♂Paul Daigle

Paul Daigle was an Acadian of the parish of Beaubassin^W, at the head of the Bay of Fundy, the son of Olivier Daigle and Jeanne Blanchard of Port-Royal. He was the seventh great-grandfather of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through his son Paul Daigle (born about 1723).

Marriage and children

Paul Daigle and Anne Arsenault were married at Beaubassin on 18 November 1720. Paul was the son of the late Olivier Daigle and Jeanne Blanchard of Port-Royal, and Anne the daughter of Pierre Arseneau and Anne Boudrot of the parish of Beaubassin; the marriage act calls her father Jean, but the censuses of Beaubassin of 1700 and 1714 name him Pierre. Pierre, their first known child, was baptized at Beaubassin on 29 August 1721, the day he was born. The register gives his father’s name as Pierre Daigle and his mother’s as Anne Arseneau, with Pierre Arseneau and Marguerite Bourg as godparents; he is counted as their son because the mother’s name and the date fit the marriage, and no Pierre Daigle married to an Anne Arseneau is known. Their son Paul was born about 1723.

On 17 May 1733 the priest at Beaubassin baptized conditionally a daughter, Madeleine, born on 10 May. Her father is recorded as Paul Daigre and her mother as Anne Cormier, his legitimate wife, and the godfather was Augustin Gaudet. The father is most likely this Paul, the only Paul Daigle at Beaubassin in those years, so Paul was living there in 1733 and had by then married Anne Cormier. A compiled dictionary of Acadian families gives the marriage as about 1727 and says that Anne had been the widow of Jacques Poirier. No record of the wedding itself is known.

After 1748

On 19 June 1748, at Beaubassin, their son Paul married Marie-Josèphe Hébert, daughter of Joseph Hébert and Anne Boudrot. The register names the groom as the son of Paul Daigle and the late Anne Arsenault, “ses père et mère de cette paroisse”. Only the mother is called late, so Paul was most likely still living when his son married. About two years later the younger Paul took his family to Île Saint-Jean^W, where the census of 1752 found him farming at Malpèque with his wife and two small daughters. A compiled Acadian genealogy, as quoted on WikiTree, calls the elder Paul the eldest son of Olivier Daigle and says that he married twice at Beaubassin. No record of his own baptism or of his burial has been found.

Notes

The 1733 baptism

The Beaubassin parish register, the copy held by Library and Archives Canada, act of 17 May 1733 (the volume covering 1732 to 1735): Madeleine, born on the 10th of the month, baptized conditionally; father Paul Daigre; mother Anne Cormier, his legitimate wife; godfather Augustin Gaudet, with no godmother; signed by the missionary Jacques LeSache. Grade: the act itself, on record. The register spells the father’s name Daigre; the tree and this bio use Daigle.

Identity of the father

Among the Paul Daigle and Paul Daigre who were fathers at Beaubassin between 1720 and 1748, this is the only one who fits. A Paul at Grand-Pré in 1742 is the son of Olivier Daigle and Françoise Granger, not this man. Grade: inference, hence “most likely” in the body.

Second marriage: date and widow

Stephen White’s Dictionary of Acadian Families (p. 450), as quoted on WikiTree (profile Daigre-205), gives a second marriage to Anne Cormier about 1727, and calls her the daughter of François Cormier and Marguerite LeBlanc and the widow of Jacques Poirier. Grade: compiled. The Beaubassin register copy has no entries from July 1723 to May 1732, so an act of about 1727 is not among its pages. A compiled history by Bona Arsenault (p. 946) gives a marriage about 1750 to Marie Testard; the 1733 baptism names Anne Cormier as his wife, so that account does not fit.

The death

No death is given for him. WikiTree says he died before the January 1752 census, resting on the 1752 Le Lac roll of an Anne Cormier, a widow with three girls. That roll is not tied to him: an unverified FamilySearch tree entry gives a burial of an Anne Cormier at Beaubassin on 15 July 1745, and other Anne Cormiers were wives there. Grade: compiled claim, not used.