♀Marie Chapacou

Marie Chapacou (baptized 29 December 1658) was a French-born settler of New France, baptized at Néré in Saintonge and buried three-quarters of a century later at Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade on the St. Lawrence. She was the ninth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her son Guillaume Maillot (born 1680).

Early life

She was baptized in the parish of Saint-Pierre at Néré, in Saintonge in western France, on 29 December 1658. She was the daughter of Simon Chapacou and Marie-Vincente Pacaud. The family reached New France in 1663, and two notarial acts there are said to have described her father as a mute man, “incapable” of making a legal act for himself. She was one of eight children. In 1666 and 1667 she was living with her parents in the Comté de Québec, and she was confirmed at Grondines in 1676.

Marriage and family

She married René Maillot, called Laviolette, a habitant who was 44 at the 1681 census of Grondines. A compilation of French emigrants to Canada dates their marriage contract to 28 October 1671, when Marie was twelve; no church record of the wedding is known. Their son Guillaume was born at Grondines on 31 December 1680 and baptized there the next day. She was buried at Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade on 25 December 1733, and her burial record names her husband as René Maillot Laviolette.

Notes

Her son’s baptism names her Marie Chapacou, but his marriage at Montréal in 1704 records his mother as Marie “Pacaud”. Pacaud was her own mother’s surname, not a form of hers. Her burial gave her age as 79, a few years more than her 1658 baptism allows.

Arrival and her father

The family’s arrival in 1663 and the two notarial acts come from a compilation of French emigrants to Canada, which quotes the acts; the acts themselves are known only through that quotation.