♀Mauricette Hodié

Mauricette Hodié was a woman of Saint-Coulomb, a parish on the Breton coast near Saint-Malo, in France, who married Guillaume Ruellan. She is known from the baptisms of their ten children, entered in the parish register between 1548 and 1568. She is an ancestor of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) twice over: her twelfth great-grandmother by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Jean Ruellan (baptized 1552).

Family

Guillaume Ruellan and Mauricette Hodié were married by October 1548, when their daughter Julienne was baptized at Saint-Coulomb and the priest wrote her mother down as Guillaume’s wife. Over the next twenty years the couple brought nine more children to the font: Marguerite, Jean, Mathea, Perrine, Suzanne, Guillaume, Nicole, Pierre and, in October 1568, a second son named Jean, while the first Jean was still living, then a boy of fifteen. Every act was written in Latin and names both parents.

Several of the children took a godparent’s name. Julienne’s godfather in 1548 was Julien Hodye, Jean’s in 1552 was Jean Hodye, Mathea’s in 1554 was a man named Matheus, and Perrine’s in 1556 was Pierre Gillebert. Nicole, baptized on 29 November 1561, had godparents of some standing: the register gives her godfather the title dominus and calls her godmother, Nicolle, an egregia femina, a “distinguished woman”.

Others of her own surname stood at the font besides Julien and Jean Hodye: Jeanne Hodye in 1548, Étiennette Hodye in 1550, two women written Bertranda and Brianda Hodye in 1552, Jeanne Hodie again in 1556, and François Hodye in 1566. They were most likely her own relatives, though the register never says how they were related to her. Her parents are not known, and no record of her own baptism, marriage or burial is known.

Lines of descent

Their son Jean Ruellan and his wife Anne Gilbert had a daughter, Guillemette Ruellan, baptized at Saint-Coulomb in January 1593. According to the Fichier Origine, a register-checked file of the origins of Québec’s settlers, Guillemette married Jean Maillet at Saint-Coulomb in 1618. Their son Pierre Maillet crossed to Canada and married at Montréal in 1662, and two of Pierre’s sons, Rene Malet and Pierre Maillet, began two lines that met again at Vincennes in 1801, when Augustus A. Tougas dit Laviolette (1776–1849), from the first line, married Ellenore S. Renaud dit Deslauriers (1782–1822), from the second. Their son Augustin Tougas Lovellette (1809–1866) descends from Guillaume Ruellan and Mauricette Hodié by both lines.

Notes

Her name

The register writes her forename in several Latin forms: Maurice in 1548, 1550 and 1556, Amaurie in 1554, 1558 and 1559, Maurie in 1561, and Mauricie in 1566 and 1568; the act of 1552 abbreviates it. Her surname appears as Hodye and Hodie. The Fichier Origine gives her as “Amaurye ou Mauricette Hodie”; these pages use Mauricette Hodié.

The baptisms

The ten baptisms are entered in Latin in the Saint-Coulomb register, which writes the surname Rualan, Ruallan, Ruallen, Ruellan and Ruellen, and the father’s forename Guillelmus or Guillermus; these pages use Ruellan. On five of the acts the day is illegible, so Julienne (1548), Perrine (1556), Guillaume (1559), Pierre (1566) and the younger Jean (1568) are dated to the month only. The Fichier Origine names the elder Jean’s parents as Guillaume Ruellan and “Amaurye ou Mauricette Hodie”, as the register does, and gives his baptism the same date, 30 December 1552. The elder Jean was still living in 1593, when his daughter Guillemette was baptized.

Mathea

Some online family trees give the child of 1554 as a son, Mathieu, baptized in October. The act of 25 July 1554 calls the child filia, a daughter.