♀Marguerite Forest

Marguerite Forest (born about 1687) was an Acadian woman of Port-Royal and Pigiguit^W, who grew up in the household of her mother and stepfather and married Étienne Comeau. She was the fifth great-grandmother of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), probably through her daughter Hélène Comeau.

Early life

She was born about 1687 at Port-Royal, the daughter of Michel de Forest and his second wife, Jacqueline Benoit. Her father seems to have died while she was small: by 1693 her mother had married Guillaume Trahan, and the Port-Royal census of that year lists Marguerite, aged six and under the surname de Forest, in their household. Her mother and stepfather settled at Pigiguit, in the Minas Basin, where they raised at least eight children, Marguerite’s Trahan half-brothers and half-sisters.

Marriage and family

She married Étienne Comeau, a son of Jean Comeau and Françoise Hébert of Port-Royal, most likely about 1701.

The couple lived at Pigiguit, in the Minas Basin, where their daughter Angélique was born. Angélique married René Granger. Hélène, who was probably also their daughter, married Alexis Benoit and was living with him in exile in Massachusetts in 1763, after the deportation of 1755.

Marguerite died before 20 November 1730, when Étienne, recorded as her widower, married Elizabeth Levron at Port-Royal.

Notes

Parents

The census rolls show her mother’s two households: the 1686 roll lists Jacqueline Benoit in the household of Michel de Forest, and the 1693 roll lists Marguerite, aged six, in Jacqueline’s household with Guillaume Trahan. Bona Arsenault’s compiled genealogy names Marguerite as the daughter of Michel Forest by his second wife, Jacqueline Benoit, and gives Michel an earlier family by Marie Hébert. Steven A. Cormier’s compiled history gives Jacqueline as Michel de Forest’s widow when she remarried; no record of his death is known.

Daughter Hélène

The tie of Hélène Comeau, the wife of Alexis Benoit, to this couple comes from Stephen A. White’s compiled Dictionnaire généalogique des familles acadiennes, as quoted on a WikiTree profile. No register names Hélène’s parents, so the link is probable rather than proved.

Her name

In 1767, at Belle-Île-en-Mer in France, her grandson Laurent Granger declared under oath that his mother, Angélique, was “née au dit Pigiguit d’Etienne Comeau et de Marie Forest”. The 1730 marriage entry calls Étienne the widower of Marguerite Forest, and Arsenault also names her Marguerite.

The marriage

Arsenault dates the marriage to about 1701 and calls Étienne “de Grand-Pré”; no register of the marriage is known.