♂Michel Quintard

Michel Quintard (died before October 1678) was a man of La Rochelle, France, whose son François emigrated to New France and settled at Boucherville. He was the ninth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son François Quintal (1644–1715).

Life

Almost all that is known of him comes from a compiled file on French emigrants to Canada, which checks its entries against the registers. It describes him as a carter at La Rochelle who later became a merchant tavern-keeper, born at Salles-lès-Aulnay, and records that he married three times. It names his first wife as Andrée Mestreau of La Chaize-le-Vicomte, with a marriage contract of 22 April 1635 before the notary Juppin at La Rochelle. The same file records his marriage to Marie Genin (also written Jeunin), the widow of Denis Fardeau, at La Rochelle in the parish of Sainte-Marguerite on 23 July 1641, with a contract signed the same day before the notary Apvrilleau. Their son François was baptised in the same parish on 24 January 1644, according to the same file.

The file gives a third marriage, also at La Rochelle in the parish of Sainte-Marguerite, on 12 January 1649, to Méranée Audet, the widow of Élie Beziau. Michel therefore married two widows, in 1641 and in 1649, and by this account was still living five years after his son’s baptism.

His parents are not known from any register examined; the compiled file names them as Guillaume Quintard, a master tailor of clothes, and Marguerite Bérard. The file gives no date for his birth at Salles-lès-Aulnay.

The one register entry that names him is his son’s marriage at Québec on 17 October 1678, which names François as the son of the late Michel Quintal and the late Marie Genin. Michel was therefore dead by then; the date and place of his death are not known. The register’s spelling, Quintal, is the one his son’s family kept in Canada.

Notes

A genealogy chart compiled in 1994 gives the marriage to Marie Genin as at Notre-Dame de La Rochelle, and gives Michel’s death as before 1645 at Salles, near Aulnay. The compiled emigrant file instead places the marriage in Sainte-Marguerite and makes Salles his birthplace. No burial record for him has been examined. The chart’s death before 1645 does not fit the compiled file’s third marriage in 1649, and the 1678 marriage act shows only that he was dead by then.