M A C V A Y S I A

One of the biggest problems most people will face when researching their family history is that as they go back through the generations they will find fewer and fewer women. The women were there, of course; after all, they make up fully half of anyone’s genealogy. But in days gone by, women were commonly ignored in official records. When you’re looking at generations that are beyond the reach of family stories and memories, lack of documentation means a lot of people, especially women, will remain as blank spots on your family tree. This problem affects men too (I don’t know who the parents of Alexander MacVay and Elizabeth Armour were, for example), but there will usually be cases where you can find at least the name of a male ancestor — and maybe more information as well — but his spouse has been left behind by history; it’s almost never the other way around. For example, some old census records only recorded heads of households; their wives remain anonymous, unless we find information on them from other sources. Even when we can find some information about our female ancestors, it’s usually not as much as what we know about their male counterparts. We often don’t know their real family names, who their parents were, where they were from, etc. It’s even worse in Malaysia: I only need to go back to Leen’s great-grandparents to find blank spaces where I wish I could find the names of the women who belong in those spaces. It’s sad.

The good news is that while stories about my female ancestors are few and far between, I do know some stories, about fascinating women who lived fascinating lives in fascinating times. One story I find particularly fascinating is that of the woman who became the matriarch of my maternal grandmother’s family, the Martells.

The story begins in Paris, France, in the year 1668. It was in that year that 23-year-old Marguerite L’Amirault said goodbye to her family and set out on a journey that would take her to the New World, never to see France again. She was going to Quebec (then called New France) with many other French women as part of a program called Les Filles du Roi — The Daughters of the King. None of these women were actually daughters of the king; most came from families that couldn’t afford to pay dowries, which meant it was difficult for these young women to find husbands. Fortunately for them, there was a fairly large population of French men who couldn’t find wives. Unfortunately, those men were on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, where they had gone to establish New France. To entice poor French women to go to New France and marry the Frenchmen there, the French government offered not only free transport but also attractive dowries to women willing to make the move. Here’s a good description of the program from a recent post at a great genealogy website:

Starting in 1663, the French government recruited eligible young French women who were willing to travel to New France to find husbands. The King of France offered to pay for transportation to New France of any eligible young woman. He also offered a dowry for each, to be awarded upon her marriage to a young Frenchman. Each woman’s dowry typically consisted of 1 chest, 1 taffeta kerchief, 1 ribbon for shoes, 100 needles, 1 comb, 1 spool of white thread, 1 pair of stockings, 1 pair of gloves, 1 pair of scissors, 2 knives, about 1,000 pins, 1 bonnet, 4 laces, and 2 silver livres (French coins). Many also received chickens, pigs, and other livestock. Because the King of France paid the dowries instead of the parents, these women were referred to as the “Daughters of the King,” or “Filles du Roi.”

Their travels must have been difficult. In 1664, the Conseil Souverain reported to the French minister for the colonies, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, that sixty of the 300 people who embarked at La Rochelle the previous year had died at sea before reaching New France.

Since most of the women who took up the offer were from poor families, and the voyage was not without its dangers, not to mention the fact that life as a pioneer in New France would be rough, it might come as a surprise that some of the Filles du Roi came from relatively well-to-do families. Marguerite L’Amirault was one of them. When she stepped out of her house on Rue des Poullies she was right in front of the Louvre. Her father, Francois L’Amirault, was a coachman for the Royal Household. She certainly didn’t need the dowry, and probably could have found a suitable husband right there in the centre of Paris. So why did she get on a ship and go to New France?

The plot thickens upon Marguerite’s arrival in New France. She could have received a dowry befitting her status by marrying an officer. Instead, she chose to marry a common solider, and therefore got a lower dowry. Not only that, but the soldier she married, Honoré Martel, was 36 years old. He was 13 years Marguerite’s senior, and older than most of the other soldiers. He had been a soldier for some time and had seen a lot of fighting. Now he wanted to settle down. Why would Marguerite L’Amirault give up her comfortable life in Paris and sail all the way to the New World just to marry a common soldier who could only offer her a life of hard work?

At least one researcher (here, and here if you can read French) has a theory that to me sounds like a reasonable explanation. Honoré Martel was a son of Jean Martel and Barbe Marie Duschesne. Jean Martel, whose parents were Jean Martel and Anne Marizy, was a horse merchant in Paris. Jean and Barbe Marie lived on Rue des Ursulines, mere blocks away from where Marguerite’s family lived (Marguerite’s street, Rue des Poullies, no longer exists, but Rue des Ursulines is still there). Also, the fact that Honoré’s father worked as a horse merchant would almost certainly have put him into contact with Marguerite’s father, who was a coachman, especially since Jean’s business was on Rue de Richelieu, near the Louvre. So it’s quite possible (I daresay probable) that Honoré and Marguerite knew each other growing up in Paris. There are all sorts of possible reasons that Marguerite left Paris to marry an aging ex-soldier in the wilderness of New France. Maybe she just wanted an adventure. But I think there was more to it than just adventure. I think she did it all for love.

Honoré and Marguerite, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, were married in 1668 and had many children, who in turn had many children, and so on. Their life in what would one day be Canada was hard — neither of them was really prepared for the life of a farming family in New France — but they built a life and a family together despite the hardships they faced. Marguerite died fairly young, at the age of 62, on 17 October 1706, at a hospital called l’Hôtel-Dieu de Québec; Honoré married Marie Marchand a year later, so his youngest children would have a mother. But he and Marie never had any children. Honoré and Marguerite’s offspring grew into a family that probably appears in the family trees of most people with a significant number of Acadian ancestors. You can see some members of the Martel/Martell family (13 generations of them!) at my fourth cousin (twice removed) Bob Martell’s site.

I guess this means I have a good reason to visit Paris someday!

Tagged: Acadians, Cape Breton, family, France, French, genealogy, history, immigration, language, links, Martel, names, Nova Scotia, Paris