♀Andrée Angélique Jeanne

Andrée Angélique Jeanne (26 March 1671 – 1739) was a sailor’s daughter from the Lower Town of Québec who in 1690 had two marriage contracts drawn up with two different men within four months, married the second, Gabriel Godin, and spent the rest of her life with him on the Saint John River in Acadia. She was probably the seventh great-grandmother of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through her son Jean-Baptiste Godin (about 1706 – before 1763).

Early life

Andrée was baptized at Sainte-Famille on the Île d’Orléans on 31 March 1671, a daughter of Robert Jeanne and Françoise-Madeleine Savard. Her father was a sailor, born at Rouen in Normandy, who had married her mother at Québec in 1665. By the census of 1681 the family was living in the Lower Town of Québec, and Andrée, aged ten, was the second of the five children in the house.

Marriage

In March 1690 a marriage contract was drawn up between Andrée Angélique Jeanne, a sailor’s daughter of Québec, and Pierre Lefebvre, before the notary Gilles Rageot. That match came to nothing. On 19 July 1690 a second contract was drawn up for her, before the notary François Genaple, this time with Gabriel Godin, and the wedding is said to have followed at Québec five days later, on 24 July 1690.

Gabriel, ten years older than his bride, had been born at Montreal and had gone to Acadia with his parents as a boy; by 1686 his father was dead and his mother a widow at Port-Royal with no property at all.

The Saint John River

The couple went to Acadia. In 1691 Gabriel is said to have received a concession on the Saint John River from the new governor of Acadia, Joseph Robineau de Villebon^W, in the Nashwaak country near present-day Fredericton, and to have taken from it the title of sieur de Bellefontaine. They raised a large family there; by the compiled genealogies their children were born between 1690 and about 1718, and the sons went by the names Godin, Bellefontaine, Beauséjour, Bellefeuille and Boisjoli. Gabriel is said to have died on the Saint John River on 22 August 1730. Andrée was a widow on the river at the census of 1739 and is said to have died that year.

The family

Their son Joseph, called Bellefontaine dit Beauséjour, born in 1695, is said to have been named major of the militia of the Saint John River by order of the governor, Roland-Michel Barrin de La Galissonière^W, on 10 April 1749.

Notes

Sources for her life

Her baptism at Sainte-Famille, Île d’Orléans, on 31 March 1671 is in the Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH), the Université de Montréal’s database of the Québec parish registers; WikiTree gives her birth as 26 March 1671 and her death as 1739 on the Saint John River, citing no record of either. Her father’s baptism at Rouen (Saint-Sever) in 1639, his trade of sailor and his marriage to Françoise Savart at Québec on 26 January 1665 come from the Fichier Origine. The census of 1681, as printed by Benjamin Sulte, lists in the Lower Town of Québec “Robert Jeannes, matelot, 40 ; Francoise Savart, sa femme, 30 ; enfants : Marie 13, Andree 10, Martin 8, Jean 5, Marie 2.”

The two marriage contracts, with Pierre Lefebvre (Gilles Rageot, 7 March 1690) and with Gabriel Godin (François Genaple, 19 July 1690), are listed in Pierre-Georges Roy’s inventory of the marriage contracts of the French régime, and the second also in Antoine Roy’s inventory of Genaple’s acts. WikiTree states that the first contract was never followed by a marriage. The wedding at Québec on 24 July 1690 is given by Tanguay’s Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes and by Bona Arsenault’s Histoire et généalogie des Acadiens (vol. 4, p. 1634). Gabriel’s early years and the household of 1686 at Port-Royal are from Roland-J. Auger’s La grande recrue de 1653 (p. 69), citing Sulte’s printing of the census. The grant from Villebon, the title of sieur de Bellefontaine, the names of the sons, the children’s births from 1690 to about 1718 and her presence as a widow at the census of 1739 are from Arsenault (vol. 4, pp. 1634-1636); her death that year rests on WikiTree alone, and the census places her alive in 1739. Joseph’s militia command is from Arsenault (p. 1636).

Her names

Roy’s inventory of the contracts writes her Andrée-Angélique Robert-Jeannes, and Arsenault writes Andrée-Angélique Joannes; Stephen A. White and Cormier’s compilation of the Bourg family write Andrée-Angélique Jeanne. Her father’s name appears as Jeannes and, in the Fichier Origine, as Jeanne or Ridout.

Gabriel’s death

His death on 22 August 1730 comes from WikiTree, which cites no record of it. Arsenault (p. 1636) and Cormier both give 22 August 1730 as the date of the wedding at Grand-Pré of the couple’s son Pierre (Pierre-Joseph) Godin to Marie-Josephe Bourg, so the death date may have been carried over from that marriage.

The link to Jean-Baptiste Godin

White’s Dictionnaire généalogique des familles acadiennes (p. 747) places Jean-Baptiste Godin dit Lincour, born about 1706, in this family. Arsenault’s list of the couple’s children does not name him; it has a Jean, born about 1712, whom Arsenault marries to Françoise Dugas. The descent from Jean-Baptiste to Marie Josephe Godin rests in turn on White’s interpretation of the name Lincour, so the line from Andrée to Floyd Amatus Delahorne is probable rather than proved.