylvestre in 1667. Over the course of thirty-two years, they had fifteen children.  Two of their children died as infants.  Barbe and Nicolas stayed together until his death in March 1729 (she died in April of the same year.)

All of this information seemed well and good except for the troubling youth of Barbe’s age at marriage.  I needed a reason for her to marry so young.  I began to imagine her life as fraught – and this vision clouded my interpretation of resources.

Quebec held a census in 1666, the year before Barbe left her childhood home.

Name	Age	Relationship
Gilles Pinel	31	colonist
Anne Ledet	35	his wife and widow of Jean Nepveu
Catherine Pinel	8	daughter
Francoise Pinel	6	daughter
Marie Magdeleine Pinel	4	daughter
Francois Xavier Pinel	2	son
Barbe Nepveu	12	daughter of Nepveu & Ledet
Suzanne Nepveu	10	daughter of Nepveu & Ledet

I didn’t like that Barbe and her sister were listed after the Pinel children in the household even though they were older.  Perhaps she and Suzanne were never really full members of the family.  I wondered if Barbe got along with her mother’s second husband, Gilles.  And I wondered if she resented the responsibilities of being the oldest daughter in a house that produced kids every two years like clockwork.  Barbe had a sister and five half-siblings by time she left her childhood home.  (For those of you who only count 4 half-siblings, your eyes are not deceiving you!  Elisabeth Ursale doesn’t appear in the census because it was taken during the winter and she was born in June.)

But then I thought that maybe I am reading too much into this, maybe I am judging this by my modern standards — and I decided to see how old Barbe’s sisters were when they married.

Name (in birth order)	Age at Marriage
Barbe Nepveu	13
Suzanne Nepveu	15
Catherine Pinel	13
Marie Madeleine Pinel	18
Elisabeth Ursale Pinel	17
Anne Pinel	22

While the youngest daughters married latest in life, Barbe was not the only daughter to marry at thirteen.  Her half-sister, Catherine, was technically even a couple months younger than Barbe was when she wed.  This diminished the likelihood in my imagination that Barbe was a resented burden, married off early, from an uncaring family.

Then I made other discoveries that made me think that my earlier suspicions that Barbe  was pushed or “escaped” into a family of her own were unfounded.

• Barbe’s step-father, Gilles Pinel, was recorded as present at the baptism of two of her children.
• Barbe’s mother, Anne Leodet, was recorded as present at the baptism of the child Barbe named after her.
• Barbe’s husband, Nicolas Sylvestre, served as godfather to Barbe’s parents’ son who shared his name.
• Barbe’s husband, Nicolas Sylvestre, was recorded as present at three of Barbe’s siblings’ weddings (including his namesake’s nuptials.)
• Barbe’s half-sister Anne Pinel, served as godmother to Barbe’s son.

These events seem to indicate that Barbe’s life was intricately entwined with the family of her childhood, even if she was only a “half” relation.

And the fact that Barbe served as a godmother to two children outside of her families by birth and by marriage diminished my concern that she was held accountable by her community for the sins of her father.

I am sure that new information will continue to send me back and forth between the “she was scorned, she was not scorned” interpretation of events.  But for now, I believe that Barbe did not have a large price to pay for the accident of her birth.  And I really like that Anne and Gilles named a son after Barbe’s husband.

It was there all along!

Gilles Pinel was the godfather of Suzanne Nepveu! This means that he did know Suzanne’s mother, Anne Leodet, when she was married to her first husband, Jean.  Gilles was a part of their lives.  Before.

He knew Anne before her first husband was convicted of bigamy and she was left with two newly illegitimate daughters to raise on her own.

Even better, Gilles continued to be a part of Anne’s life after.  He married her in 1657, just before Suzanne turned two-years-old.

The phrase that troubled me. Source: Screenshot from Ancestry.com

Last week I was trying to make this link with Suzanne’s baptism record but I couldn’t.  I was frustrated because Latin and inkblots made the record indecipherable to me.  I couldn’t be sure that “patrinus fuit [a???diuf] [inkblot] Pinel” said “the godfather is Gilles Pinel.”  It was too big of a leap for me.

But this week I saw a teeny tiny excerpt from an online preview of Le Registre de Sillery, 1638-1690, edited by Leo-Paul Hebert that mentioned “conjugibus [married couple] Aegidio Pinel et [and] Anna Ledepte.”  And it jogged my mind.  That scribble that started with an “A” could be Gilles, not the inkblot that looks like it might start with a “G.”

I confirmed it using Google translate.  Aegidio (what I saw in the excerpt) and Aegidius (what I now see in the baptism record) both translate in Latin as Giles.

Source:

Ahh.  It is so nice to have another mystery solved!

Primary Resource: Canada in the 1660s

In 1664, Pierre Boucher published (in French) A True and Genuine Description of New France, Commonly Called Canada, and of the Manners and Customs and Productions of that Country. Boucher’s history of Canada was translated into English and re-published by Edward Louis Montizambert in 1883 for all of us non-French speakers to read.

Pierre Boucher. Photo credit: Wikipedia

Pierre Boucher emigrated to Canada with his father as a teenager in the 1630s and rose to become a prominent public figure.  His 1664 history, which he published while Governor of Trois-Rivieres, described European settlements in New France — and the land, trees, animals, birds, fish, grains, and natives — around them.  His book intended to further encourage the settlement of New France but he did admit to four inconveniences in the new world: Iroquois aggression, mosquitos, long winters, and rattlesnakes.

As you read through Boucher’s history you can pick up a lot about what life must have been like for seventeenth century habitants.  For example:

Having mentioned the winters, I shall say a few words of the seasons. Properly speaking, there are only two to be reckoned here, for we pass suddenly from great heat to great cold; therefore, we speak only of Winter and Summer.  Winter begins immediately after All Saints Day [November 1]; that is to say, frosts begin then, and some time after comes the snow, which lies on the ground until about the fifteenth of April, in ordinary years, and later than that in others; but usually it is about the sixteenth that the ground becomes free from snow, and in a state to put forth plants and to be ploughed.

While much of this information might be unsurprising to a modern Canadian, I am intrigued by how his words speak to the priorities of his world.  From the passage I quoted above, I love the way both faith and pragmatism informed Boucher’s knowledge of local farming.

For those of you who are curious to read more descriptions of early Canada, you can gain access to the translated version of Boucher’s history for free through Google books.

For those of you tracing the lives of early Canadian ancestors, it is important to note that Boucher (though well-traveled) spent most of his life about 80 miles west of Quebec.  Still, Boucher was sensitive to the variations of Canadian experience so there is much to glean in his book about what it was like to live in 1660s New France.

And for those of you who share ancestors with me, it is also curious to note that Pierre is probably a relative.  His father, Gaspard, is thought to be the brother or cousin of another famous founding settler, Marin Boucher.  And Marin Boucher was the brother of Jeanne Boucher who married Thomas Hayot, and whose daughter, Anne, married the first Canadian Boisvert, Etienne.  From my generation looking back, Pierre Boucher is reputed to be a first or second cousin 10x removed.

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Greg Rogers’ academic paper, “Eden with Iroquois,” puts Boucher’s history into its context (and therefore might help you distinquish fact from seventeenth century bias when reading Boucher.) Roger’s paper can be found here.

Scribbled Latin Obscures the Truth

I have been thinking about my 9G grandmother, Anne Leodet, and what happened to her after her husband Jean Nepveu was convicted of bigamy and exiled from Canada.

Records show that Anne went on to marry Gilles Pinel – and that after their marriage, her life seemed to go on without skipping a beat.  I assume that this is true because Anne had eleven children over the course of her lifetime.  She always had her children two years apart, with only two exceptions.  Twice she had children three years apart — once between husbands, and later between her seventh and eighth child.   She was nothing if not regular about childbearing.

But what stumped me was how Anne managed to meet Gilles in the first place.  After the bigamy episode she was a woman alone with two young daughters and a sordid past.

And then the PRDH gave me a fascinating clue – Gilles is listed on her second daughter’s baptism record.  So Anne and Gilles probably knew each other before her first marriage came to its dramatic end.  Anne and Jean might have even selected Gilles to act as their daughter’s godfather.  And if they did, he merely changed roles in the family.  Way to look out for his goddaughter’s life!

I wanted to settle my suspicion that Gilles had been a family friend by confirming his role as godfather on the original record, and that is where I got stuck.

Photot: Screenshot of Suzanne Nepveu’s baptismal record from the Druoin Collection via Ancestry.com

The record is scribbled in non-standard Latin.  I tried translating the document using the Latin word list from Family Search.   Unfortunately, I could only get as far as my handwriting interpretation skills and imagination would allow.  For example, the first few words “Ego patrus Bailloquet …” I translated as “I, Father Bailloquet …” – even though I couldn’t find the word “patrus” on the word list.  I made the guess because I could find:

• Parochus (parish priest)
• Pater (father)
• Patruus (uncle – father’s brother)

I decided that patrus doesn’t seem that far off for father/priest.

And happily, the word “patrinus” or “godfather” does show up in the third line of the record.  But nothing here is easy.  Patrinus is followed by fuit, or “he was” by [unclear word] [inkblot] Pinel.  It looks like the blot could start with a G – but that might just be wishful thinking.

Does anyone have Latin or handwriting interpretation skills to share?

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This is how I have interpreted the record so far ….  Everything here is an educated guess at best.  I copied it line by line.

Record: Talli baptinati in ecclesia Sillesiana ab anno dominin 1655, 11 Octobris

Me: List of baptisms from the church of Sillery October 11, 1655 AD

Record: Ego patrus Bailloquet soietatis jesu sacerdos vice agent partchi babtizane

Me: I, Father Bailloquet of the society of Jesuit priests ___ have officially baptized

Record: Sol danifer in sa ville silleranno pullileu bedl nafum de Joeanneu dide et

Me: Sun _____ in her village of Sillery, child born of Jean ___ and

Record: Anne Ledette consigibus patrinus fuit asoidius ___ pinel, matrina Suzanna

Me: Anne Ledette married couple, godfather was ______ ____ Pinel, godmother Suzanna

Record: Barbet hac fanto nomde duo suzannan nuncopauit

Me: Barbet ,the latter ____ by the name of her ____.

On the Shoulders of Giants

Wow. The PRDH* is a French Canadian researcher’s boon. The funny thing is that I have resisted purchasing access to the site for months. They have a structure where you pay in advance for the number of hits you think you will make – which is incredibly hard to calculate without any experience. Yet for about 10 cents a record or less, you can have access to the PRDH’s database, which specializes in seventeenth and eighteenth century vital records for the province of Quebec. Your subscription has no time limit. It merely ends when your last hit is used up.

Father Cyprien Tanguay, author of the first French Canadian genealogical dictionary, during the 1890s, . Photo credit: Wikipedia.

And I was foolish enough to think that I would regret purchasing it because doing genealogy with colonial Quebecois ancestors is already a researcher’s dream. The Jesuits kept detailed records of all the baptisms, marriages, and burials that went on – and since the church in New France experienced a fire around 1650, they learned to keep copies of the registries in two places at all times (local and central) so there are next to no gaps in the records. In addition, these records have been mined and re-mined and compiled into multiple dictionaries – which are easy to find in genealogical libraries. The original one, published in 1871 by Father Cyprian Tanguay, is now available online through Ancestry.com.**

Since I had all this access to quick genealogical information, I worried that a PRDH subscription would just duplicate what I had already found out. But I was wrong. Unlike the dictionaries, you don’t just get names, dates, and locations of particular family groups. The PRDH database lists every instance in which a person’s name is listed in the records as a subject, parent, priest, or other. And even though you still have to find the primary records to sort out the witnesses from the church workers from the godparents, the database results provide a quick overview of how a particular person was tied to their community and the events of their lives. Truly fascinating stuff.

*PRDH stands for Le Programme de Rechercher en Demographie Historique, or the Research Program of Historical Demography, at the University of Montreal.

** Tanguay’s dictionary can also be accessed for free through Quebec’s National Library and Archives.

Good V. Bad Bigamy

Bigamy is always bad when found on Facebook.  But what about when you discover it on Ancestry?

There are two bigamists in my family tree.  The easily discovered, Pierre Pichet, and the shadowy, Jean Nepveu.

Poor Catherine Pichet descended from two bigamists: her paternal grandfather, Pierre Pichet, and her maternal, maternal great grandfather, Jean Nepveu. Photo credit: my Ancestry.com family tree screen shot.

Pierre Pichet came to Canada in 1662 with the intention to settle in and send for Marie LaFebvre, the wife he left behind.  All was going according to plan until his brother Louis sent him a letter and revealed that his wife had died.  Thinking his first life over, Pierre moved to build a second one.  He arranged a marriage with fille du roi Catherine Durand in 1665.  Six years and three kids later, a newly arrived countryman insisted that Marie was not dead.

Pierre has a reputation as a “good bigamist” – and I believe that is because of what happened next.  He ran off to the local bishop to ask for advice.  The bishop said he was going to France soon and would check the story out for him.  In time, when Pierre learned that his first wife was indeed alive, he abandoned his second family, sailed for France, and brought Lefebvre back with him.

Less is known about Jean Nepveu.  The gist of his story goes like this:  In 1645, Jean arranged to go to Canada.  In 1653, he arranged to marry fille du marier, Anne Ledet.  They had two daughters before he was returned to France in 1656 or 1657. Jean’s crime is revealed by the fact that Anne was allowed to remarry after he left.  In a seventeenth century Catholic country, “until death do we part” was taken seriously.  There was no other way out of a legitimate marriage contract.  Jean was not dead, so the marriage contract must have been invalidated.

When I think of bigamy, I think of tv dramas and the betrayal of someone living multiple lives – perhaps a traveling salesman with families in two or three of the cities he frequents.   But in looking for bigamy on Facebook and Ancestry, the crime appears much more mundane.  In fact, bigamy seems like an act of hope for a better future committed by people who don’t end their previous relationships officially because they are either too broke or lazy (Facebook) or have no legitimate path to take (Ancestry.)

Except in the case of Pierre Pichet where misinformation set him up for a major oopsie-daisie.

Resources:

• Rene Jette, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles du Québec, des origines à 1730. Montréal, Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1983.
• Peter J. Gagne, King’s Daughters and Founding Mothers: the Filles du Roi, 1663-1673, Quinton Publications, 2001.
• Peter J. Gagne, Before the King’s Daughters: The Filles a Marrier, 1634-1662, Quinton Publications, 2002.
• Time spent on Ancestry looking at other people’s family trees.

Wishy-Washy Racial Categories

Photo credit: family photo

In 1881, Massachusetts Labor Statistics Commissioner Carroll Davidson Wright declared French Canadians, such as my GG grandparents, “the Chinese of the Eastern States.”  I guess my Korean-born adoptive kids are not the first Asians in my maternal family line….

 

Want more on adoption and genealogy, try this post: Can adoption and genealogy mix?

Want more on anti-French Canadian bias in 19th century Massachusetts: I hope to get more up soon (ie. in the next few weeks.)

Who’s Who: Adele and Her Children

Photo credit: family photo

I am just guessing here but I think that this is a portrait of Adele (Charbonneau) Greenwood and four of her five children.  Number 1 is Adele.  Number 5 is her youngest child, Arthur.  Number 3 is middle child, George.  Number 2 (standing) is my great grandmother Minnie or Mary (same person, what you call her depends upon whether you know her from documents or stories).  Number 4 (seated) is Adele’s youngest daughter, Eugenie.

I imagine that the occasion was Adele’s wedding to Gilbert Boucher in 1899 — and that the portrait was taken in Pittsfield, MA.  Her absent eldest son, Edward A. Greenwood, had already married Julia Gironard, and was living in Manchester, New Hampshire.