♀Anne Masson

Anne Masson (about 1637 – 13 September 1710) was a Norman-born woman of New France who married Robert Gallien at Québec on 8 September 1670 and raised a family at Québec and Beauport. PRDH’s list of the Filles du Roi^W, the women who came to New France between 1663 and 1673 with royal aid and settled by marriage, has her as no. 30529, married on 8 September 1670 to Robert Gallien. She was the eighth great-grandmother of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through her son Pierre Galien (born 1683).

Marriage

Robert Gallien and Anne Masson married at Québec (Notre-Dame) on 8 September 1670. The index of the act names the groom as a native of Valleville, in the diocese of Lisieux^W, living at St-Michel de Beauport, and the son of Robert Gallien, then dead, and Charlotte Nommaire. It names the bride as a native of Moitiers-d’Allonne, in the diocese of Coutances^W, and the daughter of Nicolas Masson, written Lemasson and then dead, and Martine Bertine Duval. Both were single, and a Juchereau de St-Denis is named as a witness.

Family

The parish acts name eight children of the couple: Marguerite, Joseph, Mathurine, Marie Charlotte, Pierre, Françoise, Louise and Marie Anne. The baptisms fall between 1671 and 1689, at Québec and at Beauport, and Pierre, the child through whom the line runs, was born on 16 October 1683 and baptised at Beauport the next day. Mathurine died at Beauport at 14 months and was buried on 10 June 1680. Anne Masson was buried at Québec on 13 September 1710, in the register of the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec^W, which gives her age as 72.

Notes

The dictionary of Cyprien Tanguay^W gives Robert Gallien’s birth year as 1636 and Anne Masson’s as 1637, and gives his burial at Beauport on 29 September 1711. Tanguay’s dictionary does not list Mathurine among the children. A compiled study of the Normans in Canada reads Robert Gallien’s origin as Vatteville, in the diocese of Rouen, and notes that there were three places of that name in the diocese; the marriage act as indexed reads Valleville, in the diocese of Lisieux, the reading followed here. The acts are known from the index of the Québec parish registers (Drouin Institute); the register pages themselves have not been read.