♂Charles Gautrot

Charles Gautrot (died before 7 July 1763) was an Acadian of Grand-Pré, in the district of Les Mines^W, who married Marie Josèphe LeBlanc there on 8 October 1725, the same day her sister Marguerite married Joseph Grange, and with her had at least eight children baptized there. He was the fifth great-grandfather of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through his son Amand Godreau (born 1732).

Marriage

Charles, entered as Charle Gotrot, and Marie Josèphe, entered as Marie Leblanc, were married at Grand-Pré on 8 October 1725. He signed the entry as Charle Gautreaut, and she made her mark. The entry records him as the son of Claude Gotrot and Marie Terriot, a parentage that a 1767 declaration repeats, though the printed abstract notes that the entry itself reads “Charle son of Charle son of Claude”. His own birth is not recorded. No baptism survives from before the registers begin in 1707, and his father’s census counts place his birth between about 1697 and 1714.

Children at Grand-Pré

The register places the family at Grand-Pré from the first baptism to the last. Between 1730 and 1747 eight children were baptized there, and Charles signed most of the entries. The first, Paul Honoré, was born on 21 April 1730. Their son Amand, entered as Amans Paul Gautrot, was born on 24 January 1732. Charles, Simon, Pierre, Jean, Marie Magdeleine and Jean Marin followed, the last born on 8 March 1747.

A ninth child, Joseph, has no baptism in the register. A 1767 declaration that records his marriage calls him a son of Charles Gautrot and Marie Leblanc, and says the family was carried by the English to Philadelphia.

Maryland and the deportation of 1755

The British deported the Acadians of Minas in 1755. In a census taken at Newtown, Maryland, on 7 July 1763, a household of three is entered as “Marie veuve de Charles Gautrot”, with Jean and Marin Gautrot. The widow was probably Marie Josèphe, and the census treats Charles as dead.

A declaration made at Bangor on Belle-Île in February 1767 by Marie Josèphe’s brothers, Charles and Simon LeBlanc, says that the couple were carried to Virginia instead. The 1763 census and a compiled genealogy of the Gautreaux family by Cormier both place the family in Maryland. The records do not explain the difference.

After 1763

The place and date of Charles’s death are not known. The last record of his widow is the Newtown census, where she was entered with two of her sons. Her own death is not recorded.

Lines of descent

Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014) descends from this couple by one line, through their son Amand Godreau (born 1732). Amand’s daughter Marguerite Godreau (born 1768) and her daughter Henriette Hebert are the next links, then Euphemie Dupuis (born 1817), whose son Pierre Anatole Serrett (1853–1926) was the father of Floyd’s mother, Ida Serrette (1903–1990).

Notes

Birth

Claude Gautrot’s household in the Mines censuses held one boy in 1701, one boy under fourteen in 1707, and three sons in 1714. The registers of Grand-Pré begin in 1707, and they hold no baptism for Charles. A compiled genealogy gives him an age of 24 at the 1725 marriage, which would put his birth about 1701, but the register prints no ages for either spouse, so that figure is an estimate. An online family tree gives 1700.

Marriage and parentage

The 1725 entry, as printed in volume 1A of the Diocese of Baton Rouge church records: “Charle Gotrot (Claude Gotrot and Marie Terriot) m. 8 Oct. 1725 Marie Leblanc (Jaque Leblanc and Catherine Landry) … sig. Charle Gautreaut (s); {+} Marie LeBlanc. Note: entry reads ‘Charle son of Charle son of Claude’”. An 1895 transcript of the same register, held by Library and Archives Canada, prints no ages and records the groom’s signature and the bride’s mark. The “24” and “19” given in a compiled genealogy are that compiler’s estimates, not the register’s.

On 18 August 1734 Charles’s sister Catherine Josèphe married Charles Richard. Her parents are named as “Claude Gautrau and Marie Terriot, both decd.”, and two brothers of the bride signed: “Charle Gautraut (s), brother of bride” and “Jean Gautrot (s), brother of bride”. A son of Claude who signed as a brother is most likely the groom of 1725.

The 1767 declaration of Marie’s brothers Charles and Simon LeBlanc, made at Bangor on 20 February 1767 and printed by Casgrain, reads: “Marie Leblanc mariée à Charles Gautrot fils du dit Claude Gautrot et de Marie Thériot, transportés aux Virgines”. A second 1767 declaration, that of Honoré LeBlanc (Attakapas Gazette, volume 16, 1981), lists Marie as the wife of Charles Gautrot.

Other Charles Gautrots in the Mines district are not shown to be this one. One, a son of Charles and Françoise Rimbaut, married Magdelaine Blanchard on 18 May 1712. Another, a son of François Gautrot and Louise Aucoin, married Marie Joseph Hubert on 14 October 1737. A 1729-30 oath list for the Mines, printed in Le Canada-français (volume 1, 1888), names a Charles Gautrot who signed by mark; whether he is this Charles is not known.

The children

From the register: Paul Honoré, born 21 April 1730 and baptized 22 April; Amans Paul, born 24 January 1732 and baptized 25 January, with Charles Gourdon and Françoise Leblanc as sponsors and the father signing; Charles, born 18 June 1734; Simon, born 12 March 1736 and baptized 13 March, sponsored by “Joseph Leblanc, maternal uncle”; Pierre, born 5 April 1738; Jean, born 26 June 1741; Marie Magdeleine, born 8 October 1744; Jean Marin, born 8 March 1747. The father signed “Charle(s) Gautreaut (s)” on most of the entries.

The ninth child, Joseph, is named in a 1767 declaration printed by Casgrain that records his marriage: “fils de Charles Gautrot et de Marie Leblanc, transportés avec leur famille par les Anglais à Philadelphie”. He has no baptism in the register, so he was born before 1730 or in a gap in the registers.

The Newtown census and the 1767 declarations

The census is document 12 in J.-Edmond Roy’s Rapport sur les archives de France relatives à l’histoire du Canada (1911), printed on page 621 and dated “12.—7 Juillet 1763. Recensement des habitants Neutres de L’accadie détenus à Newtown En Maryland.” It lists “Amant Gautrot, La Blanche son Epouse, Marie Magdne Gautrot, Magdne Le Blanc, orpheline .. 4” and, beside it, “Marie veuve de Charles Gautrot, Jean Gautrot, Marin Gautrot .. 3”. It belongs to the same petition as the Baltimore list, addressed to the duc de Nivernois, the French ambassador in London.

The identification rests on the sons: Jean (born 1741) and Marin (born 1747) match. The household sits beside Amant’s, and the other Charles Gautrot who married Marie Joseph Hubert in 1737 has no known sons of these names.

Cormier’s compilation says of Newtown: “the Newtown on the upper Eastern Shore, near Chestertown, in present-day Kent County.” It says Simon “escaped the British roundup at Minas in 1755 that sent his family to Maryland”, and that Simon reached Louisiana in 1765. It says Amand “ended up in Maryland, where he married fellow Acadian Marie Landry in c1758.”

The same 1767 declaration of Marie’s brothers lists her sister Anne and Jean Gautrot as “transportés au Maryland”. No record shows that the family was divided across ships, so the difference between Maryland and Virginia is open.

Death and the widow

The census of 7 July 1763 is the only record that Charles had died, and it calls his widow a “veuve”. Some online family trees give a death at Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1759; no record supports that, and the census places his widow in Maryland in 1763. The rolls of Acadians at Saint-Malo printed by Rieder name no Charles Gautrot of the right age and no widow Marie LeBlanc of a Charles Gautrot.

No burial of the widow appears in the Louisiana church registers, and no Marie LeBlanc of the right years in the Quebec burial index (PRDH).