Are You Connected to the Quintal-Nipissing Line?
If your family research overlaps with the Laurent Quintal & Marie Anne Nipissing case study, this page is for you.
Laurent Quintal is documented in four archive collections on two sides of a continent — from a 1797 baptism register at Saint-Constant, Quebec, through twenty years of North West Company and Hudson’s Bay Company service, to his 1839 marriage at Fort Vancouver to Marie Anne Nipissing, a woman of Nipissing and Chinook heritage, and his death at Calapooia Creek, Oregon, in 1861. Their six children carried the family forward under the variant surnames the Oregon records created — Cantelle, Chantell, and Quintal for the same family. Research like this is better as shared work: documented trees, DNA matches, family papers, and family stories from cousin researchers can all move it forward, and contributions are acknowledged in published research according to each contributor’s preference.
Research collaboration is informal, peer-to-peer, and reciprocal. There is no fee, no client engagement, no formal arrangement — just shared work on shared ancestry. (Prospective genealogy clients are welcome to use the main contact page instead.)
Two Heritages, One Oregon Family
Laurent Quintal — Saint-Constant to the Calapooia
Born August 10, 1797, Saint-Constant (La Prairie), Quebec, fifteenth of seventeen children of François Quintal and Marie Hébert. NWC engagé 1817, HBC Middleman in the Snake Country and Columbia District to 1837, then a free man. Farmer at French Prairie and later Douglas County, Oregon, where he died in 1861.
Quebec south shore → Columbia District → Oregon, 1797–1861Marie Anne Nipissing — Two Nations, One Name
Daughter of Louis Nipissing — “Nipissing by nation,” from the Nipissing homelands of Ontario, in Oregon through the fur trade — and an unnamed Chinook woman. Baptized at Fort Vancouver July 8, 1839 (B-186); married Laurent the next day (M-61). She survived him by twenty-five years, dying in Douglas County in 1886. “Napassant” in later records is the same name, the same family.
Six children, 1834–1859, under the surnames Quintal, Cantelle, and ChantellFor the full documented life — the engagement contract, the 1824 Snake Country expedition roster, the “Free” notation, the 1839 registers, and the Oregon years — see the case study: Laurent Quintal & Marie Anne Nipissing.
The Quintal-Nipissing Surname Signature
Core Family Line
Quintal — recorded in Oregon as Cantelle, Chantell, Cantrel, Kantal, Chantal, Coutrell · descendants of Laurent Quintal & Marie Anne Nipissing
Indigenous Heritage Lines
Nipissing (Napassant) — the family of Louis Nipissing · Chinook maternal heritage of the lower Columbia
Allied Oregon Lines
Délard (m. Zoé Quintal, 1857) · Bourjeau (m. Marianne Chantell) · Quesnel / Quenal (HBC Columbia District colleagues)
Quebec Ancestral Lines
Hébert · Robin / Lapointe · Guertin · Gauthier — the four documented generations behind Laurent, back to François Quintal of Aunis, France (m. Québec, 1678)
Geographic path: Saint-Constant and the La Prairie south shore of Quebec → the English River District → the Snake Country and Columbia District → Fort Vancouver → French Prairie (St. Paul, Marion County, Oregon) → Calapooia Creek, Douglas County — with descendants documented as far as Ferry County, Washington, into the 1930s. If your family record places ancestors along any stretch of this path between the 1790s and the 1930s, your research may overlap with this case study.
A Note on Widely Circulated Tree Errors
If your tree gives Laurent Quintal’s parents as Étienne Quintal and a Gauthier dit St Germain (with a birth year near 1802), you have a different man — the documented Laurent was born August 10, 1797, at Saint-Constant, to François Quintal and Marie Hébert (PRDH-IGD Family #55528, confirmed by the parish register, the HBCA biographical sheet, and the 1817 engagement contract).
If your tree gives Marie Anne’s father the surname Courteoreille, no primary source supports it — two independent sacramental records on consecutive days (B-186, M-61) name her father as Louis Nipissing. If you carry either version, please reach out anyway: comparing the documents is exactly what this page is for, and correcting a heritage record matters most to the descendants who carry it.
What You Might Bring to This Research
Forms of contribution that move research like this forward:
- Documented family trees — pedigrees with source citations for the Quebec south shore, the Columbia District community, French Prairie, or Douglas County
- DNA test results — from Ancestry, 23andMe, MyHeritage, or FamilyTreeDNA, especially kits uploaded to GEDmatch where chromosome comparison is possible
- Record access — Munnick volume references, HBCA citations, Early Oregonian database entries, Oregon and Washington vital records, or Quebec notarial records that are difficult to retrieve from a distance
- Family oral history — the stories your elders carried, including traditions of Nipissing, Chinook, or Métis heritage, even when they conflict with documented records
- Photographs, letters, and family papers — homestead documents, allotment records, family Bibles, and similar materials from the relevant timeframe
Open Research Questions
The Children’s Lines
Six children are confirmed in primary sources: Louis (Cantelle), Rosalie, Zoé (m. Augustin Délard), Louis Toussaint (Sam Chantell), Marianne (Chantell, m. Joseph Bourjeau), and François (b. Christmas Day 1859). Rosalie’s later record has not yet been located, and descendants of any of these lines — under Quintal, Cantelle, Chantell, Délard, or Bourjeau — carry branches this research would welcome.
The Other Quintals
The 1821 NWC dissolution records list three Quintals in consecutive entries — Laurent, Joseph, and Antoine (Nipissing department) — a grouping that suggests they entered service together from the same La Prairie community. And in Laurent’s final HBC year, the same ledger lists “Quintal Jr. François, 27, Laprairie” in the Columbia District — a probable nephew, not yet confirmed in primary sources. Researchers with documented descent from any south shore Quintal line of this era would meaningfully advance these identifications.
The Unnamed Women
Two women in the documentary record have no established identity: the woman recorded only as “Frances Fille” who received a 44-livre advance against Laurent’s NWC account in 1820, and Marie Anne’s Chinook mother, unnamed in every surviving document. Researchers with knowledge of the lower Columbia Chinook community, Fort Vancouver-era families, or the English River District records may hold pieces of these identifications.
How to Reach Out
The form below is the most effective way to begin. The fields are designed to give us both the right starting context — what you have, what you’re looking for, and how our research might intersect.
I read every inquiry personally and respond as I am able — typically within a week, sometimes longer for inquiries that require research before a substantive reply.
Privacy and Use of Submitted Information
Information shared through this form is used only for research collaboration purposes. Names, DNA kit identifiers, family details, and other personal information are not shared with third parties, are not added to public-facing pages without explicit permission, and are anonymized (initials only) in any subsequent publication unless you indicate a preference for full attribution.
Living individuals are not named in published research. Deceased ancestors documented in primary sources are named in full as part of standard genealogical practice. If you have specific privacy preferences for your contribution, please indicate them in your inquiry and they will be respected.
If you’d prefer to reach out directly rather than through the form, email mary@storylinegenealogy.com.
Genealogy Is Better as Shared Work
Laurent Quintal’s life can be traced from a baptism register in 1797 to a death notation in a Winnipeg archive — but Rosalie’s trail goes cold, two women remain unnamed, and three Quintals on a dissolution page still wait to be sorted out. Your family records, your DNA matches, and your family stories may be the next piece that moves this research forward. Thank you for considering the work.