♂Jean Ruellan

Jean Ruellan (baptised 30 December 1552 – buried 11 January 1598) was a man of Saint-Coulomb, a parish on the Breton coast near Saint-Malo, in France, where he spent his life. He was the eleventh great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) twice over, by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Guillemette Ruellan (baptized 1593).

Family

He was baptized at Saint-Coulomb on 30 December 1552, the son of Guillaume Ruellan and his wife Mauricette Hodié; his godfather, Jean Hodye, bore his mother’s surname. On 20 October 1582 he and Anne Gilbert received the nuptial blessing in the church of Saint-Coulomb; the act notes that it was his second marriage and her first.

Jean Ruellan and his wife Anne Gilbert brought their daughter Guillemette to be baptized at Saint-Coulomb on 16 January 1593. The priest wrote the act in Latin and named her parents plainly, “filia Johannis ac Anne Gilbert”: the daughter of Jean and of Anne Gilbert. Her godfather was Guillaume Ruallan, who bore the family’s own surname; the register does not say how he was related to her. Their son Jean was baptized at Saint-Coulomb on 2 August 1596; the act names his parents as Jean and Anne Gilbert, and his godfather as Nicolas Frotte (written Nicollaus Frotte in the register). Anne was buried in the churchyard of Saint-Coulomb on 2 December 1597, and a “Jehan Ruallen” was buried there five weeks later, on 11 January 1598. No other child of the couple is known.

Lines of descent

According to the Fichier Origine, a register-checked file of the origins of Québec’s settlers, Guillemette married Jean Maillet at Saint-Coulomb in 1618. Their son Pierre Maillet crossed to Canada and married at Montréal in 1662, and two of Pierre’s sons, Rene Malet and Pierre Maillet, began two lines that met again at Vincennes in 1801, when Augustus A. Tougas dit Laviolette (1776–1849), from the first line, married Ellenore S. Renaud dit Deslauriers (1782–1822), from the second. Their son Augustin Tougas Lovellette (1809–1866) descends from Jean Ruellan and Anne Gilbert by both lines.

Notes

Guillemette’s baptism was read on the Saint-Coulomb register itself, which spells the surname Ruallan; the tree uses Ruellan. The act stands at the end of the book for 1592, because the parish’s books of those years ran from about April to the following January. The Fichier Origine also names Guillemette’s parents as Jean Ruellan and Anne Gilbert. His baptism, the marriage and both burials were read on the Saint-Coulomb register as well. The burial entries give no age and name no kin; the Fichier Origine identifies them as Jean’s and Anne’s. Nothing is known of his first wife.