♂François Pelletier

François Pelletier (died before 9 January 1698) was a French Canadian man, known only as the first husband of Madeleine Dufresne (1673–1739), the eighth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006). Nancy Jane Blanchard descends through Madeleine, not through him.

Marriage

He married Madeleine, a daughter of Félix Dufresne and Elizabeth Lefebvre (a compiled genealogy gives Félix as a surgeon at Batiscan), on 2 May 1690 at Champlain, a river parish between Trois-Rivières and Batiscan. His parents are not known, and no birth date, no exact death date, and no place of death or burial is recorded for him. A son of the marriage, Jean François Pelletier, was baptized at Sorel on 15 August 1691.

He was dead by 9 January 1698, when Madeleine, described in the marriage act as “of Batiscan” and the widow of François Pelletier Antaya, married the Montréal merchant Pierre Maillet, who was 22 and unmarried. Nancy Jane Blanchard’s line runs through Madeleine’s son Antoine Maillet, born at Détroit in 1706.

Notes

The year of the marriage

The index of the Champlain register dates the marriage 2 May 1690 (PRDH and LAFRANCE act 7013). Tanguay’s sixth volume (page 276), a 1903 journal and Denissen print 2 May 1689 for the same wedding. The day, the month and the parents agree, so the printed year and the register’s year most likely describe one marriage. Tanguay’s fifth volume (page 481), under the Maillet marriage, names her only as the widow of François Pelletier.

Madeleine’s age

Madeleine was born about 1673. That date rests on three records: a girl of nine named Marie in her father’s household in the 1681 census of Batiscan (most likely Madeleine, identified by age), her confirmation at Batiscan in 1681, aged eight, and the marriage act of 9 January 1698, which gives her age as twenty-four. Tanguay’s dictionary gives 1676 in two places, in its fifth and sixth volumes, and Burton’s work of 1896 gives 1669; those dates are not followed here. On that reckoning she was about seventeen at the Champlain marriage of 1690.

The son

The baptism of Jean François Pelletier at Sorel on 15 August 1691 (PRDH act 83377) names both parents, the mother written in the register as Madeleine Tune. A second 1691 baptism at Sorel of a Jean François Pelletier (PRDH act 83375) belongs to another couple.