♀Renée Ouvrard

Renée Ouvrard is known only as the mother of Jacques Archambault, a farmer and vine-grower from the parish of Dompierre-sur-Mer, near La Rochelle in the old province of Aunis^W, France, who settled in New France in the 1640s. She was the twelfth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her son Jacques Archambault.

Three genealogical compilations name Antoine Archambault and Renée Ouvrard as the parents of Jacques Archambault. The Fichier Origine, a register-verified compilation of immigrants’ origins kept by the Quebec federation of genealogical societies, records them as his parents and gives his birth as about 1605 in the hamlet of L’Ardillière, in the parish of Dompierre-sur-Mer. A biographical dictionary by Langlois describes Jacques as “fils d’Antoine Archambault et de Renée Ouvrard, de la paroisse de Dompierre en Aunis”. A 1987 St. Amand family history also gives his father as Antoine Archambault of L’Ardillière, but gives his mother only as Renée. No baptism, marriage or burial naming the couple has been found, and their dates are not known. The surviving parish register of Dompierre begins in the 1620s and records baptisms only, so it does not reach Jacques’s own birth. The Ouvrard name was established in the parish: women named Marie Ouvrard and Jehanne Ouvrard had children baptised there in 1632 and 1634. On 7 December 1632 Jacques stood godfather to the son of Marie Ouvrard, of L’Ardillière; the register does not say whether she was related to Renée Ouvrard. Neither Antoine nor Renée stood godparent at the baptisms of their grandchildren in 1630, 1636, 1640 and 1642. Jacques married Françoise Tourault about 1629, took his family to New France in the 1640s, and was buried at Montréal in 1688.