Jeanne Petit: From Orphan in La Rochelle to Matriarch of Millions
Jeanne Petit
Quick Facts
Jeanne Petit was a young woman protected by the king, part of the contingent of 125 who came to New France in 1671. Nineteen of them went to the region of Montréal. We know that in 1672 he didn't send any. How did Jeanne Petit spend her time until the autumn of 1672? One fact is certain: she met François Séguin dit Ladéroute, and fell in love with him.
The Chapelle Sainte-Marguerite (now Salle de l'Oratoire), La Rochelle—the parish where Jeanne was likely baptized around 1656. This 12th-century chapel survived the 1568 destruction of Catholic churches by Huguenots.
Born about 1656 in the parish of Sainte-Marguerite in La Rochelle, Aunis, Jeanne was the daughter of Jean Petit and Jeanne Gaudreau. La Rochelle in the mid-seventeenth century was a city of religious upheaval and maritime ambition—a fortified port that had been a Huguenot stronghold until its surrender to Cardinal Richelieu in 1628. By the time Jeanne was born, the city had returned to Catholic governance, though the scars of the siege remained visible in its architecture and its people.
After losing both parents, Jeanne left for Canada in 1672, at about age 16. She was already an orphan when she boarded the ship that would carry her across the Atlantic—a young woman alone, with nothing but the king's dowry and whatever hopes she harbored for a new life in a land she had never seen.
La Rochelle: City of Departures
Carte du Pais D'Aunis Ville & Gouvernement de La Rochelle (1627) by Melchior Tavernier—created during the famous siege, showing the fortified city and surrounding coast where Jeanne was born a generation later.
The Sainte-Marguerite parish where Jeanne was baptized was a modest church with a turbulent history. Originally founded as a convent for the "Sœurs Blanches" (White Sisters), the Chapelle Sainte-Marguerite had survived the 1568 destruction of Catholic churches by Huguenots and served multiple roles over the centuries—parish church, military hospital, even an artillery store. Its survival through La Rochelle's religious wars made it a fitting birthplace for a girl who would herself survive a transatlantic crossing and decades of frontier life.
Parish registers for Sainte-Marguerite include Catholic baptisms and marriages dating from 1598 to 1666, documenting the alternating religious use of the site during the Wars of Religion. Somewhere in those records lies Jeanne's baptism, though the exact date remains uncertain. What we know is that by 1671, she had lost both parents and been selected—or volunteered—for the king's program to populate New France.
The Marriage Contract
On Wednesday, 21 September 1672, there was a marriage contract between Jeanne, born at Sainte-Marguerite de La Rochelle to Jean Petit and Jeanne Gaudreau, and François Séguin dit Ladéroute. Both spouses signed the contract drawn up by notary Frérot. The witnesses speak to the importance of the occasion: Pierre Boucher himself—the seigneur of Boucherville—and his wife Jeanne Crevier attended, along with Pierre De Saint-Ours, husband of Fille du Roi Marie Mullois, who gave a gift of 50 livres. Fifteen other local people witnessed the ceremony.
Carte Particulière des costes de Poitou Aunis, et de la Rochelle (1627)—showing the coastline Jeanne left behind when she sailed for New France.
At the age of 16, Jeanne was already an orphan. The presence of such distinguished witnesses—the seigneur himself and another Fille du Roi's husband—suggests that the community recognized the significance of these marriages. Each union represented not just a personal commitment but an investment in the colony's future.
Pierre De Caumont, the first priest to reside at Boucherville, joined François and Jeanne in bonds of matrimony on Monday, 31 October 1672. This was the seventh wedding celebrated in this place. The priest failed to mention the names of the witnesses—an oversight that genealogists have lamented for three centuries—but the marriage itself was duly recorded.
And so began the family life of François and Jeanne, a union which would last for more than a third of a century.
Boucherville
Immediately after his marriage contract, on 22 September 1672, François Séguin bought a homestead from Pierre Chaperon consisting of 2 arpents in frontage by 25 deep, located in the seigneury of Boucherville. It bordered the property of Pierre Bourgery and Gilbert Guilleman dit Duvillars, former surgeon and soldier in the Company of Saint-Ours, in the Carignan Regiment. Four square arpents of this farm had already been cleared. On the same occasion, François acquired a lot of one square half-arpent in the village of Boucherville "with the barn which is found built there". Price: 85 livres.
Here Jeanne would build her life. Here she would bear eleven children, bury three of them in infancy, and watch the others grow to establish families of their own. The land at Boucherville became the foundation of everything that followed.
On 4 April 1673, with 37 other concessionaires, François obtained his plot of land from seigneur Pierre Boucher—50 arpents, 2 by 25. The neighbors, also censitaires of the seigneur, were Pierre Martin, husband of Anne Poitron, and Ménard. In the census of 1681, we learn that François stated his profession: WEAVER! In the early days of New France, weaving was a man's trade, wrote Robert-Lionel Séguin. Had François learned this trade in France? Probably so. Weaving occupied him more than clearing land. He only had one head of cattle, a cow which would not last forever.
The Séguin Children
Jeanne and François settled at Boucherville, where daughter Françoise was baptized on the first of November 1674, followed by Marie-Madeleine dite Marie (16 August 1676), François (3 July 1678) and Jeanne (11 August 1680). Pierre was baptized 25 August 1682 at Pointe-aux-Trembles, followed by Simon on 24 September 1684. Catherine was baptized at Boucherville on 20 November 1686, but was buried 17 January 1688. Jean-Baptiste was baptized 12 November 1688 at Boucherville, followed by Geneviève (9 April 1691, buried 17 July 1691), Joseph (11 August 1692, buried 30 August 1692), and Joseph (13 September 1694).
Three small graves in the Boucherville cemetery—Catherine, Geneviève, and the first Joseph—marked the sorrows that punctuated Jeanne's years of childbearing. But eight children survived, and they would go on to remarkable lives:
1. Françoise, god-daughter of Françoise Loisel on the first of November 1674, at Boucherville, was married to Charles Patenaude from 1694 until 1724. Mother of ten children, she was buried on 20 May 1751, at Longueuil.
2. Marie-Madeleine first joined her life to Antoine Marie dit Sainte-Marie, on 20 November 1700. There were no descendants. At Longueuil, on 7 January 1704, she was remarried to François Achin dit Saint-André, who gave her six children.
3. Marie-Jeanne and Joseph Robidou were responsible for a family of eleven members, almost all of them born at Laprairie. Jeanne was buried in the cemetery of Longueuil on 21 December 1749.
4. François, the eldest of the sons, born at Boucherville, baptized at Pointe-aux-Trembles on 3 July 1678, married in his native parish on 22 February 1702, to Marie-Louise Feuillon, and went to new land at Terrebonne about 1717. Their nine children were all baptized at Saint-François on the Île-Jésus.
5. Pierre. The widow of Jean-Baptiste Leber, Barbe Feuillon, mother of Marie-Jeanne and Maurice Leber, was remarried on 4 February 1704, to Pierre Séguin with whom she had six daughters and three sons, all baptized at Saint-François on the Île-Jésus. Pierre was buried in the consecrated land of Saint-Henri de Mascouche, on 9 November 1760, at the time of the Conquest.
6. Simon, godson of the bachelor Simon Caillouet, was first married on 9 November 1706, to Marie Bau (or Lebeau) dit Lalouette, with whom he had a son; in a second marriage, on 11 November 1715 also at Boucherville, he married Madeleine Coal, a prisoner of war since 19 October 1698 and native of Beverly, Massachusetts. Their family counted nine members, all raised at Boucherville.
7. Jean-Baptiste—our direct ancestor—and Geneviève Barbeau dit Boisdore, joined in bonds of matrimony on 7 June 1710 at Boucherville, brought ten children into the world, the last at Chambly. Jean-Baptiste died at the Hôtel-Dieu of Montréal on 17 May 1728. His wife was remarried to Philippe-Charles Rolland.
8. Joseph, godson of Joseph Huet dit Dulude, on 13 September 1694, earned his living from the lucrative fur trade. He supplied boats leaving for Detroit. On 9 September 1728, the notary Joseph-Charles Raimbault signed a document by which Joseph, ready to go to Detroit, admitted owing Charles Nolan, merchant from Montréal, 5,075 livres, 6 sols, 3 deniers, for delivery of trading merchandise. Joseph was married on 12 April 1723 in the church of Sainte-Anne de Detroit to Marie Sauvage, daughter of Jacques and of Catherine Vien, of the parish of Champlain. Joseph's ten children were born at Detroit. He died at Fort Pontchartrain Detroit, and was buried in the cemetery of the church dedicated to Sainte-Anne, on 29 April 1753.
The Séguin family counted 76 members in the third generation and seems to have enjoyed the gift of longevity.
Widow on Île Grosbois
On 24 November 1698, François sold his concession to Jean-Baptiste Lamoureux, habitant of the Île Sainte-Marguerite, for 850 livres. For his 50 arpents of land "with a poor building built upon it", located between Jacques Ménard and his brother Louis, he received 400 in playing card money, 200 in various merchandise, and 60 in 20 minots of wheat. As for the remaining 190, they were to be paid on the next Saint-Jean-Baptiste day, 24 June 1699. Did he feel his strength declining? Was his final hour going to sound?
With the consent of Seigneur Pierre Boucher, on 15 April 1700, Marie-Anne Margane, widow of Ignace Boucher, Sieur de Grosbois, ceded to François Séguin dit Ladéroute, and Jeanne Petit, for them and during their lifetime only, a strip of wooded land on the Île Grosbois. Width: 2 arpents; depth: "as far as the tip of the island, across from l'île aux Raisins". François, in addition to giving two work days each autumn, was committed to taking care of the donor's two cows.
The Îles-de-Boucherville today. Jeanne and François spent their final years together on Île Grosbois, visible across the water from their former concession.
Unfortunately, François's health declined rapidly. He died sometime between 20 November 1700—when he was physically unable to attend the marriage contract signing of daughter Marie-Madeleine and was noted as "absent pour son indisposition"—and 9 October 1701, when Jeanne is identified as "veufue de deffunct françois Seguin" (widow of the late François Séguin) at the marriage contract signing of daughter Marie-Jeanne.
There is no church recording at Sainte-Famille in Boucherville of François's death and burial. He likely died at home on Île Grosbois and was buried there without being transported across the river to Boucherville for burial. The widely-cited death date of 9 May 1704 at the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal refers to a different person—"Pierre Seguin dit La Deroute"—a case of mistaken identity that persisted in genealogical databases for over 320 years.
Jeanne was now a widow at approximately 45 years of age, living on an island grant that was hers only for her lifetime.
The Brave Ancestress
On 19 March 1713, Jeanne Petit gave Marie-Anne Margane the concession on the Île Grosbois that she had received on 15 April 1700. This brave ancestress, like a pilgrim in good health, continued her pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the humble and good people, rich in many virtues, until about the age of 77.
After returning the island land, Jeanne went to live with her eldest son François's family at Lachenaie. She died at Longueuil on Sunday, 29 March 1733, and was buried the next day at Saint-Antoine-de-Padoue Church. The burial record—preserved in the PRDH as #106863—records her age as 90, though based on her c. 1656 birth date she was likely closer to 77. Such age exaggerations were common in colonial records, perhaps a testament to the respect accorded long-lived matriarchs.
Present at her burial were family members spanning three generations: her late husband François was listed (marked as deceased), her daughter Jeanne Séguin, a grandson with the surname Patenotre, and her son-in-law François Achin dit Saint-André (who had married her daughter Marie-Madeleine in 1704). The curé J. Ysambart of Longueuil officiated. After more than sixty years in New France, Jeanne was laid to rest surrounded by the family she had built from nothing.
In the sixty-one years since she had arrived in New France as an orphaned sixteen-year-old, Jeanne had witnessed the transformation of a frontier settlement into an established colony. She had raised eight children to adulthood, seen them marry and establish their own families, and lived to know seventy-six grandchildren. Her descendants would spread from Boucherville to Detroit, from the Île-Jésus to Chambly, carrying forward the family she and François had built from nothing but hope and determination.
Today, a commemorative plaque in Boucherville lists the twenty-five Filles du Roi who settled there between 1669 and 1698. Jeanne Petit's name appears among them, marked with an asterisk indicating she was one of the wives of the first 38 concessionaires of 1673. Nearby, another plaque honors the twenty-two soldiers of the Carignan-Salières Regiment who settled in Boucherville—including François Séguin dit Ladéroute. Together, these markers commemorate the union of soldier and King's Daughter that would produce millions of descendants.
François and Jeanne, that which you have desired, you saw; that which you hoped for, you held; you are now together in Paradise with all those whom you loved in France and in New-France, with all your descendants who carry today in their veins your pure and generous blood.
Today, François and Jeanne's descendants number between 1.89 and 2.31 million people. That teenage orphan from La Rochelle became a founding mother whose legacy stretches across centuries and continents.
Key Dates
Connection to The Guilbault Line
Primary Source Documents
Marriage Documents
Census Record
Boucherville Settlement
Children's Baptism Records
Database Records
La Rochelle: Place of Origin
Historical Context: Boucherville Commemorative Plaques
Sources & Citations
Primary Sources
- Marriage Contract (1672): Notary Thomas Frérot, 21 September 1672. BAnQ.
- Marriage Record (1672): Boucherville (Ste-Famille) Parish, 31 October 1672.
- Census (1681): Recensement de la Nouvelle-France, Seigneurie de Boucherville. LAC.
- Marriage Contract, Marie Madeleine (1700): Notary Pierre Raimbault, Act 402. BAnQ.
- Marriage Contract, Marie Jeanne (1701): Notary Pierre Raimbault, Act 527. BAnQ.
- Children's Baptisms (1674-1694): Boucherville & Pointe-aux-Trembles Parishes.
- Burial (1733): Saint-Antoine-de-Padoue Church, Longueuil, 30 March 1733.
Secondary Sources
- Laforest, Thomas J. Our French Canadian Ancestors, Volume 18. LISI Press, 1990.
- Gagné, Peter J. King's Daughters and Founding Mothers: The Filles du Roi, 1663–1673. Quintin Publications, 2001.
- Séguin-Pharand, Yolande. François Séguin ou L'impossible défi. Association des Séguin d'Amérique, 1992.
- Beauregard, Denis. "Genealogy of French in North America." Family Sheet [1732]. © 2005–2026.
- PRDH-IGD. Couple #3764, Family #4015. Université de Montréal.
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