♀Jeanne Labenère

Jeanne Labenère was a woman of Gascony, in southwestern France, known from the marriage of her son in Canada. She was the sixth great-grandmother of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through her son Francois Mollere (died before 1800).

Family in Barran

The Barran registers that survive begin only in 1738, so the baptisms of the four eldest children, born between 1727 and 1732, and of Francois are not among them. On 5 February 1740 their son Vital Mollère was born and baptized at Barran. The register calls him the legitimate son of Guilhaume Mollère and Jeane Lavenère, a married couple, and names his godparents as Vital Debort and Marie Mendousse.

On 6 August 1742 their daughter Barthélemie Mollère was born, and she was baptized at Barran the next day. The register names her parents as Guilhaume Mollère and “Jeanne Demoiselle de Labenère”, the title demoiselle marking a family of some standing, and names her godparents as Monsieur Bazile Despax and Catherine Mollère.

Jeanne, written Lavenère in the burial entry, died at Barran on 24 November 1748, aged about 45, and was buried the next day, 25 November, inside the parish church of Barran. She is named there as “épouse à Mollère” (wife of Mollère), not as a widow, so her husband Guillaume was still living then.

Marriage in Canada

Guillaume Molaire and Jeanne Labenère are named as the parents of the groom when their son Francois Mollere married Marguerite Perrodeaux at Les Cèdres (St-Joseph-de-Soulanges), in Canada, on 9 February 1756. The register calls the groom “françois molere dit la sonde, fils de guillaume molaire et de jeanne labenere, de la paroisse de ?avant, diocèse d’auche”. The first letter of the parish’s name is unclear in the register, and an index of the act reads it as Lavant. Tanguay’s dictionary of Canadian families gives the family as “de Baraut, diocèse d’Auch, Gascogne”, and Fichier Origine, the Quebec genealogical societies’ register-checked database of immigrants to New France, identifies the parish as Barran, in Gers, and writes the mother’s name as Jeanne Lavenère. The same database states that four brothers and sisters of Francois were baptized at Barran between 1727 and 1732, and that his own baptism has not been found because of gaps in the Barran registers. Francois came to Canada, married and had children there, and later lived in Spanish Louisiana, where he died before 1800.