♀Marguerite Godere

Marguerite Godere (20 March 1768 – after 1816) was a daughter of the French settlement at Post Vincennes, on the Wabash River, who lost both parents as a child and married Louis Renaud dit Deslauriers before the notary of the post and four witnesses, with no priest present, a marriage the Church ratified only in 1784. She was the fifth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Ellenore S. Renaud dit Deslauriers (1782–1822).

Early life

She was born at Vincennes on 20 March 1768, when the post was under British rule, the daughter of François Godere, who was born at the French post of Ouiatenon higher up the Wabash, and Marguerite Chapart, a native of Detroit. Her parents had married the year before. The register records that she was baptized by a layman, Étienne Philibert, who performed the baptisms at Vincennes in those years, when the post had no priest. Her godfather was her mother’s father, written Nicolas Chapaut in the register, and her godmother Agnes Boyer. The name was written in many ways, among them Godere, Codere, Goder and Godin.

Her mother died in 1772, when Marguerite was about four. Her father married Marie Therese Compagnotte at St. Francis Xavier on 18 January 1773 and had four more children with her, and he died some time after October 1780, leaving Marguerite an orphan at twelve or a little older.

Marriage and family

Marguerite married Louis Renaud dit Deslauriers, a Vincennes man nine years her senior, some time before 1784. They married before Philibert, the man who had baptized her, acting as notary of the place, and four witnesses. On 2 August 1784 a visiting missionary, Father Payet, received the couple at St. Francis Xavier, where they “renewed the mutual consent of marriage which was formerly given in the presence of” Philibert and the witnesses. The entry names her as the daughter of “the late” François and “the deceased” Marguerite Chapard. Several other couples had their marriages ratified the same way that day. The register does not record the date of the first marriage.

The couple had at least sixteen children, born between about 1782 and 1816. Their daughter Ellenore, through whom the line descends, was probably the eldest. Several died young, among them a daughter Marguerite in 1787 and a son Francois, born in 1798, who died before his second birthday. Ellenore married Augustus Tougas dit Laviolette in 1801, and a daughter Francoise married François Vachet. When Ellenore’s daughter Leonore was baptized at Vincennes on 5 March 1804, the godmother was “Marguerite Goder”; French registers named married women by their maiden names, and this is almost certainly the child’s grandmother. The last child, Andre, was christened at Vincennes on 15 May 1816, when Marguerite was in her late forties.

When and where she died is not known.

Notes

The dates of the earliest children rest on indexes and a typescript of the register, not on the register pages themselves. The index records a child Leonard, or Leonarde, born on 20 February 1784; whether this child is a son or Ellenore under another form of her name has not been settled. The only surviving marriage entry for the couple is the ratification of 1784; the date of the earlier marriage before the notary is not known.