♀Marie Labbe

Marie Labbe (1645–1735) was the wife of Guillaume Tougas of Fatouville, in Normandy, and the mother of Guillaume Tougas dit Laviolette, who went to Canada as a soldier and settled at Montréal. She was the eighth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her son Guillaume Tougas dit Laviolette (1674–1708).

Origins

Family trees give her birth as 1645 at Évreux, in Normandy, but no baptism has been found. No record of her parents has been found either: family trees name them, but no record confirms it. She married Guillaume Tougas (1648–1677) on 7 November 1667, by the family record, which places the wedding at Saintes; that place comes from online family trees, another compiled tree gives Fatouville, and the marriage act itself has not been found. The Fatouville parish register survives only from 1664 and holds no marriage of the couple, and the registers of the neighboring parishes of Fiquefleur, Grestain and Berville-sur-Mer hold none in the surviving years before 1670.

Children

The Fatouville register and its old name table record three children of the couple, entered under the spelling Tougard. Jean was baptized on 24 February 1670 and buried in March of the same year, and Marie was baptized on 18 March 1673 and buried on 3 April. Guillaume was baptized on 19 August 1674, “appartenant a Guill. Tougar et Marie Labbé”, with Philippe de France and Marie Tougar as godparents. He later served in the company of Monsieur de Louvigny at Montréal, and when he married Marie Brazeau there on 10 November 1698 the register named his parents as Guillaume Tougard and Marie Labbe, of the parish of Fatouville in the diocese of Lisieux^W. Cyprien Tanguay^W’s genealogical dictionary gives the same parents and the same parish.

Death

The family record gives her death as 1735 at Grestain, in Normandy, but no burial has been found and the date carries no source.

Notes

A girl named Charlotte, baptized at Fatouville on 26 January 1671 and buried the next day, is entered as the daughter of “Charles Tougard et Marie Labbesse”. The family record names her husband’s father as Charles. The child falls neatly between Jean and Marie, so the entry may be the priest’s slip for Guillaume, but the act writes “Charles” twice and the question is open.

Several records that once stood under her name belonged to another woman: a baptism of 1663 and a christening at Pointe-aux-Trembles on 16 March 1683 were the records of two daughters named Marie of Nicolas Brazeau, and were removed. The year 1735 given for her death may have come from the same confusion, since the printed page those records were taken from gives a burial in 1735 for one of the Brazeau women.