♂Francois Godere

Francois Godere (born about 1774) was a child of Post Vincennes, on the Wabash River. The register gives his christening at Vincennes on 30 January 1774, the same day he was born. He was the half-fifth great-grand-uncle of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), the half-brother of Marguerite Godere (born 1768), Nancy Jane’s fifth great-grandmother.

His parents were François Godere (1740 – after 1780) and Marie Therese Compagnotte (1756–1786), and he was the first child of his father’s second marriage. François Godere had lost his first wife, Marguerite Chapart, in 1772, and on 18 January 1773 he married Marie Therese, a native of Mobile, at St. Francis Xavier in Vincennes. The register of the parish records the boy’s baptism as that of a child born in lawful marriage to “francois Coder” and Marie Therese Compagnote, with Jean Baptiste Cardinal as godfather and Catherine Coupault as godmother. The ceremony was performed by Étienne Philibert, who baptized at the post when it had no priest. A 2002 family chart gives his birth year as about 1774, which fits the register.

Three younger children followed: Andre, Therese and Victoire, whom a family tree and a compiled source place between 1776 and 1780. His father was still living on 26 October 1780, when he signed the baptism of Victoire, and died at Vincennes some time after that, when François was about six or seven. His half-sister Marguerite, six years older, was the child of the first marriage. No marriage, children or death is recorded for him.