♂Paul Bourgeois

Paul Bourgeois was an Acadian of Beaubassin, the husband of Marie Josèphe Brun. He was the sixth great-grandfather of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through his son Joseph Bourgeois (born about 1736).

Marriage and children

Paul was the son of Claude Bourgeois, a habitant of Beaubassin, and Anne Blanchard. On 17 November 1727 at Port-Royal, aged 22 and living at Beaubassin, he married Marie Josèphe Brun, aged 17, the daughter of Jean Brun and Anne Gautrot. The groom’s uncle, René Blanchard, was a witness.

Five of their children were baptized at Beaubassin between 1733 and 1748. No Bourgeois baptism from Beaubassin has been found for the years 1735 to 1739, when their son Joseph was born, so his own baptism is not on record.

Later years

Probably about 1749 Paul married a second time, to Madeleine Cormier, daughter of Pierre Cormier and Marie-Anne Cyr of Beaubassin. In 1750 he is most likely at Les Planches, a refugee village east of the Mesagoueche, listed as a widower with six persons in his household. By January 1752 he is thought to have moved to Pont-à-Buot, with a wife and seven children, and in 1755 he is apparently at Gaspareau, with a wife and five children.

In 1757 a compiled genealogy places Paul at Malpeque, on Île Saint-Jean (now Prince Edward Island). On 5 November 1759 their son Joseph married Marie Giroir at the Acadian refugee camp at Ristigouche on the Baie des Chaleurs, where families who had fled the deportation took shelter between 1758 and 1761. The marriage act gives the family’s place as Malpeque, and the parents it names are set out in the notes below. He is said to have died at Miramichi about 1760, where the family had been sent after the deportation.

Notes

The 1759 Ristigouche marriage act is the only record that names Joseph’s father. The transcription gives the father as Michel Bourgeois and the mother as Anne Brin, and the first letter of the father’s forename is faint on the register page. A compiled genealogy of the Acadians (Arsenault, 1978) prints Paul as the father and Anne Lebrun as the mother, and gives the same Port-Royal marriage as this couple’s. The question is open. This page sets the couple out as Paul and Marie Josèphe Brun because their 1727 marriage, their Beaubassin baptisms and the 1766 census all fit that household. The Beaubassin entries spell her name Brun in most cases, and Brin in the baptism of Pierre in 1745.

The second marriage

A compiled dictionary of the Acadian families (Stephen A. White, Gallant and Hébert, 1999, p. 262) gives Paul’s second marriage as “around 1749” to Madeleine Cormier, daughter of Pierre Cormier and Marie-Anne Cyr. No act for that marriage is on record. A compiled Cormier listing on the acadiansingray site calls Marie Josèphe Brun his first wife. Madeleine Cormier is not to be confused with another Madeleine Cormier, daughter of Pierre Cormier and Catherine Leblanc, born about 1710.

The refugee rolls

Stephen A. White’s transcription of the Beaubassin refugee rolls (Les Cahiers de la Société historique acadienne 50, 2019, pp. 106-107, 152-153 and 210-211) gives the three entries. The roll of 1750 (ANF Colonies G1 vol. 466, no. 35) lists Paul at Les Planches as “veuf” (widower), with six persons in all. The roll of January 1752 (G1 vol. 466, no. 31) lists him at Pont-à-Buot, a refugee from Les Planches, with one woman, four boys and three girls, nine in all. The 1755 entry places him at Gaspareau, near Baie-Verte, as “fils”, with one woman, two boys and three girls, seven in all. The rolls name only the head of each household; the wife’s name, Madeleine Cormier, is White’s reconstruction. The 1755 entry’s numbering matches the 1750 and 1752 rows.

The death

The compiled dictionary (p. 262, as quoted on WikiTree) says Paul “died at Miramichi around 1760”, citing the Miquelon register for the end of 1773. That register is not cited on this page’s sources, so the date and place are compiled only. White’s roll entries give the family’s exile as Camp d’Esperance on the Miramichi. The 1757 placement at Malpeque in the Arsenault genealogy (vol. 3, p. 877) is not supported by White’s rolls, which put the family at Les Planches, Pont-à-Buot and Gaspareau before the exile. The two can be reconciled only by a move from Malpeque to Miramichi, and the 1759 marriage act already calls the groom’s father “de la Malpeque”.