He arrived in New France in 1665 as a soldier who could not read or write, settled in the Seigneurie de Contrecoeur, and died sometime before 1701 — leaving no birth record, no marriage record, and no death record. Two parish fires destroyed fourteen and a half years of documentation. A fraudulent noble pedigree confused researchers for generations. What survived was an X on a debt ledger, five baptism entries scattered across four parishes, a handful of notarial obligations, and a cascade of lawsuits filed by the widow he left behind. This is his story — in twelve chapters, from the regiment's arrival to the 1728 legal document that recovered the last known terms of the marriage contract that no longer exists.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Carignan-Salières — From Soldiers to Settlers

In 1684, a young soldier from Saintonge stepped off a ship at Québec carrying a name that would outlive him by centuries. "Tranchemontagne" — the Mountain-Slasher — was not a family name. It was a declaration. Here is the story of André Corbeil and the military nickname culture that transformed European recruits into something entirely new.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Uncovering the stories behind the names that built New France.

Long before he became a husband, father, and ancestor rooted in Canadian soil, Pierre Marsan dit Lapierre was a soldier shaped by discipline and uncertainty. When he embarked from La Rochelle in April 1665 aboard the Vieux Siméon, he joined hundreds of men bound for a distant colony few in France could imagine. As a sergeant in the Company of Captain Jacques de Chambly, Pierre arrived not as a settler seeking fortune, but as part of a royal strategy: the deployment of professional troops to stabilize New France and secure it against the Iroquois nations whose raids had long threatened its survival. His rank set him apart—older, experienced, and entrusted with the daily weight of command. Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Carignan-Salières — From Soldiers to Settlers

Among the approximately 10,000 founding immigrants who settled in New France before 1760, over 95 percent were French. Italian permanent settlers were extraordinarily rare. Jean Bernardin Lesage dit Lepiedmontois was one of a tiny handful of "foreign" pioneers to make a permanent life in the colony—and his dit name, meaning "the Piedmontese," would mark his Italian origins for generations. From Racconigi in the shadow of the Alps to the shores of the St. Lawrence, this is the story of New France's Piedmontese soldier.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: From Soldier of the Troupes de la Marine to Settler

Nicolas Sylvestre dit Champagne was born around 1642 in Pont-sur-Seine, France, orphaned by age ten, and enlisted in the Carignan-Salières Regiment's Company of Grandfontaine. He arrived at Quebec aboard L'Aigle d'Or in 1665, fought in the Mohawk campaigns, then married Barbe Neveu and settled at Neuville. Over thirty years they raised sixteen children. Married sixty-two years, they were buried just thirty-nine days apart at Neuville in 1729. Today, up to 2.24 million Québécois descend from them.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Carignan-Salières — From Soldiers to Settlers