Pierre Morin dit Champagne & Catherine Lemesle
Pierre Morin dit Champagne
& Catherine Lemesle
Quick Facts: Pierre Morin dit Champagne
Quick Facts: Catherine Lemesle
🔍 Military Identification
No surviving primary record explicitly states "Pierre Morin, soldier of the Carignan-Salières Regiment, later husband of Catherine Lemesle." His military service is proven through five converging evidence lines: timeline analysis, geographic origin, marriage witness analysis, census settlement patterns, and three independent database confirmations (PRDH, SFRSC, Verney).
Read the Case Study: "Proving Carignan-Salières Service" → | Full Methodology →
1. The Hôtel-Dieu, November 1706
On the eighteenth of November, 1706, a fifty-six-year-old man was carried through the doors of the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec. The Augustinian sisters who received him noted his name, his age, and his origin in their daily patient register: "Morin, Pierre (56 ans), paroisse Saint-Étienne, Poitou." It was the fourth time in his life that an official document recorded his parish of origin—and it would be the last.
Registre journalier des malades, Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, 18 November 1706: "Morin, Pierre (56 ans), paroisse Saint-Étienne, Poitou, décédé le 12-12[06]."
Thirteen days later, on December 1, the sisters admitted another patient: "Lemesle, Catherine (50 ans), femme de Pierre Morin." His wife. She had come to the hospital too—whether from the same illness, or from the exhaustion of caring for a dying husband at home, or because she had nowhere else to go. She was identified, as she would be for years to come, not by her own name alone but as the wife of Pierre Morin.
Pierre died eleven days later, on December 12, 1706. The burial register recorded him once more: "Pierre Morin, âgé de 56 ans, de Poiton, de la Paroisse de Sᵗ Estienne de l'Euesché de Luson." Four documents. Four times the same story: a man from the parish of Saint-Étienne, in the diocese of Luçon, in the province of Poitou. He had been in New France for forty-one years. He never lost his origin.
Catherine survived. She would go on being hospitalized—in 1707, 1708, 1710—still identified each time as femme de Pierre Morin. She would not disappear from the documentary record until after her son's wedding in 1721, at least seventy-five years old, her burial place unknown.
This is the story of two lives that the documents tell in fragments—a marriage contract here, a census entry there, a baptism, a burial, a hospital admission. No diary survives. No letter. No portrait. What we know of Pierre Morin and Catherine Lemesle comes from the paper trail of a colony that recorded its people with remarkable care, and from the systematic work of genealogists across three centuries who have reassembled these fragments into families.
To tell their story, we must go back—back past the hospital, past the eight children, past the marriage at Notre-Dame-de-Québec in 1672. Back to a village in the marshlands of Poitou, where a boy named Pierre was baptized in a church whose registers have not survived.
2. Poitou — A Parish Without a Baptism
The Marais Poitevin—"Green Venice" of western France. The canals and wetlands near Saint-Étienne-de-Brillouet where Pierre Morin was born. Photo: Gilbert Bochenek, CC BY 1.0.
Saint-Étienne-de-Brillouet sits in the Marais Poitevin—the "Green Venice" of western France, a landscape of canals and wetlands between La Rochelle and the Vendée coast. In the seventeenth century it was a small parish in the diocese of Luçon, a place of farmers and marshland workers on the edge of the great Atlantic salt trade. It was here that Jacques Morin and Hilaire Guéry made their home, and here that their son Pierre was born around 1650.
We know this because four independent documents across thirty-four years name his origin: the marriage contract of 1672 calls him son of "deffunt Jacques Morin et deffunte Hilaire Guéry de la paroisse de Saint-Étienne-de-Brillouet"; both copies of the marriage banns spell it phonetically as "Sᵗ Etienne de Briloy"; the Hôtel-Dieu admissions registry of 1706 records "paroisse Saint-Étienne, Poitou"; and the burial register specifies "la Paroisse de Sᵗ Estienne de l'Euesché de Luson." The consistency is striking. Across different scribes, different decades, different circumstances—from a notary's quill in Québec to a nun's pen at the hospital—the same parish surfaces again and again.
But the baptism itself has not been found. The parish registers of Saint-Étienne-de-Brillouet have gaps in the late 1640s, and Pierre's baptism has—as one genealogist noted—"famously eluded many researchers." Searches under variant spellings (Maurin, Mourin) have produced nothing. No siblings of Pierre have been located in the registers either, meaning that the presence of Jacques Morin and Hilaire Guéry in the parish cannot be independently confirmed from French records alone. It is confirmed only because their son, forty-one years later and an ocean away, told a notary in Québec who his parents were.
Both parents were dead by the time Pierre married in 1672. The marriage banns record them as "deffunt Jacques Morin" and "deffunte Hilaire Guéry." Whether they died before or after Pierre left France is unknown. He was an orphan—like so many soldiers of the Carignan-Salières Regiment, a young man with nothing to hold him in a parish that has left no trace of his beginning.
📋 Research Note: The Missing Baptism
The Archives départementales de la Vendée have digitized parish registers for Saint-Étienne-de-Brillouet, but gaps exist in the late 1640s. FamilySearch Film 2288454 (BMS mixed records 1647–1668) and neighboring parishes Sainte-Hermine and Thiré remain to be searched. The absence of a baptism record does not diminish the identification—Pierre's origin is confirmed by four independent primary sources spanning 1672 to 1706.
3. The Regiment — Compagnie de Naurois, 1665
How Pierre Morin came to be a soldier is unknown. What is known is that by 1665, at roughly age fifteen to eighteen, he was part of the Carignan-Salières Regiment—the first professional military force Louis XIV sent to defend New France. He served in the Compagnie de Naurois, commanded by Captain Pierre de Naurois, who would later receive the seigneury of Lanoraie on the north shore of the St. Lawrence.
Officier du Régiment de Carignan-Salières (1666). Original by L. Rousselot, 1931. The brown justaucorps and blue cuffs were the regiment's distinctive colors.
The regiment departed La Rochelle in the spring of 1665 and arrived at Québec in stages through the summer and autumn. It carried approximately 1,200 soldiers and officers organized into 24 companies. Their mission was stark: suppress the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) raids that had brought the colony to the edge of destruction. Company by company, the soldiers built a chain of forts along the Richelieu River—the invasion corridor used by war parties coming north from present-day New York. Fort Richelieu at Sorel. Fort Chambly. Fort Sainte-Thérèse. Fort Saint-Jean.
In 1666, the regiment marched south into Mohawk territory under Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy. Villages were burned. Crops were destroyed. The campaign forced a peace treaty that would hold for nearly two decades—one of the reasons New France survived long enough to grow into a colony rather than remaining a trading outpost.
Pierre's specific role in these campaigns cannot be documented—no muster rolls survive for the Compagnie de Naurois. But his military service is established through five converging evidence lines: the timeline of his arrival and settlement matches the Carignan pattern exactly; his origin in Poitou matches the western France recruitment zone; his marriage witnesses include colonial officials connected to the military administration; his census settlement pattern mirrors other demobilized soldiers; and three independent databases—the PRDH List of Migrants, the SFRSC Confirmed Soldiers List, and Jack Verney's The Good Regiment—all identify him as a confirmed soldier of the Compagnie de Naurois.
The Compagnie de Naurois (also called La Noraye) takes its double name from its captain: Pierre de Naurois received the seigneury of La Noraye in 1672, and both names appear in historical records referring to the same company.
4. "Pierre Martin" — A Soldier Becomes a Servant
When the Carignan-Salières Regiment was officially disbanded in 1667–1668, roughly 400 of the 1,200 soldiers chose to remain in New France. Officers received seigneuries; their men were promised land within those fiefs. But not every soldier had the resources to begin farming immediately. Some hired themselves out as domestic servants—domestiques—to established settlers while they accumulated the tools, livestock, and experience needed to work their own land.
The 1667 Census of New France may contain Pierre Morin in exactly this situation—though under a different name. At Petite-Rivière on the Côte-de-Beaupré, in the household of Simon Guyon (age 42) and his wife Louise Racine (25), the census records a servant: "Pierre Martin, age 22, domestique."
The identification of "Pierre Martin" as Pierre Morin is probable but not confirmed. The evidence is circumstantial: Martin and Morin are among the most commonly confused surnames in colonial French records; the age of 22 matches Pierre Morin's estimated birth around 1645–1650; the location—Petite-Rivière—matches the residence recorded on Pierre Morin's 1672 marriage banns, which describe him as "habitant de la Petite Rivière"; the status of unmarried male servant is typical for a recently demobilized soldier; and no other Pierre Morin appears as head of household in the 1667 census.
If the identification is correct, it places Pierre at Petite-Rivière as early as 1667—five years before his marriage—working as a servant in a well-established household. The Guyon family had 9 cattle and 24 cleared arpents: a substantial operation that could employ a young hired man. It also places Pierre within a social network that connects, remarkably, to the other Morin family in his lineage.
⚠ Evidence Status: Probable, Not Confirmed
The 1667 "Pierre Martin" identification rests on circumstantial evidence only. The Martin/Morin name swap, age match, location match, and status match all point to the same individual—but no direct proof exists. This biography presents the identification as probable rather than certain, following BCG evidence standards.
There is an additional thread worth noting. Also living in the Guyon household was an eight-year-old girl named Louise Guillot, daughter of Marie d'Abancourt. Marie d'Abancourt appears in the 1666 census under the household of Hélène Desportes—the wife of Noël Morin, the other Morin ancestor in the Guilbault line. The two unrelated Morin families' social worlds were overlapping at Petite-Rivière before Pierre Morin ever married. This connection, explored fully in the forthcoming companion piece on the two Morin lines, suggests that the colonial world of seventeenth-century Québec was even smaller than the documentary record implies.
5. A Marriage Arranged by the Crown — June 1672
Catherine Lemesle was baptized on 16 April 1646 in the parish of Saint-Pierre-du-Châtel, a medieval church in the heart of Rouen, capital of Normandy. Her father, Jean Lemesle, was a marchand bourgeois—a merchant of standing. Her mother was Marguerite Renard. The baptismal record survives in the archives of the Seine-Maritime, one of the few documents that traces Catherine's life before she stepped aboard a ship bound for Québec.
Saint-Pierre-du-Châtel, Rouen—the parish where Catherine Lemesle was baptized in 1646. Her father Jean Lemesle was a marchand bourgeois of this parish.
By both parents she was an orphan before she reached New France. The marriage contract identifies her as daughter of "late Jean Lemesle" and "Marguerite Renard"; the banns confirm both parents deceased. She came as a Fille du Roi—one of roughly 800 young women sent to the colony between 1663 and 1673 under royal sponsorship, each carrying a dowry to attract a husband from the surplus of unmarried male settlers. Catherine's dowry was 200 livres, of which 50 came directly from the King.
She could not sign her name. The Fichier Origine records this plainly. A merchant's daughter who could not write—perhaps orphaned too young for education, or perhaps the daughters of provincial merchants were simply not given letters in the Rouen of the 1650s. What she brought instead was the King's backing and a willingness to cross an ocean.
The marriage happened quickly, as Fille du Roi marriages always did. On 4 June 1672, Pierre Morin and Catherine Lemesle signed a marriage contract before the notary Gilles Rageot. The contract specified communauté de biens—community of property—and a douaire préfix of 300 livres. Notably, the contract does not use the word soldat. Pierre is not identified by any military title. This is typical of Carignan veterans by 1672: they had been civilians for four years.
Signatures on the 1672 marriage contract. Among the witnesses: Denis-Joseph Ruette d'Auteuil, member of the Sovereign Council—an unusually prominent figure for a common soldier's wedding.
But the witnesses tell a different story. Among those who signed was Denis-Joseph Ruette d'Auteuil, a member of the Sovereign Council of New France—the colony's highest governing body. His presence at the marriage contract of a common former soldier is remarkable. Ruette d'Auteuil's involvement in military administration, combined with his role as a colonial official who helped settle Carignan veterans, suggests that Pierre's marriage was facilitated through the same institutional channels that placed Filles du Roi with former soldiers. This is one of the five evidence lines that confirm Pierre's military service.
The marriage banns were published on three consecutive days—6, 7, and 12 June 1672—a compressed schedule consistent with Fille du Roi marriages, where the Crown wanted rapid unions. The banns describe Pierre as "habitant de la Petite Rivière" and identify the officiating priest as Henry de Bernières, curé of Notre-Dame-de-Québec. The witnesses were Jean Jolin and Pierre Baudin—names that would appear again in the family's story.
On 13 June 1672, Pierre Morin and Catherine Lemesle were married at Notre-Dame-de-Québec. He was approximately twenty-two. She was twenty-six. The soldier had a wife. The Fille du Roi had a home.
There is one more detail about the notary who recorded their contract. Gilles Rageot was married to Marie-Madeleine Morin—youngest daughter of Noël Morin, the master cartwright and Seigneur de Saint-Luc who is the other Morin ancestor in the Guilbault line. Pierre Morin's marriage contract was drawn up by the son-in-law of the most prominent Morin in Québec. Two unrelated Morin families, one from Poitou and one from Brie-Comte-Robert near Paris, both flowing into the same family tree—and linked, at their earliest documented moment, by a notary who married into one family and recorded the other's most important document.
6. Between River and City — Eight Children, Three Lost
Pierre and Catherine's life together can be tracked through the baptisms of their children, each record fixing the family at a particular location at a particular moment. The pattern that emerges is not one of restless wandering but of deliberate movement between two anchors: the rural community of Petite-Rivière on the Côte-de-Beaupré, and the urban heart of Québec itself.
Petite-Rivière-Saint-François today—the village on the Côte-de-Beaupré where Pierre was living when he married Catherine in 1672, and where their family returned repeatedly between 1685 and 1700.
Their first child, Marie Anne, was baptized in 1673—our direct ancestor, who would marry Guillaume Deguise dit Flamand and carry both the Morin and Lemesle blood into the Guilbault line. In 1676, son Jean was baptized at Rivière-Saint-Charles, indicating the family had moved closer to Québec. By 1681, the census places them squarely in the Basse-Ville (Lower Town) of Québec: Pierre age 34, Catherine age 35, four children, one gun, five cattle, ten arpents cleared. Pierre's profession is not recorded in this census—unlike François Séguin, who declared himself a weaver, Pierre's occupation remains one of the silences in his record.
1681 Census, Seigneurie de Québec, Basse-Ville: Pierre Morin, 34, and Catherine Lemesle, 35, with four children, one gun, five cattle, and ten arpents cleared.
But by 1685, the baptisms tell us they had returned to Petite-Rivière. Daughter Marie Jeanne was baptized there on 22 April 1685, and the godparents reveal the family's social world: Pierre Bodin (the same Pierre Baudin who had witnessed the marriage banns thirteen years earlier—a documented relationship spanning over a decade) and Jeanne Brassard, wife of Jacques Hédouin, a Petite-Rivière neighbor. When daughter Marie Madeleine was baptized in 1687, her godmother was Marie Madeleine Hédouin, wife of Jean Sabatier—the same Hédouin family appearing again. These were not casual connections but the deep bonds of a small rural community.
Eight children came in all. Three did not survive childhood:
| # | Name | Born | Died | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marie Anne | 1673 | 1743 | OUR ANCESTOR • m. Guillaume Deguise dit Flamand, 1691 |
| 2 | Jean | 28 Jan 1676 | 5 Aug 1687 (age 11) | Baptized at Rivière-Saint-Charles |
| 3 | Pierre (first) | c. 1677 | Unknown (likely died young) | No baptism, death, or marriage record survives |
| 4 | Louise | 1678 | 1710 | m. Jacques Payant, 1699 |
| 5 | Joseph | 1682 | 1735 | ANCESTOR (via Bridault line) • m. (1) Marie Anne Brideau, 1704; m. (2) Dorothée Girardin |
| 6 | Marie Jeanne | 22 Apr 1685 | 25 Nov 1755 | m. Jean Baptiste Legris Lépine, 1711 |
| 7 | Marie Madeleine | 17 Jan 1687 | 3 Jan 1689 (age 2) | Baptized at Petite-Rivière |
| 8 | Pierre Jean (second) | 17 Oct 1690 | 25 Jan 1747 | m. Marie Louise Bezeau, 1721 • 10 children |
Jean, the eldest son, died on 5 August 1687 at the age of eleven. The burial record at Boucherville lists Catherine as "LEMENU"—one of the many variant spellings that colonial scribes applied to her name. Marie Madeleine died eighteen months later, on 3 January 1689, at age two. The first Pierre disappears from the record entirely—no death, no marriage, no trace. Three children lost before any of them reached adulthood.
The five who survived would produce families of their own across the St. Lawrence lowlands: Marie Anne at Québec, Joseph at L'Ancienne-Lorette (twelve children with his first wife alone), Louise at Québec, Marie Jeanne at Longueuil, Pierre Jean at L'Ancienne-Lorette. Between them, they carried Pierre and Catherine's blood into what genealogists estimate at 560,000 to 980,000 living Québécois descendants.
7. The Hôtel-Dieu Years — Illness and Death, 1696–1706
The last decade of Pierre and Catherine's life together is illuminated by an unusual source: the Registre journalier des malades of the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, the daily patient register kept by the Augustinian nursing sisters from 1689 to 1760. Published by Marcel Fournier and Gisèle Monarque through Archiv-Histo.com, this register tracks admissions by date, patient name, age, origin, and outcome. It reveals that Catherine Lemesle was chronically ill for the last fourteen years of her husband's life—and beyond.
Plan de l'Hôtel-Dieu before the fire of 1695, showing the "Salle des Pauvres" (ward for the sick) at lower left and the "Plan du Couuent des Dames Religieuses Hospitallieres" at right. Illustration by Gédéon de Catalogne. Archives of the City of Montreal.
Her first recorded admission was on 1 November 1696: "Morin, femme de Pierre Morin." She was approximately fifty years old. Four years later, on 12 August 1700, she appeared again: "Demelle, Catherine (50 ans), Petite-Rivière-Saint-François, femme de Pierre Morin." This entry is significant for two reasons: it confirms the family was still connected to Petite-Rivière as late as 1700, filling a documentary gap between the 1687 baptisms and Pierre's 1706 death; and it shows that Catherine was identified as "Demelle"—one of at least five variant spellings her name acquired across different scribes (Lemesle, Lemesne, Demelle, Chasterine, Lemenu).
Archiv-Histo, page 474: "Demelle, Catherine (50 ans), Petite-Rivière-Saint-François, femme de Pierre Morin" — 12 August 1700. This entry confirms the family's continued connection to Petite-Rivière and Catherine's chronic illness.
Then, in the autumn of 1706, both Pierre and Catherine arrived at the Hôtel-Dieu within two weeks of each other. Pierre was admitted on 18 November. Catherine on 1 December. Whether they suffered from the same illness, or whether Catherine collapsed from the strain of caring for a dying husband, the register does not say. What it records is two names on the same page of the same book, thirteen days apart—a married couple in the twilight of a shared life.
Pierre died on 12 December 1706. The burial register entry is precise: "Pierre Morin, âgé de 56 ans, de Poiton, de la Paroisse de Sᵗ Estienne de l'Euesché de Luson, mort le 12ᵐᵉ Decembre." It is the fourth and final document to name his origin. He was buried from the Hôtel-Dieu—as his son Pierre Jr. would be, forty-one years later, in 1747.
Archiv-Histo, page 620: "Lemesle, Catherine (50 ans), femme de Pierre Morin" — 1 December 1706. Admitted thirteen days before Pierre's death on December 12.
Dying at the Hôtel-Dieu was not a mark of poverty. The hospital, run by Augustinian nursing sisters, served as the main medical facility of early Québec—admitting settlers with serious illness, elderly individuals requiring skilled nursing, accident victims, and respected citizens. Among Carignan veterans specifically, hospital deaths were common: men who had endured harsh physical service—building fortifications in winter, campaigning on snowshoes, clearing land for decades—often entered later life with chronic conditions. Pierre's death at 56 fits this pattern.
8. Catherine Alone — The Widow Years, 1706–1721
Catherine survived Pierre by at least fifteen years. The Hôtel-Dieu register tracks her continued hospitalizations with the precision of institutional record-keeping:
17 April 1707 — "Catherine (55 ans), Poitou, femme de Pierre Morin"
3 March 1708 — "Lemesle, Catherine, femme de Pierre Morin"
8 May 1708 — "Chasterine (58 ans), femme de Pierre Morin"
7 February 1710 — "Lemesne, Catherine (66 ans), Normandie, femme de Pierre Morin"
Several things stand out in these entries. First, Catherine was still identified as "femme de Pierre Morin" years after his death—not veuve (widow), but femme (wife). The hospital scribes apparently did not always update a woman's marital status. Second, her age is wildly inconsistent: 50 in 1706, 55 in 1707, 58 in 1708, 66 in 1710. The 1710 entry at age 66 is closest to her actual baptism date of April 1646. Third, her origin shifts: in 1707 she is listed as from "Poitou"—her husband's origin, not hers—while in 1710 she is correctly recorded as from "Normandie." The hospital scribes were drawing on whatever information the patient or her family provided at each admission.
On 14 April 1708, a "fille de Pierre Morin" from Petite-Rivière-Saint-François was also admitted—one of Pierre's surviving daughters (Marie Anne, Louise, or Marie Jeanne). Even the children were appearing in the hospital register, the family's health a recurring thread across the same institutional pages.
Catherine's last documented appearance outside the hospital is on 29 June 1721, at the wedding of her youngest son Pierre Jr. to Marie Louise Bezeau at L'Ancienne-Lorette. The marriage record identifies Pierre Jr. as "fils de deffunt Pierre Morin et de Catherine le Mesle"—father deceased, mother not marked as deceased. Catherine was alive and present, at approximately age seventy-five, to see her last child married.
After that, silence. No burial record for Catherine Lemesle has ever been identified. The Fichier Origine records her death as "after 8 June 1721." She may have died at the home of one of her children, or at the Hôtel-Dieu, or in a parish whose registers did not survive. Wherever she lies, she lies without a known grave—a Fille du Roi from Rouen who crossed an ocean at twenty-six, raised eight children, buried three of them and a husband, endured fourteen years of chronic illness, and lived long enough to witness her family taking root in the colony she had been sent to populate.
9. Descendants — Two Ancestral Lines
Pierre and Catherine's blood flows into the Guilbault line through two of their children, making them ancestors twice over through different pathways that converge at Évangéliste Guilbault (1845–1883).
The first line runs through their eldest daughter, Marie Anne Morin (1673–1743), who married Guillaume Deguise dit Flamand on 12 August 1691 at Notre-Dame-de-Québec. Their daughter Marie Catherine Antoinette Deguise dit Flamand (1704–1731) married Charles Guilbault—entering the patrilineal Guilbault line directly. This is the primary ancestral path: Pierre Morin → Marie Anne Morin → Marie Catherine Antoinette Deguise → Charles Gabriel Guilbault → Gabriel Guilbault père → Gabriel Guilbeault fils → Évangéliste Guilbault.
The second line runs through their son Joseph Morin (1682–1735), who married first Marie Anne Brideau in 1704 (twelve children, all born at L'Ancienne-Lorette) and then Dorothée Girardin. Through the Bridault line, Joseph's descendants also converge at Évangéliste Guilbault—making Pierre and Catherine ancestors from both the father's and mother's sides of the same family.
The Denis Beauregard database estimates their total living descendants at between 560,000 and 980,000 Québécois—a remarkable legacy for a soldier from a parish whose registers did not preserve his birth, and a merchant's daughter from Rouen who could not sign her name.
10. How This Biography Was Built
This documentary biography rests on 69 primary source images and archival references spanning 1646 to 1721, assembled over the course of a multi-year research project. The evidence base includes marriage contracts, parish registers (baptisms, marriages, burials), census records, Hôtel-Dieu medical admissions, military attribution databases, and notarial records from BAnQ, PRDH-IGD, FamilySearch, the Archives départementales de la Seine-Maritime, and the Archiv-Histo published registry.
Pierre's military service in the Carignan-Salières Regiment is established not by any single document but through five converging evidence lines—an approach consistent with the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) standard of proof by preponderance of evidence. The full analysis is presented in the companion case study and methodology page.
What remains unfound: Pierre's baptism at Saint-Étienne-de-Brillouet (parish registers have gaps; searched, not found); additional notarial acts beyond the 1672 marriage contract (BAnQ Parchemin searched, none located); Catherine's burial record (never identified); and any inventaire après décès (post-death inventory). These absences are documented as negative findings rather than gaps in research—the sources were sought and not found, which is itself a recordable conclusion.
What the documents prove: Pierre's origin is confirmed by four independent primary sources (1672 marriage contract, 1672 marriage banns ×2 copies, 1706 Hôtel-Dieu admissions, 1706 burial register). Catherine's origin is confirmed by her French baptism record plus the marriage contract and Fichier Origine. The family's residential movements are reconstructed from children's baptism locations and Hôtel-Dieu admission entries. All eight children are documented with baptism and/or PRDH records.
Research and narrative by Mary Hamall Morales, Storyline Genealogy. Primary sources accessed through BAnQ, PRDH-IGD (Université de Montréal), FamilySearch, Archives départementales de la Seine-Maritime, and Archiv-Histo.com. Hôtel-Dieu medical history from Marcel Fournier & Gisèle Monarque, Registre journalier des malades de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, 1689–1760.
Complete Research File
This documentary biography draws on a curated selection of 48 primary source images. The complete research inventory includes 69 Squarespace images, 10 Archiv-Histo page references, PRDH individual records for all 8 children, detail transcriptions, examined-but-excluded evidence (including the Chambly confirmation), and full source citations for every document consulted.
Access the Complete Research File → (password protected)
Key Dates
Connection to The Guilbault Line
Primary Source Documents
Maps & Places
Marriage Records — June 1672
Census Records
Catherine's French Origin
Children's Baptism Records
Children Who Died Young
Death & Hôtel-Dieu Records
Military Identification
Database Records
Sources & Citations
Primary Sources
- Catherine's Baptism (1646): Saint-Pierre-du-Châtel Parish, Rouen. Archives départementales de la Seine-Maritime, 3E 1, Registre 557.
- Marriage Contract (1672): Notary Gilles Rageot, Act No. 871, 4 June 1672. BAnQ, CN301, S238, ID 78360.
- Marriage Banns (1672): Notre-Dame-de-Québec Parish, first copy (Nᵒ 729) and second register copy (117/1672/413).
- Marriage Register (1672): Notre-Dame-de-Québec Parish, 13 June 1672.
- Census (1667): Library and Archives Canada. Petite-Rivière, Côte-de-Beaupré—probable identification as "Pierre Martin."
- Census (1681): Recensement de la Nouvelle-France, Québec, Basse-Ville. LAC.
- Children's Baptisms (1673–1690): Notre-Dame-de-Québec, Rivière-Saint-Charles, Petite-Rivière parishes.
- Children's Burials (1687–1689): Boucherville and Petite-Rivière parishes.
- Hôtel-Dieu Admissions (1696–1710): Fournier, Marcel, and Gisèle Monarque. Registre journalier des malades de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, 1689–1760. Archiv-Histo.com. pp. 330, 474, 613, 620, 629, 648, 651, 652, 692.
- Burial Register (1706): Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, 12 December 1706.
Secondary Sources
- Beauregard, Denis. "Genealogy of French in North America." © 2005–2026.
- PRDH-IGD. Individual #53641, Family record, Pioneer record, Burial record, List of Migrants #402529. Université de Montréal.
- Fichier Origine. Catherine Lemesle entry.
- SFRSC (Société des Filles du Roi et Soldats du Carignan). Confirmed Soldiers List, January 2025.
- Verney, Jack. The Good Regiment: The Carignan-Salières Regiment in Canada, 1665–1668. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991. Appendix B, pp. 145–185.
- Laforest, Thomas J. Our French Canadian Ancestors, Volume 16 (Noël Morin chapter). LISI Press.
Related Case Study & Methodology
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