♂Olivier Maillet

Olivier Maillet (baptized April 1568) was a man of Saint-Coulomb, a coastal parish of the diocese of Dol^W near Saint-Malo, where he was baptized, married and raised a family. He was the eleventh great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) twice over, by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Jean Maillet (baptized 1590).

He was baptized at Saint-Coulomb in April 1568, entered in the Latin register as Olliuerius Malet, the son of Guillaume Mallet and his wife Eustachine Gourdel. 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 records the baptisms of four more children of the couple: Nicolas on 14 October 1592, Jeanne on 10 November 1595, Julien on 5 April 1598 and Laure on 20 September 1600. The register gives no trade or age for Olivier, and his 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.

His baptism is the first act on its page of the 1568 register; the day is written “decima quinta”, or possibly “quarta”, so it is given here as April 1568. The Fichier Origine gives 14 April 1568, and gives his burial as 11 February 1608, which has not been found in the register. The marriage act stands among the marriages of 1589 but is dated 8 January 1590 (“millesimo quingentesimo nonagesimo”); the Fichier Origine gives 8 January 1589.