♀Françoise Fafard

Françoise Fafard (about 1624 – 13 January 1702) was a Norman settler of New France from Argences, near Caen, whose marriage to Mathurin Meunier at Ville-Marie^W, the mission settlement that became Montréal, on 3 November 1647 was the first wedding celebrated there, with the governor, Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve^W, as a witness. She was the ninth great-grandmother of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through her son Jean Meunier (born about 1651).

Early life

Françoise was born about 1624 at Argences in Normandy, the daughter of Jean Fafard and Élisabeth Tibou. She probably came to Canada in 1647, the year of her marriage.

Marriage at Ville-Marie

The Latin act of their marriage names Mathurin as the son of René Lemonnier and Marie Le Roux, of the parish of Clermont near La Flèche, and Françoise as the daughter of Jean Fafard and Élisabeth Tibou, of Argences near Caen. Maisonneuve stood witness with Gilbert Barbier of the Nivernais and Jean de Saint-Père of the Gâtinais.

Their first child, Barbe, was baptized at Ville-Marie on 24 November 1648, and her godmother was Jeanne Mance^W, the founder of the settlement’s hospital. Barbe lived only nine days and was buried on 3 December. On 3 December 1649 twin sons, Charles and Mathurin, were baptized there; Charles was buried on 21 December and his brother on 27 February 1650.

Québec and the Beaupré shore

The family is said to have left Ville-Marie in search of better conditions at Trois-Rivières and Québec. Their son Jean was born about 1651, and by 1653 the family was at Québec, where three daughters were baptized: Françoise, born on 13 September 1653, Élisabeth, born on 17 February 1656, and Marguerite, born on 4 August 1659. Two more sons followed, Mathurin about 1661 and François about 1667.

Their children married along the Beaupré shore and on the Île d’Orléans, below Québec. Élisabeth married at Château-Richer on 30 June 1670, Jean married Marguerite Housseau at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré later that year, and Marguerite married at Sainte-Anne in 1674. Mathurin had died by 1684: when his son Mathurin, aged 23, married at Sainte-Famille on the Île d’Orléans that year, the act called his father deceased, as did François’s marriage at L’Ange-Gardien in 1692.

Death

Françoise died a widow at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré on 13 January 1702, aged 78, and was buried there the next day, with her sons Mathurin and François present.

Notes

Her name and age

The Latin act of her marriage writes her surname faffart, with fafart in its margin, and her burial has Fafart. Her birth about 1624 is reckoned from her age of 78 at her burial. Vaillancourt and Godbout’s study of the Norman settlers of Canada also gives 1624, at the parishes of Saint-Jean-Baptiste and Saint-Patrice of Argences, and dates her burial to 13 January 1702, the day the burial act gives for her death. The Fichier Origine, the register of French emigrants to Québec kept by the Fédération québécoise des sociétés de généalogie, gives about 1622 and writes her mother’s name Élisabeth Thibout; the historian Marcel Trudel, in his study of early Montréal, makes her 26 at her marriage, which would put her birth about 1621.

Coming to Canada

The Fichier Origine dates her arrival in Canada to 1647. Trudel writes that Mathurin was among the early settlers who left Ville-Marie for better conditions at Trois-Rivières and Québec.

Her children

Vaillancourt and Godbout count eight children; nine are named in the parish acts, among them Barbe and the twins who died as infants at Ville-Marie.

The marriage date

The day of the month is blotted in the register; 3 November 1647 is the date in the Drouin Institute’s index of Québec parish acts, and Trudel gives the same day. The year heads the page.

Jean and the line of descent

An online family tree gives Jean’s birth at Trois-Rivières on 8 January 1651; the PRDH index of Québec parish records holds no such baptism. The line to Floyd Amatus Delahorne runs from Jean through Marguerite Meunier, the wife of François Michel in Acadia, whose place as Jean’s daughter rests on a compiled genealogy of the Acadian families.