♀Marguerite Hébert

Marguerite Hébert (about 1682 – between 1723 and 1727) was an Acadian woman of Port-Royal who married Jean Thibodeau there in 1703 and spent her married life in the Minas settlements. She was the seventh great-grandmother of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through her daughter Cécile Thibodeau (born 1712).

Family

She was a daughter of Emmanuel Hebert and Andree Brun. The Port-Royal census of 1686, in a published transcription, lists her aged five in their household, beside her mother’s children by her first husband, Germain Theriot; the rolls of 1698 and 1701 list her again, aged sixteen and eighteen. Through her mother she was a half-sister of Pierre Theriot, from whom Floyd Amatus Delahorne also descends, so that Andree Brun is his ancestor by two lines.

Marriage

On 7 February 1703 she married Jean Thibodeau at Port-Royal, before Félix Pain, after three banns^W. The act names the parents of both; hers are written “emanuel hebert et andrée Brun”, and Jean signed. A compiled history of the Louisiana Acadians places the marriage probably at Chipoudy; the register shows Port-Royal.

Minas

The couple had settled at Les Mines^W by 1707. The census of that year lists Jean Thibodeau’s household there: his wife, a boy under fourteen, a girl under twelve, three arpents of land and thirteen cattle; the wife is not named. In March 1709 a son of theirs was baptized there, and their children were baptized and married in the register of Saint-Charles at Grand-Pré, which writes her surname both Hubert and Hebert. Their daughter Cécile was born there on 5 November 1712. The census of 1714 lists Jean Thibodeau’s household at Les Mines again, with his wife still unnamed. Marguerite died between 16 January 1723 and January 1727, and was already dead by 14 January 1727, when her son Jean-Baptiste married Marie Leblanc and the register called her deceased.

Notes

The 1707 census

The Census of Acadia for Les Mines, 1707 (G1 vol. 466) writes the head’s surname as Thibeaudeau and gives the wife no name. The children’s ages fit the couple’s daughter Marie Magdelaine (born 1703) and son Jean-Baptiste (born 1705); the census does not name them, so the fit is by age only.

The date of her death

Her death is dated between 16 January 1723 and January 1727, from the Diocese of Baton Rouge Catholic Church Records, Vol. 1a (1707–1748). The register of the 1727 marriage calls her deceased and so bounds the death before 14 January 1727. The register of her daughter Cécile’s marriage to Pierre Cormier at Grand-Pré, 17 July 1730, also calls her deceased.