Janvier Soulière Sr. 1806 – 1889
Janvier Soulière Sr.
Birth: 19 January 1806 · Baptism: 25 January 1806, Rigaud (Ste-Madeleine)
Father: Jacques Soulière (Episode 4) · Mother: Marie Elisabeth Poulin
First marriage: 17 November 1828, St-Benoît — Esther Lacasse Lacoste (d. May 1849) — eleven children
Second marriage: 29 April 1850, St-André-Est — Elisabeth Gravel (d. July 1872) — eight children
Third marriage: 1876, St-André — Sophie Rousson, widow of Jean Baptiste Leblanc — no recorded children
Occupation: journalier in every parish act from 1862 to 1887; Mason in the censuses of 1871 and 1881, which also record that he could not read or write
Death: 5 December 1889, St-André-d'Argenteuil — aged 83
A note on evidence
This page follows the standard of the rest of the series. What a record states is kept separate from what a database reports, and database records are given as tables rather than as card images. Parish acts reproduced here are from the copy photographed at the presbytery or the greffe; every image has been examined, and where an act is quoted the transcription is a working reading rather than a collated one.
Where the database stops. PRDH's systematic coverage ends about 1849 for baptisms and burials and 1871 for marriages. From the 1850s onward it is not a check on anything here — it is simply absent. Everything on this page after 1849 rests on parish registers and censuses, and is cited as such.
He is not his eldest son. Janvier Soulière fils, born 1829, married Marcelline Turpin and settled at Ottawa, where his daughters were born; two twentieth-century notices call him a pioneer of Bytown. That family is not this page's. Anything found under the name should be checked against the wife: Lacasse, Gravel or Rousson here; Turpin there.
Rigaud, January 1806
He was born on 19 January 1806 and baptised six days later at Sainte-Madeleine de Rigaud — the third son of Jacques Soulière and Marie Elisabeth Poulin, and the third of their eleven children. Five of his brothers and sisters would not live to be five years old.
His given name is unusual and the registers offer no explanation for it. He was born in January and christened in January, and beyond that nothing is stated.
Baptism of Janvier Soulière, 25 January 1806, Rigaud (Ste-Madeleine). Born on the 19th.
Mason, or Journalier?
No record gives his father a trade at all. The one document in Jacques Soulière's own voice is a deed of 1805 in which he gives away a village lot and states that he cannot sign; nothing anywhere calls him a mason, and this page claims no craft handed down.
What Janvier himself was called is a question the records answer two different ways.
| Date | Record | Occupation as written |
|---|---|---|
| 28 Sep 1862 | Baptism of Zéphirine, St-André | journalier |
| 21 Apr 1867 | Baptism of Hercule, St-Philippe | — (not stated) |
| 1871 | Census of Canada, St. Andrews | Mason — and unable to read or write |
| 1881 | Census of Canada, St. Andrews | Mason |
| 17 Aug 1883 | Baptism of his granddaughter Emma Guilbault, St-André | journalier |
| 20 Aug 1883 | Marriage of his daughter Zéphirine, St-André | journalier |
| 18 Apr 1887 | Marriage of his son Arthur, St-André | journalier |
But the 1871 enumerator settled one thing. On the same line where he wrote Mason, he ticked columns 18 and 19 — over 20 unable to read and over 20 unable to write — for Janvier, and again for Elisabeth Gravel. Whatever the word meant, it did not mean a man who could sign his name.
Which puts him in a line
Nicolas was a journalier in the census of Québec in 1716. Jean Bernardin was journalier de l'Isle-Jésus at his burial in 1820. Michel, his uncle, was a jobber in the census of 1851. Five generations hired by the day, across a hundred and seventy years. If the census-takers were right that he also laid stone, that is a skill added to the same condition — not an escape from it.
Esther Lacasse, 1828–1849
17 November 1828 At twenty-two he married Esther Lacasse Lacoste at Saint-Benoît, daughter of Pierre Lacasse and Marie Noël Labonté. The act places him « domicilié en la seigneurie d'Argenteuil, desservie à Ste Magdeleine de Rigaud », with banns published in both parishes. His own father was named in it without feu — which is how Episode 4 knows Jacques was still alive that November.
They had eleven children in twenty-one years.
| Child | Born | Married | Died |
|---|---|---|---|
| Janvier fils | 6 Nov 1829St-Benoît | 22 Sep 1850, Marcelline TurpinSt-André-Est — later of Ottawa | — |
| Pierre | 3 Sep 1831Rigaud | — | 22 Aug 1859St-André-Est |
| Esther | 12 Jul 1833St-André-Est | 25 Oct 1852, Gilbert DinelSt-André-Est | — |
| Louise Priscille | 28 Jan 1835Rigaud | 16 Feb 1858, Isidore GauthierSt-André-Est | — |
| Maxime | 22 Dec 1836St-André-Est | — | 26 Mar 1843aged six |
| Fabien | 12 Jan 1839St-André-Est | 11 Jul 1859, Marcelline Villiot LatourOttawa, basilique Notre-Dame | — |
| Emery | 13 Mar 1841St-André-Est | — | 21 Mar 1843aged two |
| Émilie | 16 Jul 1843St-André-Est | not recorded | alive 1862 |
| Emmanuel | 21 May 1845St-André-Est | not recorded | shoemaker, at home 1871 |
| Mathilde | 5 Apr 1847St-André-Est | not recorded | — |
| Domitille | 3 May 1849St-André-Est | not recorded | alive 1871 |
One week in March 1843
Emery was buried on the 21st, aged two. Maxime was buried on the 26th, aged six. Five days apart. No cause is recorded for either, and none is claimed here.
And ten days in May 1849
Domitille was born on 3 May 1849. Esther Lacasse died on the 13th, aged thirty-eight, after twenty-one years of marriage and eleven children.
The interval is what the records give. No act states a cause, and this page does not supply one — the same restraint the series applied to Marguerite Payment in 1744, where a plausible story about childbirth turned out to be wrong.
The marriage of 17 November 1828 at Saint-Benoît. Janvier was twenty-two; Esther seventeen.
Elisabeth Gravel, 1850–1872
29 April 1850 Eleven months a widower with a household of children, he married Elisabeth Gravel at Saint-André-Est. She was born at Montréal on 22 October 1822, daughter of Louis Gravel and Marie Elisabeth Décary — twenty-seven to his forty-four. She raised his children and bore eight more.
| Child | Born | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Emma | 6 May 1851 | m. 12 Nov 1870, Isaïe Therrien; died January 1879, aged twenty-eight |
| Alfred | 12 Feb 1853 | died 27 March 1854, buried the 29th — thirteen months |
| Marie Marguerite Louise | 8 Dec 1854 | Episode 6 — m. Evangéliste Guilbault, 1879; died 1945, aged ninety-one |
| Marcelline | 2 Feb 1857 | m. 28 Apr 1883, Joseph Ladouceur; died 1912 |
| Marie Olivine Anne | 19 Feb 1859 | m. 1882, Joseph Clement; m. 1918, Thomas Carrière; died Ottawa, 1943 |
| Louis Jacques Joseph | 11 Sep 1860 | went to Ottawa in 1872; m. 1905, Maria Lamirande; died 1947 |
| Marie Elizabeth Zéphirine | 14 Sep 1862 | baptised 28 September; m. 20 Aug 1883, Charest Clement |
| Hercule | April 1867 | baptised 21 April at St-Philippe; married in 1887 as Arthur |
Two dates corrected from the registers
Hercule was born in 1867, not 1866. The act of 21 April 1867 is transcribed below, and the census of 1881 gives his age as fourteen, which agrees.
Zéphirine was born on 14 September 1862 and baptised a fortnight later. Both children fall past PRDH's coverage and rest on the register acts alone.
Baptism of Zéphirine, 28 September 1862, Saint-André
« Le vingt-huit septembre mil huit cent soixante-deux, nous prêtre soussigné avons baptisé Marie Elizabeth Zéphirine née quatorze jours auparavant du légitime mariage de Janvier Soulière journalier et de Elizabeth Gravel de cette paroisse. Parrain Emmanuel Soulière frère de l'enfant, marraine Emilie Soulière sœur de l'enfant, qui, ainsi que le père, n'ont pu signer. »
Parish register of Saint-André-d'Argenteuil, 1862, folio 16, entry B.69. Signed L. Boisvert ptre. Working reading, September 2026.
The half-siblings hold the child
The godparents are Émilie, born 1843, and Emmanuel, born 1845 — two of Esther Lacasse's children, standing for their father's daughter by his second wife. Here they are, nineteen and seventeen, at the font.
And the father could not sign.
Baptism of Hercule, 21 April 1867, Saint-Philippe
« Ce vingt-un Avril, mil huit cent soixante-sept, nous prêtre soussigné, avons baptisé Hercule né le […] du courant, du légitime mariage de Janvier Soulière et d'Elizabette Gravelle de cette paroisse. Ont été parrain et marraine Hercule Proulx et Delphine Bigras qui ainsi que le père n'ont su signer. »
Parish register of Saint-Philippe, comté d'Argenteuil, 1867, folio 9, entry B.24. Working reading, September 2026.
The family was at Saint-Philippe that spring, not Saint-André. Twelve days earlier, on the same register page, the priest had buried Fabien Dinel, small son of Gilbert Dinel et d'Esther Soulière — Janvier's daughter by his first marriage. Two households of this family were in that parish at once.
The register at Saint-André, September 1862. Zéphirine's baptism is entry B.69.
Hercule's baptism, 21 April 1867 — qui ainsi que le père n'ont su signer.
27 July 1872 Elisabeth Gravel died, aged forty-nine. They had been married twenty-two years. That same year her son Joseph, then eleven, went to live at Ottawa — a move his 1947 obituary dates to 1872 without saying why.
Burial of Elisabeth Gravel, July 1872, Saint-André.
Sophie Rousson, and the Household of 1881
1876 At seventy he married a third time: Sophie Rousson, widow of Jean Baptiste Leblanc. No children of this marriage are recorded. She outlived him and was buried in July 1898.
| Name | Age | Occupation | Cannot read | Cannot write |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Souliere, Janvier | 69 | Mason | 1 | 1 |
| Elizabeth | 49 | — | 1 | 1 |
| Manuel | 26 | Shoe Maker | — | — |
| Demitille | 22 | — | — | — |
| Louisa | 16 | — | — | — |
| Marceline | 14 | — | — | — |
| Anna | 12 | — | — | — |
| Joseph | 9 | — | — | — |
| Zephire | 8 | — | — | — |
| Hurcule | 4 | — | — | — |
Two of the lost children are here
Emmanuel is twenty-six and a SHOE MAKER, unmarried, still in his father's house — and he is the first man in this family, across six generations, with a named craft. Beside him is Domitille at twenty-two, born ten days before her mother died. Both are children of the first marriage; both had stood as godparents to Zéphirine nine years earlier.
This is the last place either of them is seen. After 1871 the record has nothing for Emmanuel, nothing for Domitille, and nothing for their sisters Émilie and Mathilde.
1871 Census, District 96 Argenteuil, sub-district St. Andrews, page 84. Ten lines, headed Souliere, Janvier — Mason, with the read and write columns ticked against his name.
| Name | Age | Occupation | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Janvier Soulier | 76 | Mason | French, Catholic |
| Sophie | 58 | — | |
| Merceline | 24 | — | |
| Hercule | 14 | — | |
| Anna | 22 | — |
1881 Census, District 96 Argenteuil, sub-district St. Andrews. Five lines, headed Soulier, Janvier — Mason.
Three Days in August 1883
Two acts on the same opening of the Saint-André register, three days apart, and Janvier is in both.
17 August 1883 — baptism of his granddaughter
« Le dix-sept Août mil huit cent quatre-vingt-trois, nous curé soussigné avons baptisé Guilbeault Elizabeth Emma, née le treize courant, fille légitime de Evangeliste Guilbeault journalier et de Louise Soulière de cette paroisse. Parrain, [Jan]vier Soulière journalier, marraine, Sophie Rousson son épouse, de cette paroisse, lesquels ont déclaré ne savoir signer. Lecture faite. Le père absent. »
Parish register of Saint-André-d'Argenteuil, 1883, folio 18, entry B.56. Signed J. B. Bourget ptre. Working reading, September 2026.
This is Episode 7 being born
Elisabeth Emma Guilbault, born 13 August 1883, is Marie Louise Soulière's daughter and the subject of Episode 7 — and her godparents are her grandfather Janvier and his third wife Sophie. Neither could sign. Her own father was not there.
The priest wrote the godfather's forename in a form that reads as Xavier; Sophie Rousson is named as his wife in the same clause, which identifies him past doubt.
And four months later
Burial, 7 December 1883, Saint-André
« Le sept Décembre mil huit cent quatre-vingt trois, nous curé soussigné avons inhumé dans le cimetière de cette paroisse le corps d'Évangéliste Guilbeault, époux de Louise Soulière, décédé l'avant-veille, âgé d'environ trente-six ans. Témoins: Joseph Ladouceur et Joseph Clément de cette paroisse, lesquels ont déclaré ne savoir signer. »
Parish register of Saint-André-d'Argenteuil, 1883, folio 25, entry S.33. Signed J. B. Bourget ptre. Working reading, September 2026.
Emma's father died on 5 December 1883
She was baptised on 17 August with her father absent. Sixteen weeks later he was dead, at about thirty-six, and buried in the same churchyard. No cause is stated, and none is claimed here — a father's absence from a baptism was an ordinary thing in a parish of day labourers, and the two facts sit near each other in the register without the register joining them.
The witnesses were the family. Joseph Ladouceur had married Louise's sister Marcelline that April; Joseph Clément had married her sister Anna the year before. Two brothers-in-law carried him, and neither could sign.
Marie Louise Soulière was twenty-eight, and her daughter was not four months old. She would live another sixty-two years. That is Episode 6.
20 August 1883 — marriage of his daughter
« […] entre Charest Clement domicilié à Ste-Scholastique, fils mineur de Xavier Clement et de défunte Adéline Paquet […] et Zéphirine Soulière domiciliée en cette paroisse, fille mineure de Janvier Soulière, journalier, et de défunte Elizabeth Gravel […] en présence de Joseph Clement, père de l'époux, et de Janvier Soulière père de l'épouse, lesquels ainsi que l'époux ont déclaré ne savoir écrire. L'épouse a signé. »
Same opening, entry M.11. The signature reads Zéphie Soulière. Working reading, September 2026.
« L'épouse a signé »
Both fathers declared they could not write. The groom declared he could not write. The bride signed her own name.
Nicolas made his mark at Saint-Jean in 1698. Jean and every Suyer in the room made theirs at Québec in 1716. Jean Bernardin's household made theirs in 1744, 1757 and 1771. Jacques made his in 1805, 1807 and 1818. Jean Bernardin fils was buried in 1820 by two witnesses who could not sign. Janvier made his mark in 1862, in 1867, and here in 1883, standing beside her.
Zéphirine Soulière is the first person in this line, across six generations and one hundred and eighty-five years, whose own handwriting survives.
August 1883 at Saint-André. Emma Guilbault's baptism is B.56 on the left; Zéphirine's marriage is M.11 on the right, and her signature closes it.
December 1883, folio 25. Entry S.33: Évangéliste Guilbeault, époux de Louise Soulière.
1887 and 1889
18 April 1887 His youngest son married at Saint-André — baptised Hercule in 1867 and married as Arthur twenty years later, journalier like his father, and a minor at twenty.
Marriage of Arthur Soulière and Victoria Tessier dit Lavigne
« […] entre Arthur Soulière journalier, fils mineur de Janvier Soulière journalier et de feue Elizabeth Gravel de cette paroisse d'une part, et Victoria Tessier dit Lavigne domiciliée de cette paroisse, fille mineure de Jean Tessier dit Lavigne, ouvrier […] »
Parish register of Saint-André-d'Argenteuil, 1887, folio 6, entry M.2. Signed J. Archambault, curé. Working reading, September 2026.
5 December 1889 Janvier Soulière died at Saint-André-d'Argenteuil — six years to the day after his son-in-law Évangéliste Guilbault. He was eighty-three. The burial act gives his age as eighty-eight; he was born on 19 January 1806 and the arithmetic is not close. Stated ages at burial run loose in this family — his own grandmother's act gave seventy-five when she was seventy-one.
Burial of Janvier Soulière, 5 December 1889, Saint-André-d'Argenteuil.
Legacy
His son Emmanuel was cutting shoe leather at twenty-six while his father was still hired by the day. Nineteen children by two wives, and a third wife for the last thirteen years. Two of them died in one week of March 1843. One was born ten days before her mother died. Five of the eleven from the first marriage vanish from the record after their childhood, and three of those five were daughters.
He never wrote his name. What he did instead was stand at fonts and altars: godfather to his own granddaughter at seventy-seven, witness at his daughter's wedding three days later, named as journalier in the acts every time. Through Marie Louise, born in December 1854, the line runs to Emma Guilbault and to the present.
Document Gallery
The parish acts, censuses and photographs behind this page. Database records are given as tables in the text above rather than here, so that what a database reports and what a record states are not shown side by side as though they were the same kind of evidence.
Janvier — Rigaud
Esther Lacasse — St-Benoît
Canada East
Emma
Alfred
Alfred, thirteen months
Marie Louise — Episode 6
Marcelline
Canada East
Louis Jacques Joseph
Zéphirine — St-André
Hercule — St-Philippe
ainsi que le père n'ont su signer
Janvier Mason, Manuel Shoe Maker
Household detail
Elisabeth Gravel
Sophie Rousson
Emma Soulière Therrien, 28
Marie Louise & Guilbault
Janvier, Sophie, Marcelline, Hercule, Anna
Anna & Joseph Clement
Marcelline & Ladouceur
Emma's baptism & Zéphirine's signature
Arthur (Hercule) & Victoria Lavigne
Janvier Soulière Sr.
Sophie Rousson
Hercule, Victoria & child
St-Philippe register
Évangéliste Guilbault, 36
Marie Louise, Zéphirine, Anna, Marcelline
Sources
Parish registers — parish copy, examined
- Baptism of Marie Elizabeth Zéphirine, 28 September 1862, Saint-André-d'Argenteuil, folio 16, entry B.69. Transcribed above. Born 14 September; father journalier; godparents her half-siblings Émilie and Emmanuel; the father could not sign.
- Baptism of Hercule, 21 April 1867, Saint-Philippe (comté d'Argenteuil), folio 9, entry B.24. Transcribed above. Gives his birth year as 1867; the ages in the censuses of 1871 and 1881 agree.
- Baptism of Elizabeth Emma Guilbeault, 17 August 1883, Saint-André, folio 18, entry B.56. Transcribed above. Godparents Janvier Soulière and Sophie Rousson; the father absent.
- Marriage of Charest Clement and Zéphirine Soulière, 20 August 1883, Saint-André, same opening, entry M.11. Transcribed above. « L'épouse a signé » — signature Zéphie Soulière.
- Burial of Évangéliste Guilbeault, 7 December 1883, Saint-André, folio 25, entry S.33. Transcribed above. Died 5 December, aged about thirty-six; witnesses Joseph Ladouceur and Joseph Clément, neither able to sign.
- Marriage of Arthur Soulière and Victoria Tessier dit Lavigne, 18 April 1887, Saint-André, folio 6, entry M.2. Transcribed above.
- Baptism of Janvier, 25 January 1806, Rigaud (Ste-Madeleine); marriage to Esther Lacasse, 17 November 1828, Saint-Benoît; marriage to Sophie Rousson, 1876; baptisms of Emma (1851), Alfred (1853), Marie Louise (1854), Marcelline (1857) and Louis Jacques Joseph (1860); burials of Alfred (1854), Elisabeth Gravel (1872), Emma Soulière Therrien (1879), Janvier (1889) and Sophie Rousson (1898); marriages of Marie Louise (1879), Anna (1882) and Marcelline (1883). Examined; not transcribed here.
Census
- 1871 Census of Canada, Province of Quebec, District 96 Argenteuil, sub-district e, St. Andrews, page 84, household 266 / family 283. Rendered above as a table. Records the occupations of Janvier and Emmanuel and the illiteracy of both parents. Badly indexed — the head of household's forename has been transcribed several ways and will not be found under Janvier in every index.
- 1881 Census of Canada, same district, page 26, lines 5–9. Enumerator Theodore Davis. Rendered above as a table.
- Censuses of 1851 and 1861, same district. Examined.
Database
- PRDH-IGD — individual no. 699525 (Janvier); no. 918728 (Elisabeth Gravel); no. 3817858 (Alfred); families nos. 165841 (Lacasse) and 266734 (Gravel); no. 1281053 (Emma and Isaïe Therrien). Database fields are not transcriptions of acts, and PRDH does not cover this family past 1871.
Not located, or not resolved
- The four children of the first marriage who vanish after 1871: Émilie (b. 1843), Emmanuel (b. 1845, shoemaker), Mathilde (b. 1847) and Domitille (b. 1849). Emmanuel and Domitille are in the 1871 household; Émilie was godmother in 1862. No marriage, burial or later census entry has been found for any of them.
- Whether Janvier was in fact a mason, or whether two enumerators recorded a trade the parish priests never used for him.
- Why the family was at Saint-Philippe in April 1867 rather than Saint-André.
- The birth date of Louis Jacques Joseph: PRDH gives 11 September 1860, his 1947 obituary gives 11 September 1859.
- Sophie Rousson's parentage and age, from the 1876 act.
- What Évangéliste Guilbault died of, and what became of his widow's household. The burial states no cause. A tutelle for the minor child, or an inventory after his death, would be among the Superior Court records for the judicial district and has not been searched. Properly Episode 6's question.
- For a separate page: Janvier Soulière fils (b. 1829) and Marcelline Turpin, of Ottawa — called a pioneer of Bytown in two twentieth-century notices, with daughters Marie-Anne (m. Joseph Croteau) and Alexina (m. Lavoie).
Storyline Genealogy
From Research to Story
Are You Connected to the Souliere Line?
If you descend from the Souliere, Suliere, or Soulier (dit Tranchemontagne) family of L’Assomption and St-André-d’Argenteuil, from the nineteen children of Janvier Souliere Sr., or from the allied Gravel, Poulin, Migneron, Lacasse, or Lesage lines — whether your branch stayed in Quebec or came to Chicago — I’d like to compare notes. Documented trees, DNA matches, family papers, and even half-remembered stories have all moved this research forward.
Get in Touch About This FamilyCousin connections are informal and reciprocal — no fee, no obligation, just shared work on shared ancestry.
Questions about your own research? Begin a research inquiry.
