♂Etienne Bouchard

Etienne Bouchard (died before 1687) was a surgeon of Mont-Royal, the settlement of Ville-Marie^W, in the 1650s and 1660s, who later lived at Québec. Ville-Marie had been founded only in 1642 and was still a small mission settlement in those years. He was the ninth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Marie Anne Bouchard (born 1673).

Marriage

Etienne Bouchard married Marguerite Boissel at Notre-Dame de Québec on 6 August 1657. The index of the register describes him as a surgeon (chirurgien) of Mont-Royal, single, and a son of Pierre Bouchard and Nicole Charland; she was single and a daughter of Jacques Boissel, written Boesel in the register. The index names two witnesses, written Dailleboust (Louis) and Demaysonneufve; it gives surnames only, and the natural reading is Louis d’Ailleboust de Coulonge^W, who had been governor of New France, and Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve^W, founder and governor of Montréal. Tanguay’s dictionary gives the wedding as 6 October 1657 and gives Etienne a birth year of about 1622.

Children

Seven of the couple’s children appear in the baptism index: Zacharie, Paul, Marie Françoise and Antoine were baptised at Montréal between 1661 and 1669, and Jean Marie, Marie Anne and Marie Jeanne at Québec between 1667 and 1675. The baptisms place the family at Montréal and at Québec in turn.

Marie Anne was born and baptised on 25 December 1673 at Notre-Dame de Québec, in the Basse-Ville. Her godfather was Jean Levasseur, recorded as secretary to the Comte de Frontenac^W. Frontenac was then governor of New France, so the godfather held a post in the governor’s household. Her godmother was Marie Anne Fleureau, and the act also names Jean Delaunay, a surgeon.

Death

Tanguay’s dictionary gives Etienne Bouchard’s burial at Montréal on 20 July 1676. The index of the registers shows that his wife was a widow by 7 January 1687, when she appears at a marriage at Québec. When Marie Anne married Jean Roy at Notre-Dame de Montréal on 6 February 1690, the register called her the daughter of “the late Bouchard, surgeon”; his forename was left out of the act and taken from the margin.

Of the records above, only the index has been read, not the registers themselves.