♂Nicolas Housseau

Nicolas Housseau (baptized 22 April 1605 – died before 5 October 1670) was a vinegar merchant (marchand vinaigrier) of Troyes, in Champagne, whose daughter Marguerite crossed the Atlantic and married Jean Meunier at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, in New France, on 5 October 1670. He was the ninth great-grandfather of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through his daughter Marguerite Housseau, baptized at Troyes in 1641.

Nicolas Housseau was baptized in the parish of Saint-Jean at Troyes on 22 April 1605, the son of Claude Housseau and Claudée Pertuisot. He married Marguerite Bolduc, and their daughter Marguerite was baptized in the same parish on 28 April 1641; the register gives the parents the titles of maître and dame, and the godfather was maître Marc Housseau. Nicolas died before his daughter’s wedding in 1670: the marriage act calls him “deffunct”. Marguerite is counted among the King’s Daughters^W, the young women sent to New France under royal sponsorship to marry its settlers. His widow, Marguerite Bolduc, was buried at Troyes on 23 October 1680, ten years after her daughter’s wedding.

Notes

His baptism, trade and parents

The register of Saint-Jean at Troyes records the baptism of “Nicolas filz de Claude Housseau et Claude pertuisot sa femme” on 22 April 1605 (baptisms 1605–1609, Archives départementales de l’Aube). His trade of marchand vinaigrier comes from the Fichier Origine entry for his daughter Marguerite, compiled by the Fédération québécoise des sociétés de généalogie from the parish registers of Troyes, which also names his parents.

The 1670 marriage act

The act at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré calls the bride “fille de deffunct Nicolas Housseau et de Marguerite de Troye”, of the “paroisse de St Jean de la ville de Troyes”; Tanguay’s dictionary prints the same names. “De Troye” names the mother’s town, not her surname: the 1641 baptism, as the Fichier Origine researchers read it, and Yves Landry’s study of the King’s Daughters give her as Marguerite Bolduc. Landry also counts Marguerite Housseau among the King’s Daughters, arriving in 1670.