The Complete Record
A documentary biography is only as strong as the documents behind it. This archive presents them.
The companion documentary biography of Marguerite Gaulin tells her story across seventy-six years and two continents. The methodology page documents how that story was assembled, source by source. This archive is the third leg of the triangle: a visual catalog of every primary source, every derivative database card, and every contextual image referenced in the research.
Each document is labeled with its identifier from the working research log (D-001 through D-056), its evidentiary tier (primary source, database derivative, or contextual reference), and a brief caption naming what it documents and where the original survives. The six sections move geographically and chronologically — from the parish records of seventeenth-century Perche, across the Atlantic to the parish and notarial records of New France, through the three royal censuses, and finally to the database compilations and cartographic context that frame the whole.
Each baptism is presented with its primary register entry paired with its PRDH-IGD database card — the dual-source pattern that closes a research arc. Where the register survives only through Godbout's 1925 verbatim transcription, that compilation is treated as the closest accessible primary record.
France: The Perche Origins
The documentary trail begins in the rolling country of the Perche, west of Paris, where Marguerite Gaulin was baptized in May 1627. Her parish was Saint-Martin-du-Vieux-Bellême. Her future husband Jean Crête was baptized twenty miles away, at Saint-Aubin de Tourouvre, in November 1626. Both parish registers survive in transcription or partial original at the Archives départementales de l'Orne (AD-61).
The Saint-Martin entries for the Gaulin family survive primarily through Archange Godbout's 1925 verbatim transcription, Origine des familles canadiennes-françaises, which copied the register entries before mid-twentieth-century access restrictions. The Tourouvre entries survive in the original parish register at AD-61.
Godbout: Gaulin-Bonnemer Family
Archange Godbout, Origine des familles canadiennes-françaises, p. 168 — verbatim transcriptions of four Gaulin baptisms (Vincent 1620, Marie 1623, Marguerite 1627, François 1630) from the Saint-Martin parish register.
Marguerite Gaulin's Baptism
"Le quatorzième de may aud[it] an (1627) fut baptisée Marguerite, fille de Vincent Gollins et de Marie Boulemer; fut son parrain Martin Messot, fut sa marraine Anne Bouton." (Godbout transcription)
François Gaulin's Baptism
Marguerite's youngest brother, the only sibling later documented in Quebec records (he emigrated to New France ca. 1644 and married Marie Rocheron).
Antoine Crête's Baptism
Father of Jean Crête (Marguerite's husband). Diocese of Chartres. AD-61 microfilm.
Antoine Crête × Jeanne Legrand
Marriage of Marguerite's future parents-in-law. Witnessed by Father Guillaume Loyseau. Resolves DC-04 (PRDH's "1620" was a database error).
Jean Crête's Baptism
Marguerite's future husband, son of Antoine Crête and Jeanne Legrand. Diocese of Chartres (resolves DC-09).
Marie Crête (Jean's Sister)
Jean's elder sister. Remained in France.
Choiseau Indenture
Jean Crête's indenture contract — the act that committed him to New France. AD-61.
Tourouvre Commemorative Plaque
Modern plaque at Tourouvre listing parish emigrants to New France. Names include Jean Crête and Noël Juchereau.
New France: Parish Registers
The Quebec parish registers document the central forty-nine years of Marguerite's life — from her 1654 marriage at Sieur Giffard's manor through the baptisms of her ten children, the marriages of her daughters, and her own burial in January 1703.
Each child's baptism is presented as a paired record: the primary parish register entry alongside its PRDH-IGD database card. The dual presentation is the documentary closure of each sacramental event — the register being the original ink, the PRDH card being the standardized database transcription with normalized name forms and reference number.
Crête–Gaulin Marriage
Notre-Dame de Québec marriage register, p. 121. The wedding ceremony performed in the manor house of Sieur Robert Giffard — the seigneur of Beauport.
Louis Crête — Register
Emergency-baptized at home by neighbor Anne Martin; solemn ceremonies by Joseph Poncet S.J.
Louis Crête — PRDH
Confirms birth 6 May 1656, baptism 20 May 1656; Anne Martin as ondoiement sponsor; Jérôme Lalemant as parish curé.
Marie Crête — Register
Officiated by Gabriel de Queylus (Sulpician, Vicar Apostolic). The 8th great-grandmother through whom the direct line descends.
Marie Crête — PRDH #57636
Godparents François Guyon and Marie Rocheron. Confirms birth 6 Oct, baptism 10 Oct 1657.
Marguerite I — Register
Baptized at Sieur Robert Giffard's manor house by Paul Ragueneau S.J. The first documented sacramental event at the Giffard residence.
Marguerite I — PRDH #57726
Godparents Pierre Golin and Jeanne Langlois. "BAPTISEE A BEAUPORT CHEZ M. GIFFARD."
Françoise Crête — Register
Robert Giffard personally emergency-baptized the infant at his manor "pour peril de mort." Solemn ceremonies by Paul Ragueneau S.J. Godparents: Joseph Giffard + Françoise Juchereau.
Françoise Crête — PRDH #57802
Confirms Joseph Giffard (seigneur's son) as godfather and Françoise Juchereau (daughter of Sieur de la Ferté) as godmother.
Marguerite II — Register
Officiated by Charles de Lauson de Charny (Grand Vicar — first of three Crête baptisms). Godparents: Pierre Soumandre + Marguerite Aubert. Died six weeks later.
Marguerite II — PRDH #57925
"BAPTISEE A BEAUPORT." Confirms Grand Vicar as officiant — the first of his three Crête baptisms.
Marguerite II — Burial
"Petite fille agée d'un mois et demy, fille de Jean Creste, habitant de Beauport." Aged six weeks at death. Closes the documentary arc.
Jean Crête II — Register
Officiated by Henri de Bernières, curé of Notre-Dame de Québec. Godfather: Noël Juchereau.
Jean II — PRDH #57972
Godmother Louise Coste (wife of Jean Grignon).
Joseph Crête — Register
Officiated by Charles de Lauson de Charny (Grand Vicar). Godfather: Nicolas Juchereau de St-Denis. Godmother: Michelle Thérèse Nau (wife of Joseph Giffard, seigneur of Beauport). Date corrected from "12 May" to "2 May" per PRDH.
Joseph — PRDH #58088
Confirms baptism date as 2 May 1666 (two days after birth). The fifteen-year apex of the Crête-Giffard documentary record.
Marie Crête II — Register
Officiated by Étienne de Carheil S.J. Godfather: Robert Pepin — who would marry Marie's elder sister Marie Josephte two years later.
Marie II — PRDH #58213
Robert Pepin's role as godfather predated his 1670 marriage to her sister by 2.5 years — documenting a pre-marital family-level connection.
Louise Crête — Register
Emergency-baptized by Paul Vachon (Royal Notary) "pour peril de mort." Solemn ceremonies by Jean Blanchet S.J. THIRD emergency baptism among the ten children.
Louise — PRDH #58451
"BAPTISEE PAR M. VACHON 'POUR PERIL DE MORT' A BEAUPORT." Louise was the only one of the three emergency-baptized children not to survive.
Pierre Crête — Register
Officiated by Charles de Lauson de Charny (Grand Vicar — third of three Crête baptisms). The last of the ten children. Godfather Paul Vachon (the same Royal Notary who had emergency-baptized Louise a year earlier).
Pierre — PRDH #58606
Godmother Marie Drouinville/Derinville (wife of Nicolas Bellanger).
Marie Crête × Robert Pepin
Marriage of the daughter who carries the descent line (8th GGM). Jean Crête as witness.
Louis × Madeleine Briault
The marriage Louis crossed an ocean to make. Three months before his death at sea.
Louis Crête — Burial
Died on the boat of Sieur Niel on the day of his return from France. The crossing he had survived as a fragile newborn was the crossing that killed him at twenty-nine.
Marguerite Gaulin — Burial
After forty-nine years at Beauport. Buried at the parish church of Nativité-de-Notre-Dame. Resolves DC-02 (January, not February as Lebel/Laforest had it).
Jean Crête — Burial
Fourteen years after Marguerite. Pierre Crête, the youngest son, named among the burial witnesses.
Royal Censuses, 1666–1681
Three royal census enumerations document the Crête household across fifteen years — bracketing the economic ascent from the wheelwright's lot of 1666 to the demi-seigneurial holding of 1681.
The three enumerations also document a recurring pattern of bureaucratic error: census-takers mis-recorded the surname Gaulin differently each time — Golin in 1666, Gosselin in 1667, Gaudin in 1681. The household's name was its least stable variable.
1666 Census
Jean 40, Marguerite 38, five children at home including the misrecorded "François" who was actually Françoise. Pierre Chapelier 24 as engagé.
1667 Census
Six children including infant Joseph age 1; six cattle; fifteen arpents under cultivation. Neighbors Toussaint Giroux and Pierre Lefebvre.
1681 Census
Jean 55 (charron). Two firearms, thirteen horned cattle, forty arpents of cleared land. Marie Chapacou 16 as servante.
Notarial Acts
Six surviving notarial acts trace the property, family, and estate-settlement record of the household. The notaries — Choiseau (Tourouvre), Badeau, Duprac, Chambalon — represent the institutional infrastructure that protected family wealth and resolved disputes across two continents and fifty years.
Parties & Witnesses
Contracted at the house of Pierre Marcou in Beauport. Pierre Crête (youngest son, b. 1671) and Marthe Marcou (daughter of Pierre Marcou and Marthe de Rainville). Three Crête brothers-in-law witnessing: Brideau–Marie, Delauney–Françoise, Lefebvre–Marie II. Jean Pepin named as "cousin germain" of Pierre.
Settlement: The Buisson Fief Transfer
Marcou parents settle 150 livres in goods + one brown cow by All Saints' 1694. Jean Crête and Marguerite Gollin promise six arpents of land in the fief du Buisson to Pierre — the same fief Jean had acquired from Guion/Collin in 1666. Marthe receives 800 livres fixed dower + 100 livres préciput.
Signatures & Marguerite's Illiteracy
Signed by Jean Crête, Jean Pepin, Pierre Baune, Elizabeth de Rainville, Jean Chevalier, Noel Maillou, and Paul Vachon notaire. Marguerite Gollin explicitly named among those who "declared not to know how to write or sign" — the closest the documentary record comes to her own hand.
Pepin Estate Arbitration
Opening recital: the Pepin heirs render account to Marie Crête their mother of the late community of goods. Arbitration submitted to preserve peace among the heirs.
Arbitrators Named
Arbitrators named: Paul Denis Sieur de St-Simon (Conseiller du Roy, Prévôt de la Maréchaussée) and Nicolas Dupont de Berniville (Doyen of the Conseil Souverain). Judgment due within fifteen days.
Signatures Page
Signed by Marie Crête, by son Jean Pepin (now of age), and on behalf of the minor Pepin children. Notary Florent de la Cetière. Witnesses Nicolas Gilles and others.
Parties & Witnesses
Pierre Soudain, soldat (later Chevalier de St Louis) marries Marie Crête, twice widow (of Pepin and Brideau). Witnessed by Jean Crête (her father), the Marquis de Vaudreuil, Nicolas Dupont, Paul Denis de St-Simon.
Property Settlement
Communauté de biens under Coutume de Paris. Pierre brings 800 livres (400 cash + 400 furniture). Marie's Brideau children named: Hilaire (12½), Marie Françoise (10), Louise Catherine (8).
Douaire & Préciput
Douaire préfix of 400 livres for the future bride. Préciput of 200 livres reciprocal and equal. Renunciation clauses; protection from prior community debts.
Mutual Donation & Signatures
Mutual donation au survivant of all furniture and conquêts, valued at 400 livres, null if children survive the present marriage. Standard secondes noces clause for the Coutume de Paris.
Chambalon Quittance
Marguerite Crête (eldest daughter, Mme Pierre Gaillou of Batiscan), acting by procuration before notary Trottain at Batiscan dated 27 Sept 1706, acknowledges receipt of 51 livres from Jean Lefebvre (beau-frère), advanced on her one-quarter share in the succession of her late mother Marguerite Gaulin. Names sisters Marie Françoise Crête and Marie Crête as co-heirs.
Notarial Volume Title
Title page of the bound notarial register holding the 1706 Quittance — "Quebec. Notarial Records Apr 12, 1702–Feb 21, 1707." BAnQ archival context. Identifies the volume's date range and confirms the Quittance's place within Chambalon's greffe.
Inventory of Lands of Bourg du Fargy
The earliest known Jean Crête land record in Quebec, dated thirteen months after his September 1654 marriage to Marguerite Gaulin. Records Jean Crête with approximately 5 arpents 79 perches in the bourg du Fargy, alongside Paul Vachon (50 perches), Toussaint Giroux (4 arpents 54 perches), and other inhabitants.
The Marcou Connection — Thirty-Eight Years Before the 1693 Marriage
Records Pierre Marcou (1631–1699) with 6 arpents 23 perches as a bourg du Fargy neighbor. The same Pierre Marcou whose daughter Marthe would marry Pierre Crête thirty-eight years later (D-057, 1693). Documents a continuous Crête-Marcou neighbor relationship preceding the children's marriage.
Act of Faith and Homage to Robert Giffard
One week after the 4 August Vachon sale, Jean Crête transported himself to the principal door of the seigneurial castle of Beauport: "one knee on the ground, bare-headed, without sword or spur, after calling out by loud voice three times to Monseigneur de Beauport," he declared his foi et hommage to Robert Giffard. The medieval seigneurial form preserved intact in seventeenth-century New France.
Witnesses and the Guion Provenance Chain
Closes with explicit reference to "l'acquisition faicte par le dit Jean Creste de Mre Claude Guion et de Catherine Collin, sa femme, fils héritier de feu Mre Jean Guion son père" — documenting the Guion provenance: Jean Guion (deceased 1666) and his son Claude Guion, who sold to Jean Crête. Witnesses: Lauren Duboct, Nicollas Bélanger. Signed P. Vachon notaire.
Aveu et Dénombrement to Joseph Giffard
Jean Crête's formal confession and inventory to Joseph Giffard for his Buisson rear-fief holding: 6½ perches frontage on the St. Lawrence; 7 arpents under cultivation; 1¼ arpents of prairies; remainder fredoches and high woods.
The Full Buisson Fief Provenance Chain
The chain documented end to end: Robert Giffard granted the Buisson fief (1000 arpents) to Jean Guion on 14 March 1634 before Notary Mathurin Roussel at Mortagne, Perche. Jean Guion and Mathurine Robin held the fief until their deaths; their son Claude Guion (with Catherine Collin) sold the parcel to Jean Crête in August 1666. Adjacent fief: Nicolas Dupont, Sieur de Neuville, Conseiller du Roy.
Signatures — Jean Crête's Hand
Witnesses Denis Avisse, huissier royal, and Claude Maugue. Signed: "Jehan Creste" — direct documentary evidence of Jean's literacy, in counterpoint to Marguerite's documented illiteracy in the 1693 marriage contract (D-057). Closes with Maugue, D. Avisse, and P. Vachon notaire royal.
Surveyor's Division of the Dubuisson Fief
Six months after the aveu et dénombrement, the royal surveyor Jean Guyon (likely a Guion-Guyon family member) recorded the physical marking and demarcation of the parcels within the Dubuisson fief. Named parties: François Guion, François Bellenger, Jean Crête, Guillaume Bauche. Adjacent: Mr. Dupont (Nicolas Dupont) and Mr. Baupor (Joseph Giffard).
Receipt to Pierre Crête (Sieur des Méloizes Land)
Nicolas Dupont, Sieur de Neuville, Conseiller du Roy au Conseil Souverain, as tutor of the minor children of the late Sieur des Méloizes, receives rent from Pierre Crête for land acquired by joint contract on 29 July 1693 by Pierre Crête, Jean Lefebvre, and Jean Baugis. Marginal annotation: "Quittance des Meloizes à Jean Lefebvre."
The Crête-Lefebvre-Baugis Joint Partnership
Continues the receipt provisions before royal notary Louis Chambalon. Documents Pierre Crête's joint land partnership with his brother-in-law Jean Baptiste Lefebvre dit Duchassenal (Marie II's husband, who tended Marguerite's terminal illness in 1703) and a third partner Jean Baugis — a family economic cooperation extending from 1693 through at least 1716.
Forty Years of Nicolas Dupont in the Crête Record
Closes with a subsequent endorsement of 18 January 1716, three and a half years later. The same Nicolas Dupont who was Jean Crête's adjacent seigneur in 1673 (D-069) and arbitrator in the 1705 Pepin estate dispute (D-041) appears here as tutor of the Méloizes minors — thirty-nine years of continuous documentary presence in the Crête family record.
PRDH Reference Cards — Family Records
The Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH-IGD), maintained by the Université de Montréal, indexes the parish registers of Quebec into individual, couple, and event-level cards. These cards do not replace the primary registers — but they provide standardized name forms, reference numbers, and database-confirmed dates that close the dual-source pattern at family level.
Marguerite Gaulin — Individual
Individual record. Birth ca. 1627, death 15 January 1703 at Beauport.
Jean Crête — Individual
Individual record. Birth 1626 Tourouvre, death 5 March 1717 at Beauport.
Crête × Gaulin Family
Family record listing all ten children with birth and baptism dates. The master database reference.
Antoine × Jeanne Family
Jean Crête's parents. France-only family, no Quebec children.
Vincent × Marie Family
Marguerite Gaulin's parents. France-only family (Saint-Martin-du-Vieux-Bellême).
Louis × Madeleine Briault
Louis Crête's three-month marriage in 1685. Confirmed by the La Rochelle register.
Contextual & Cartographic
Maps, photographs, and place-context images that frame the geographical and architectural setting of the documentary record. These are not themselves evidentiary, but they situate the records in their physical world.
Janssonius Map of Perche
"Perchensis Comitatus — La Perche compte." Hand-colored map of the former province. The geographic context for both Saint-Martin-du-Vieux-Bellême and Tourouvre.
Saint-Martin Parish Church
The actual baptismal church where Marguerite Gaulin was baptized 14 May 1627. The Gothic structure stands largely as it did in the seventeenth century.
Perche Countryside
The rolling farmland of the Perche — the world Marguerite left behind at twenty-seven.