Our maternal ancestors: 3- Jacquette Fournier (1659-1736)

Our maternal ancestors: 3- Jacquette Fournier (1659-1736)

27 March 2017 2 By Jean-Pierre Proulx

The name Jacquette causes every time a small smile! However, the feminine diminutives of masculine names in “ette” are common: Pierrette, Jeannette, Paulette, Mariette and many others. So, long live Jacquette!

Extracted from parish registers, details of Jacquette Fournier’ s baptism, April 10th, 1659.

Jacquette, who will become the wife of Jean Prou from Montmagny, is the daughter of Guillaume Fournier and Françoise Hébert. Her father is an immigrant from Coulmer, a tiny village in Normandie. Her grandfather Fournier was called Gilles and her grandmother, Noella Cageut. She never knew them since they stayed in France. As for her surname, Fournier, it belongs to the vocabulary of the bakery: the “fournier” is the one who puts the loaves in the oven (Jacob, 2006).

Moreover, her maternal great-grandparents were none other than Louis Hébert and Marie Rollet. This has already been discussed here. She was a Canadian, unlike her husband, Jean Prou, an immigrant from Distré, a village a few kilometers south of Saumur. In France, he was a Proust.

Jacquette was born on April 9th, 1659, and was baptized the following day in Quebec City. Her godmother, of whom nothing is known, is called Jacquette Virevent, hence her first name. She is the fourth in a family of 14 children. She grew up in Rivière St-Charles, in the direction of Charlesbourg where the family was listed in 1667. According to Généalogie du Québec et de l’Acadie, her father Guillaume was co-lord of St-Charles. In November 1672, he was conceded, the fief of Pointe-au-Foin near Montmagny which he sold shortly afterwards while remaining there. The family has surely settled there in 1679, year of birth of the last of the family, baptized the same year there.

Wife and mother

Jacquette married Jean Prou on June 5th, 1673 in Quebec City, where they both resided. She is just 14 years old! Before the early 18th century, early marriage was not exceptional, because the marriage market was strongly marked by the lack of women. Moreover, at the same time, Catherine Pinel, the future wife of Jean Prou de Neuville, was thirteen and a half years old when she married Denis Massé in 1671.

Like her mother, Jacquette will give birth to 14 children, seven girls and seven boys. The first two, Denis and Jean-Baptiste, were baptized at Quebec and the other twelve at Montmagny. All will be buried there. She is 16 years old at the birth of Denis, her first, and 41 years old at the birth of Françoise, her last. Her pregnancies were spread over 25 years. It is quite possible that her mother-in-law, Françoise Hébert, helped her to give birth, for she was a midwife.

Jacquette loses her father, Guillaume, in October 1699. He is 80 years old. Her husband Jean died on March 1st, 1703. He is 56 years old. She will soon be 44 years old. There are still 11 children at home including the oldest, Pierre, who is 23 years old. He left the house only seven years later. Three of her sisters married in the meantime. Her mother, Françoise, died in 1716 at the age of 86 years. The two are buried in Montmagny.

In April 1714, more than ten years after Jean’s death, the widow proceeded to inventory the property of the community. In October 1717, she first sold land to a certain Charles Bélanger of Château Richer. Then, in June 1718, she donated to her son Joseph another piece of land on the Rivière-du-Sud (road along the river of the same name at Montmagny). Her son is then 20 years old and is still single. The contract of donation must very probably prescribe, as is the custom, the obligation of the son to take care of his mother. Finally, in July 1722, she proceeded to a second donation of a land also located at the Rivière-du-Sud and half of the furniture and cattle to her other daughters and sons. These documents kept in the National Archives of Quebec have apparently not yet been stripped. Notice to interested parties. The inventory after death, in particular, should provide much information on the couple Prou-Fournier.

Jacquette Fournier died in Montmagny on January 2nd, 1736, aged 76 and six months. She survived 33 years after the death of her husband. She had 105 grandchildren, 100 of whom were born in her lifetime! The vast majority of them will remain in Montmagny. Their descendants, very numerous, are now spread all over America.

Roland Jacob (2006). Votre nom et son histoire. Les noms de famille au Québec. Montréal: Les Éditions de l’homme