In the spring of 1665, an orphaned young woman from Senlis in Picardy boarded a ship called the St-Jean-Baptiste and sailed for a colony she had never seen. Élisabeth Roy was one of approximately 800 Filles du Roi sent to New France — and one of only thirty-five who would marry three times. Through parish registers, notarial acts, census records, and the PRDH database, this documentary biography follows her from the walled medieval town of her birth to the parishes of Île d'Orléans, where she buried two husbands, lost two sons on the same day, raised seven children across three marriages, and lived to nearly seventy — a founding mother of French Canada.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Filles du Roi & Filles à Marier — The Women Who Built New France

Françoise Baiselat was born about 1646 in the Rue Saint-Sauveur, Paris—the daughter of Benjamin Baiselat, a master enamel maker, and Claude Prou. In 1668, she left everything she knew and crossed the Atlantic as a Fille du Roi, carrying goods worth 300 livres for her dowry. What followed was a life shaped by the rhythms of the colony—three marriages, all to soldiers of the Carignan-Salières Regiment, twelve children across two families, and a quarter century at Pointe-aux-Trembles on Montreal Island. Today, between 1.1 and 1.5 million Quebecers descend through her Marsan line alone.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Filles du Roi & Filles à Marier — The Women Who Built New France

Anne Ledet's first husband was a bigamist. Her daughters were declared illegitimate. But in 1657 she married Gilles Pinel, raised eleven children, and became a founding matriarch of Neuville, Quebec.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Filles du Roi & Filles à Marier — The Women Who Built New France

Jeanne Petit was a young woman protected by the king, part of the contingent of 125 Filles du Roi who came to New France in 1671. At just 16 years old, already orphaned, she crossed the Atlantic to build a new life. She married François Séguin dit Ladéroute, a soldier turned weaver, and together they raised 8 children to adulthood at Boucherville. Today, her descendants number nearly 2 million people—a legacy built from nothing but hope and determination.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Filles du Roi & Filles à Marier — The Women Who Built New France

On August 3, 1672, the ship La Nativité arrived at Québec carrying a young Parisian woman named Jeanne Juin. One of approximately 770 Filles du Roi sent to populate New France, she married Norman cobbler Bernard Dumouchel dit Laroche and raised six children across the frontier settlements from Champlain to Longueuil. Today, her descendants number in the hundreds of thousands.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Filles du Roi & Filles à Marier — The Women Who Built New France

Shipped to New France at 13. Widowed at 15. Property owner at 16. Executed at 36. Gillette Banne's life spans only three and a half decades, but within it lies the full complexity of women's experience in colonial New France. When her 12-year-old daughter was beaten bloody by a drunk husband and the law offered no refuge, she made her own justice—and paid with her life. Her descendants now number over 2 million.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Filles du Roi & Filles à Marier — The Women Who Built New France

Marie Riton crossed the Atlantic carrying the weight of an illegitimate birth and a Protestant conversion. In New France, she reinvented herself as a Catholic matriarch at Beauport—mother of seven, ancestor to millions.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Filles du Roi & Filles à Marier — The Women Who Built New France

Before the King's Daughters. Before royal dowries. Before the colony had a plan, there were the Filles à marier—262 brave women who crossed the Atlantic on their own terms. Marie-Michelle Duteau was one of them: a Protestant girl from La Rochelle who emigrated at 19, converted to Catholicism to marry, bore 9 children, and died at 36 on the frontier she helped settle. Today, over 2 million Québécois carry her DNA.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Filles du Roi & Filles à Marier — The Women Who Built New France

Marie Gaillard, Fille du roi, widow twice over, and matriarch of two converging family lines, stands among the most consequential women of early New France. She crossed the Atlantic at 22, buried her first husband before she was 35, merged two families into a household of eleven children, watched her daughter marry her stepson, relocated westward to build a new life, and died at 89—having outlived nearly everyone she had ever known. Her descendants now number over a million Quebecers. Yet Marie left no letters, signed no documents. Her power was the power of survival, adaptation, and deliberate family-building in a world where women's choices were constrained but never irrelevant.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Filles du Roi & Filles à Marier — The Women Who Built New France

Between 1683 and 1738, Marie Lorgueil's family appeared in colonial courts six times across three generations. They sued neighbors, defended against criminal charges, fought for orphaned children, and—in the most extraordinary case—a seventy-year-old granddaughter named Françoise demanded separation from her abusive husband Jean Larpenteur. This is the story of how one immigrant woman's strategic pragmatism became a family legacy of legal agency.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies

On September 13, 1690, Gabriel Dumont, Baron de Blaignac, ran Marie Lorgueil's husband through with a sword and fled into the wilderness. Marie was 56, widowed, with eight children and mounting debt. She filed suit against the nobleman—then sold her legal rights for 520 livres and debt forgiveness. This is the story of an impossible choice, and what it reveals about justice, power, and survival in colonial New France.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies

From her 1634 baptism in Bordeaux to her 1700 burial in Montreal, we've assembled 40+ documents tracing Marie Lorgueil's complete life. This is not typical—this is extraordinary. Most 17th-century women exist only in fragments. Marie's complete documentary arc reveals strategic intelligence, colonial resilience, and women's agency across 66 years and an ocean. Episode 4 concludes the series synthesizing what this remarkable documentation achievement means for family historians.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies

In 1690, after 36 years of marriage, Toussaint Hunault died, leaving Marie a widow at age 56. Through legal documents from 1691 and the framework of the Custom of Paris, we examine how Marie navigated widowhood with agency and competence. She wasn't a helpless dependent—she was a legally capable woman who participated in estate settlements, protected her dower rights, and maintained dignity. Episode 3 of Marie Lorgueil's complete documented life (1634-1700).

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies

In 21 years, Marie Lorgueil bore 10 children and raised 8 to adulthood—an extraordinary 80% survival rate in an era when half of all children died young. The 1666 census captures a perfect snapshot: all six children living, ages matching baptism records exactly. Through systematic analysis of baptism records, birth spacing, and documentary gaps, we reconstruct Marie's achievement as a frontier mother. Episode 2 of Marie Lorgueil's complete documented life (1634-1700).

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies

In 1654, Marie d'Orgueil crossed the Atlantic to New France and strategically misrepresented her age by four years. This wasn't desperation—it was calculated intelligence. Through baptism records, marriage documents, and census data, we resolve conflicting evidence and discover a family pattern: her daughter would employ the exact same strategy 22 years later. Episode 1 of Marie Lorgueil's complete documented life (1634-1700).

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies