♀Michelle Jourdan

Michelle Jourdan (baptized February 1566) was a woman of Saint-Coulomb, a coastal parish of the diocese of Dol^W near Saint-Malo, where she was baptized, married and raised a family. She was the eleventh great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) twice over, by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Jean Maillet (baptized 1590).

She was baptized at Saint-Coulomb in February 1566, the daughter of Jullien Jourdan and his wife Artuse Macé; the clerk first wrote her name as Margaritta, struck it out and wrote Mychaela above it. On 8 January 1590, in the church of Saint-Coulomb, Olivier Maillet and Michelle Jourdan, written Ollivierius Malet and Michaela Jourday, received the nuptial blessing, both marrying for the first time; a Guillaume Malet was one of the witnesses. Their son Jean was baptized on 15 September 1590. Jean’s baptism names him as Jean Mallet, son of Olivier and of Micaelle, that is Michelle, whose surname the register writes in a form that can be read either Jurday or Jourday. The register also names her as the mother of Nicolas, baptized on 14 October 1592, Jeanne, baptized on 10 November 1595, Julien, baptized on 5 April 1598, and Laure, baptized on 20 September 1600 (that act gives her forename as Nicole; see Notes). Her death is not on record.

Lines of descent

Jean Maillet’s youngest son, Pierre Maillet (baptized 1629), crossed to Canada and married at Montréal in 1662. 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 Olivier Maillet and Michelle Jourdan by both lines.

Notes

Jean’s baptism was read on the Saint-Coulomb register itself, which writes the family name Mallet; a later hand added in the margin “Jean Mallet fils d’Ollivier”. The Fichier Origine, the Québec federation’s register-checked file of immigrants, gives the same date and names the parents as Olivier Mallet and Michelle or Nicole Jourdan. Her surname is given here as the Fichier Origine gives it, since the spelling in Jean’s baptism cannot be settled between Jurday and Jourday; her own baptism writes Jourdan. The baptism of Laure on 20 September 1600 writes her mother’s forename as Nicole rather than Michelle. This page takes it for a clerk’s slip, since the other acts name Michelle, including one of 1604; the Fichier Origine’s alternative “Nicole” may come from this act.