♀Anne Blanchard

Anne Blanchard (born about 1684) was an Acadian woman of Port-Royal, a daughter of Guillaume Blanchard and Huguette Goujon, who married Claude Bourgeois and lived with him at Beaubassin^W, at the head of the Bay of Fundy. She and her elder sister Marie married two brothers, Claude and Charles Bourgeois. She was the seventh great-grandmother of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through her son Paul Bourgeois (born 1705).

Her family

Anne was the fifth of the eleven children of Guillaume Blanchard and Huguette Goujon, farmers of Port-Royal. The census of Port-Royal finds her at home with them at two in 1686, nine in 1693, fifteen in 1698 and sixteen in 1700. The Port-Royal register begins only in 1702, so her baptism is not in it; her parents are named in the household lists.

When she was nine, the family house also held her eldest sister Marie, Marie’s husband Charles Bourgeois, twenty, and their baby daughter. Claude Bourgeois, the man Anne would marry, was then eighteen and living at Beaubassin with his mother.

Marriage and family

Anne was still at home at Port-Royal, aged sixteen, in the census of 1700. The couple first appear together in the Beaubassin roll of 1703, which lists Claude Bourgeois with his wife, and the roll of 1707 names her as Anne Blanchard. No record of their marriage has been found. Compiled genealogies date it about 1700 or 1701, so they most likely married in one of those years.

In 1707 the roll of Beaubassin counts one boy and one girl in the household, and four arpents of land. On 28 August 1714 the census of the parish lists Claude Bourgeois and Anne Blanchard with five children at home: Marie, Paul, Claude, Joseph and Michel. A compiled genealogy gives the couple ten children in all, the last, Rosalie, born in 1732.

Their son’s marriage

On 17 November 1727 their son Paul, twenty-two and living at Beaubassin, married Marie Josèphe Brun, seventeen, the daughter of Jean Brun and Anne Gautrot, at Port-Royal, which the British had held as Annapolis Royal since 1710^W. The register names Paul’s parents as Claude Bourgeois, “habitant of Beaubassin”, and Anne Blanchard.

Later years

In January 1752 the refugee roll at Baie-Verte lists “Le Vieux Claude Bourgeois” with his wife, who is not named. Anne may be that wife, but the roll does not say so. When and where she died is not known.

Lines of descent

Her elder sister Jeanne Blanchard (born about 1681) is also an ancestor of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), so Guillaume Blanchard and Huguette Goujon are his ancestors through two of their daughters. The two lines meet again at Melia Thibodeaux (born 1850).

Notes

The Port-Royal census entries for 1686, 1693, 1698 and 1700 are read from the transcriptions published on acadian-home.org, not from the rolls themselves. The Beaubassin entries for 1703, 1707 and 1714 were read on the manuscript census of Acadia at Library and Archives Canada. The Beaubassin roll for 1701 has not been found in that census, so the first entry for the couple there is 1703.

The age of two in 1686 places her birth about 1684. Bona Arsenault’s compiled genealogy of the Acadians gives 1684, with Guillaume Blanchard and Huguette Gougeon as her parents and Claude Bourgeois of Beaubassin, son of Charles Bourgeois and Anne Dugas, as her husband. Placide Gaudet’s genealogy of the Acadian families (1905) gives the same parents.

The compiled dates for the marriage differ. The abbé Casgrain’s Collection de documents inédits sur le Canada et l’Amérique gives about 1700, Arsenault about 1701, and Gaudet 1703. No Beaubassin register before 1712 has been found, so no act for the marriage is cited.

The marriage of 1727 is known from the Nova Scotia Archives’ transcription of the registers of the parish of St-Jean-Baptiste at Annapolis Royal, 1702–1755, not from the register page.

The 1752 roll

The roll writes the place as “Baye Verte”; Baie-Verte is used here. It names the old man only as “Le Vieux Claude Bourgeois” and gives his wife no name. Whether she was Anne is not established.