♀Jeanne Doiron

Jeanne Doiron (born about 1678) was an Acadian woman who was married and a mother while still in her teens, and who spent her married life with Jean Hébert at Les Mines and in the parish of l’Assomption at Pigiguit^W, on the Minas Basin. She was the seventh great-grandmother of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through her daughter Anne Hébert.

Marriage

She was most likely the Jeanne, aged 8, counted in the census of 1686 at Port-Royal in the household of Jean Doiron, 37, and his wife Marie-Anne Canol, 35, the only Doiron household in that census; she had six brothers, from Abraham, 14, down to Noël, 2. She married Jean Hébert, the son of Étienne Hébert and Marie Gaudet, about 1692, and by the census of 1693 she had left her father’s house. That year the couple were at Les Mines, Jean aged 33 and Jeanne 18, with a son, Charles, eight months old. They kept twenty cattle, twenty hogs and a sheep, and had nine arpents^W of land and a gun.

Children

More sons followed, said to include Michel, born in 1694, Jean, born in 1699, and Paul, born in 1717. By 1734 the family belonged to the parish of l’Assomption at Pigiguit: when their son Étienne married Marie Josephe Boudrot at Grand-Pré on 18 August that year, his parents were named as Jean Hubert and Jeanne Doiron, habitants of that parish. Their daughter Anne, through whom the family line descends, was probably the Anne Hébert who about 1740 became the second wife of Jacques Saulnier, a man whose first wife had also been an Anne Hébert. The date and place of Jeanne’s death are not known.

White’s corrections to his dictionary add four more daughters, none of whom Arsenault names: Catherine-Josèphe, Cécile, Claire and Jeanne. Catherine-Josèphe married Jean-Baptiste Galerne about 1728, and White adds two later marriages of hers at Philadelphia, in 1763 and 1766. Claire, born about 1704, married Antoine Henry about 1725 and was buried at Cherbourg on 14 December 1758. Jeanne married Augustin Guédry about 1722.

Twin daughters of Augustin Guédry and Jeanne Hébert were born on 9 January at Boston and privately baptised there by their grandfather, Claude Guédry. The baptismal ceremonies were completed in 1723, and the records do not explain why the family was at Boston. The godmother of one of the twins, written Jeanne Douaron in the register, was probably Jeanne Doiron herself, standing for her own granddaughter.

Notes

Her age

The census of 1686 gives her age as 8, which puts her birth about 1678, the year Bona Arsenault’s Histoire et généalogie des Acadiens also gives. The census of 1693 gives her age as 18, which would put it about 1675.

Her parents

Arsenault names her as the daughter of Jean Doiron and Marie-Anne de Canol and the wife of Jean Hébert. The census of 1686 bears this out as far as a census can: hers is the only Doiron household, and a daughter Jeanne of the right age is in it. In 1693, when she was counted as Jean Hébert’s wife at Les Mines, she was no longer in her father’s household. No marriage record survives; Arsenault dates the marriage “vers 1692”.

Her sons

Arsenault lists only sons: Charles, 1693; Michel, 1694; Jean, 1699; and Étienne, about 1709; he adds Paul, born in 1717, as “sans doute” their son. Charles is in the 1693 census with his parents, and Étienne’s parents are named at his marriage in the Grand-Pré register. Arsenault dates that marriage 18 April 1734; the printed abstract of the register gives 18 August 1734.

Her daughters

White’s corrections to his dictionary (pages 813 and 815) name four daughters of Jean Hébert and Jeanne Doiron: Catherine-Josèphe, Cécile, Claire and Jeanne. These entries are compiled genealogy. Catherine-Josèphe’s entry gives her first marriage to Jean-Baptiste Galerne about 1728 and two later marriages at Philadelphia, on 11 April 1763 and 2 March 1766. Claire’s entry gives her birth about 1704, her marriage to Antoine Henry about 1725 and her burial at Cherbourg on 14 December 1758. Arsenault (vol. 4, p. 1495) gives Claire as a daughter of Jean Hébert and Marie-Marguerite Landry, and White’s corrections (p. 825) remove that notice and place her with this couple.

Twins born at Boston

The printed abstract of the Grand-Pré register gives the twins’ day and month, 9 January, but no year. It names them Heleine and Marie Joseph, daughters of Augustin Guedry and Jeanne Hubert, and says their grandfather Claude Guedry privately baptized them at Boston, with the ceremonies completed on 26 September 1723. The sponsors are given as Charles Hubert and Anne Hebert for Heleine, and Msr. Mouton and Jeanne Douaron for Marie Joseph. Arsenault (vol. 4, p. 1491) lists Marie-Josephe and Hélène among the children of Augustin Guédry, dated 1723. The 1693 census of Les Mines writes the wife’s name as “Jeanne DOUERON”. The register does not give the godmother’s parentage, so the identification with Jeanne Doiron is an inference from the name and the family relationship, not a documented fact.

Her daughter Anne

Arsenault lists no daughter Anne. The tie rests on the work of the Acadian genealogist Stephen A. White, in the corrections (2011) to his Dictionnaire généalogique des familles acadiennes. Jacques Saulnier, the son of Louis Saulnier and Louise Bastineau dit Peltier, married two women named Anne Hébert: the first, about 1724, was the daughter of Jean Hébert and Marie-Anne Doucet; the second, about 1740, was the mother of Anne Saunier (1741–1772). Two mitochondrial DNA tests on descendants of Anne Saunier in the female line rule out the first wife as her mother and match two tests on the female line of Jeanne Hébert, wife of Augustin Guédry, a daughter of Jean Hébert and Jeanne Doiron. White concluded that the second wife “devait être la fille” (must have been the daughter) of Jean Hébert and Jeanne Doiron. No record names Anne as their daughter; the link is White’s inference from the DNA.