♀Françoise de Graffard

Françoise de Graffard is known only from her daughter’s entry in the Fichier Origine, a compiled register of the origins of immigrants to New France, which names her as the wife of Michel Girard, “maître charron”, a master wheelwright of St-Cyr-du-Vaudreuil, in Normandy, and the mother of Anne Girard, who went to New France in 1665 as one of the filles du roi^W, the young women sent to the colony under royal sponsorship between 1663 and 1673 to marry its settlers. She was the tenth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Anne Girard (1630–1710). Yves Landry’s study of the filles du roi names the same parents, writing the mother’s name Françoise Graffard. The Fichier Origine lists five brothers and sisters of Anne, baptised at St-Cyr-du-Vaudreuil, today Le Vaudreuil (Eure), between 1623 and 1634, among them her twin brother Gilles, baptised the same day as she was, 10 February 1630. The same entry records that Michel Girard married a second time, to Marie Du Quesné, and that the second marriage had four children between 1641 and 1650. No record of Françoise de Graffard’s own birth, marriage or death has been found.