Francoise Corbineau was probably born between 1607 and 1611, given her marriage in 1627. It’s likely that she was born in Chinon, the same town where she was married, based on typical French family birth and marriage patterns.

One thing we know for sure is that the couple would have been married in the bride’s church, St. Etienne, on that mid-July day in the summer of 1627.

The average temperature in July lingers in the mid to high 70s. Chinon is built on the side of a hill that rises above the Vienne River, so there was probably a breeze.

Furthermore, the thick stone walls of the Saint-Etienne church would have held the cooler nighttime temperatures, ranging from 55-60.

Hot or chilled, sunny or raining, as a radiant bride looking forward to life as a wife and mother, Francoise wouldn’t have cared one bit.

On their way to the church, Francoise and her family would have made their way through the cobblestone streets, walking together, probably passing La Maison Rouge, the “Red House,” and other medieval buildings located in the center of Chinon. Today, the Red House is a Vrbo and you can stay there, or just look at the pictures, imagining what it was like to peer out these same windows four hundred years ago.

These ancient streets, alleys, byways, and walled gardens echo yet today with their voices, harkening to times gone by.

Now, residents, some of whom may well be descendants of Francoise’s family, visit the library and bookstore, and eat at “La Maison Rouge” across the street.

The heart of Chinon remains medieval, with buildings that stood when Francoise’s footsteps echoed there as she walked to the church that July day, if her parents were living.

Francoise’s siblings and extended family would have joined them on their procession to church. Francoise might even have had grandparents still living to bless her union with Guillaume Trahan.

Had Francoise and Guillaume been legally betrothed, a contract between families, when they were children, or did they meet and fall in love? Guillaume’s brother had been betrothed some 11 years before he wed, so Guillaume and Francoise may have been too.

Perhaps Francoise’s family lived in a medieval home like one of these. Many remain standing and in use today.

The wedding party would have probably walked along the Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the main streets through Chinon, greeting other villagers as they approached the church. Or maybe all of the parishoners attended the nuptials and walked with them. 

How I long to visit and traverse these streets, sit in the outside cafés, sipping on something decadent in the French sunshine. Soaking up the ambiance, thinking about Francoise walking past with her family, chattering excitedly on her wedding day, 398 years ago. Such is life in France.

Perhaps if I squint a bit, I can see her.

What would the lovely Francoise have been wearing?

Unlike the white dresses of contemporary brides, French medieval brides wore their finest colorful tapestry gowns reflective of their family’s social status – often decorated with needlework and lace, and accented with lavish headpieces.

Famous painter Peter Paul Rubens painted a portrait of his bride, Helena Fourment, in her wedding dress in 1630.

Regardless of what Francoise wore, I’m sure she was radiant and Guillaume thought she was the most beautiful bride ever!

At St. Etienne, Francoise, Guillaume, and their families would have entered the church through the beautiful wooden doors, beneath the ornate stone carvings that had welcomed countless brides.

After entering, their voices would have dropped respectfully.

The solemn nave awaited, the priest prepared to marry the joyful couple who likely exchanged nervous, expectant glances.

Family members assembled in the pews, jostling for the “good seats.”

Guillaume was probably about 30 when they married, and we know that he was described as a Marshall in records just a few years later.

He may well have been a military man and also a tradesman. Francoise would be marrying well – although she could have never dreamed where her life with Guillaume would take her.

To an entirely new world.

Thankfully, the priest scribed their marriage entry into the parish register for posterity.

The 13th day of July 1627 were married Guillaume Trahan, son of Master Nicolas Trahan and of Renée Desloges, and Françoise Corbineau, daughter of the late Corbineau and of Françoise Poret, the said Trahan and Corbineau assisted by Pierre Ligné, Pierre Aubry, Suzanne Ligné, daughter of Master Guillaume Ligné, and other witnesses, this I have signed.

Piget, priest

Well, that was one interpretation of this document, but there’s also another, posted by Karen Theriot Reader, that Cousin Mark reviewed painstakingly, and seems to be more likely the case.

I am leaving this original version here, just in case – in part because some people may have used it and I don’t believe in just “disappearing” something without stating why it was changed.

The 13th of July 1627 was married Guillaume Trahan, son of Nicolas Trahan and Renée Deslonges with Françoise Corbineau, of this parish St. Etienne. Present Nicolas Trahan, father of G. Trahan, Pierre Ligier, Pierre Baudry, dame Anne Ligier, wife of M. Gilloire, attest, and declare they do not sign.

ChatGPT and Transcribus gave me multiple different translations of the names involved, which made the situation even more confusing. Hint – don’t use AI for documents you can’t verify.

Acadian researcher and now-deceased historian Stephen White stated that her parents were not named, so I weigh that heavily as well.

The sad news is that while we thought we knew her father was deceased, and her mother’s name, we don’t unless an analysis by a French paleographer tells us otherwise. 

We don’t know if or how the witnesses were related to the bride and groom, but it’s likely that they were. Families had lived in these towns for hundreds to thousands of years.

While Chinon was popular with nobles in the 15^th and 16^th centuries, the town, located on the Vienne River just upriver from the Loire, dates from prehistoric times when rivers served as highways and connected the fertile plains of the Poitou to the rest of France.

A thousand years before Francoise and her family lived here, a Gallo-Roman fort stood, followed by a hermitage and monastery.

A thousand years before that, the Celtic tribe known as the Turones inhabited this region, backing the Gallic coalition against Rome in 52 BCE, some 2000 years ago.

Far from being primitive, the Turones were organized and minted coins, such as these from the 5^th through 1^st century BCE, or between 2000 and 2500 years ago.

After their wedding, the newlyweds probably lived in one of the timeworn quarters that lined the quaint streets in Chinon, at least initially. Chinon was not large, and these narrow lanes were already ancient by the 1600s, the houses having already witnessed hundreds of years of history.

Early records are spotty, and unfortunately, no further records for the couple have surfaced in Chinon churches.

Guillaume grew up in Montreuil-Bellay, but the couple is not found there either.

An exhaustive, indexed search might reveal more, but these records have not been transcribed and they are not indexed. .

Where Did Francoise and Guillaume Live?

Truth be told, we don’t know exactly where Francoise and Guillaume lived for the next 9 years, but we do have hints.

Based on later records, we know that Guillaume was married to Francoise during the remainder of the time they lived in France, so we can presume that wherever we find Guillaume, Francoise isn’t far away.

In January of 1629, less than two years after their marriage, Guillaume witnessed the marriage of fellow Acadians Pierre Martin and Catherine Vigneau in the town of Bourgueil, a medieval crossroads village in the wine region.

In addition to the Saint-Germain church where the couple was married, Bourgueil had a significant Abbey, monastery, gardens and vineyards, and oversaw several nearby priories. Five hundred years before Francoise and Guillaume lived in the area, the Abbot had introduced vineyards and winegrowing into the region.

Saint-Germain, the local church attended by the townspeople is located on the market square, in the center of the town.

In the fall of 1632, Guillaume once again witnessed a wedding at the Saint-Germaine church in Bourgueil for his own brother, Nicolas Trahan, son of Nicolas Trahan and Renee Desloges of Montreuil-Bellay, to Renée Pineau of Bourgueil.

Montreuil-Bellay, Chinon, and Bourgueil are not far apart, but they also aren’t exactly close, either. It’s about 10 miles from Chinon to Bourgueil, about 21 miles from Bourgueil to Montreuil-Bellay, and about the same distance from Chinon to Montreuil-Bellay.

Were Guillaume and Francoise members of the parish at Bourgueil after their marriage?

If so, then where are their children’s baptisms?

A Rough Patch

I don’t want to project stereotypes onto Guillaume and Francoise, but they may have encountered a “rough patch” in 1634, or maybe one that began in 1634.

Put bluntly, Guillaume got himself into trouble, and worse yet, in trouble with the Cardinal, the Abbey, and most likely, his wife.

Acadian researcher, Genevieve Massignon located the following records:

While leafing through the Report of the Departmental Archives of Indre-et-Loire, in the name of the parish of Bourgueil, I found a record reporting in 1634 “a certain number of inhabitants of Bourgueil.” The list of their names includes those of François Dubreil (another witness to the marriage of Pierre Martin) and of Guillaume Trahan.

Now François Dubreil already appears in the List of Fines for feudal dues made by Messire Léonard d’Estampes de Valençay, commendatory abbot of the royal abbey of Saint Pierre de Bourgueil, for a piece of land adjoining that of Nicolas Simon, in October 1618.

The sentence, rendered by the court of Chinon in 1634, cites as plaintiffs “the inhabitants of the parishes of Saint Germain and Saint Nicolas of Bourgueil [church within the Abbey], the joined prosecutor” and “further Messire Leonor d’Estampes,” [Abbott of the Royal Abbey of St. Pierre of Bourgueil], and as defendants, three religious, two squires, a “warden of the forest of Bourgueil,” François Dubreil, Guillaume Trahan, and a few other persons. This sentence orders that “everything which has been undertaken usurped and cleared by the said defendants from the appurtenances and dependencies of the said forest of Bourgueil during forty years in the said conserved land by the proceedings of visitation and surveying and alleged leases for rent, which we declare null and of no effect — shall in the future belong to the body of the said forest of Bourgueil… making express prohibition to the said defendants and all others to in future cut or fell any wood in the said forest, nor change the nature of it on pain of a fine of five hundred livres.”

The sentence then lists the fines incurred by the defendants: “The said Dubreil, in fifty livres of fine for having had the said pieces containing twelve arpents cleared to go there to take the wood which was there in the last forty-eight years and a half, in two hundred livres for half the damages and interest and restitution of the fruits…”

“The said Trahan, in twenty livres of fine and in sixty livres for the value and estimation of a young ox and for the expenses of two arpents which he had torn from the forest and which were found at his house and in forty livres for damages and interest…”

Whoo boy.

I bet Francoise was furious. French wives of that era were either pregnant or nursing a newborn and gave birth every year or two.

So, when this took place, let’s say that they had children, as follows:

• Their first baby born in the summer of 1628, a year after their wedding
• The second child born around Christmas of 1629
• The third child born in the summer of 1631
• The fourth child born near Christmas of 1632
• The fifth child born in the summer of 1634
• The sixth child born around Christmas of 1635.

Clearly, if babies died at birth, some would be born more closely together, and if every child lived, they could be born more than 18 months apart, but generally not more than 24 months apart.

Given this estimated timeline, in 1634, Francoise was probably pregnant for and gave birth to their fifth child. So picture Guillaume having to come home and tell his wife, either cooking, gardening or cleaning something, surrounded by 4 or 5 young children, possibly pregnant again, how much trouble he was in.

I can hear her asking, and probably not in a pleasant voice, “À quoi pensais-tu?” What were you thinking???

French wives worked every day from sunup to sundown, but they weren’t paid, so they were entirely dependent on their husbands’ income.

Based on known wages for various trades and occupations of the time, it appears that not only was Guillaume prosecuted, made an example of, and heavily fined, but Francoise was in essence tarred with the same brush. Punished equally by the fines, even though she had nothing to do with the infraction.

If I have to guess, and I do, I’d say she was utterly furious with Guillaume and was trying to figure out how to retain some shred of dignity, not to mention figuring out how she was going to feed her family. Maybe they didn’t have a baby the next year and he got to sleep in the barn for a while.

If Francoise’s parents were still living, or her siblings, she could probably have obtained food from them, but no adult wants to be reduced to begging – not to mention WHY.

The good news, if there is any, is that this map shows the Bourgueil Forest, which provides a clue as to where they might have lived. Guillaume’s fine was probably so severe because forests were essential to the climate required for winemaking.

Guillaume wasn’t completely ostracized because he once again witnessed a marriage in Bourgueil on October 29, 1635.

Given Guillaume’s continued appearances in the church records, it makes sense that Francoise and Guillaume lived near Bourgueil, someplace along the roads where a type of oilseed, now known as canola, was sewn and harvested for oil lamps and lubrication.

Five months after Guillaume witnessed that final wedding, the couple was no place near Bourgueil.

Francoise bid her family, her parents, her siblings, everyone she loved goodbye for the very last time.

If she was already angry with Guillaume for the 1634 “incident”, being ripped away from her family certainly didn’t make the situation any better.

I can feel her crying so hard she couldn’t even breathe.

Sailing for Acadia

On April 1^st, 1636, the ship Saint-Jehan set sail from La Rochelle for Acadia, transporting the first families to settle in the fledgling colony. Guillaume, Francoise and their two children were on board.

To say this was a high-stakes risky move is an understatement.

Why did Guillaume decide to do this?

Notice, I didn’t say Guillaume and Francoise, because at that time, women were expected to simply comply with and obey their husbands’ decisions.

That does NOT mean they didn’t have opinions, though. They just didn’t have many options and no agency.

So, if Guillaume was going to Acadia, Francoise and their children were going too.

They sailed from the beautiful harbour in La Rochelle on April 1^st, arriving at Fort Sainte Marie de Grace in La Hève on May 6^th, 35 days later. For that time, it was a quick trip.

Isaac de Razilly and then Charles d’Aulnay, after Razilly’s untimely death in 1635, had likely been recruiting in the Bourgueil region. Several families from both Chinon and Bourgueil were listed on the ship’s roster, including Guillaume.

“Guillaume Trahan, officer of the cavalry, with his wife and two children and a servant, also from Bourgueil”

If you’re wondering how they managed to afford a servant following that hefty fine, I wonder too. It doesn’t make sense, unless one or the other of their families were at least minor nobility – but there’s no evidence of that. Was declaring someone as a servant a way to take a family member along? Or, maybe one of the other people who were fined in 1634?

We’ll never know.

Passengers

Who else was aboard the Saint-Jehan?

If there were families, there would be babies arriving soon. Was there even a midwife?

The list of passengers included four women in the Motin family, a family of lesser nobility. Anne and Jehanne Motin were siblings. In Acadian, Jehanne, also called Jeanne, married Charles d’Aulnay, the Lieutenant in charge of Acadia and who owned the Saint-Jehan ship. A female cousin and one female servant accompanied the Motin family.

The rest of the roster consisted of crew members or passengers headed to Acadia to establish a settlement in the remote outpost.

There were some young couples. One laborer and his wife, with no children, plus a saltmaker and his wife.

From Bourgueil, there were 4 wives and 7 children, plus Guillaume, Francoise and their two children.

There was also a widow and her two children, one male and one female, all designated as laborers.

In total, there were 12 other females, counting the widow’s daughter who may have been a young adult.

There were 7 children in addition to Francoise’s children, excluding the widow’s children.

That’s it. That’s the entire female and family support system that these women would have in Acadia. And trust me when I say that men did not deliver babies, and childbirth was dangerous. Every married female could be expected to deliver a child within the following 18 months, so surely SOMEONE had experience delivering babies. Perhaps the widow.

Culture Shock

This map shows three homes in the habitation at La Hève. These families had gone from multi-storied half-timbered homes snugged up side by side in cozy medieval towns to a few isolated buildings with the Atlantic wind whistling between them. The freshwater pond by the fort may have been their only nearby watersource.

There were no other French women or families within thousands of miles, not to mention across an ocean.

The laborers and single men would have lived in the garrison inside the fort, but the families built tiny one-room houses and planted gardens as best they could with seeds they had brought along.

Not houses like in France, but small cabins that shared a single outdoor oven, and eventually, a common well. There was no boulangerie in the market square, no baker, no butcher – the settlers and soldiers had to do it all. I’m sure they quickly learned to fish.

Talk about culture shock!

Standing on the beach where the fort once stood, the habitation was built on the outcropping at far right in the distance.

The settlers planted apple trees with seeds brought from France. A winemaker was on board, too, so they probably transplanted vines, cuttings or planted seeds as well.

By the end of the year, d’Aulnay had moved the seat of Acadia to Port Royal, a much less harsh environment, not exposed directly to the Atlantic Ocean.

While we know the names of the Saint-Jehan passengers, we have mostly blank pages about what happened to them.

• Pierre Martin and his wife survived. He is credited with planting apple orchards in the Annapolis Valley near Port Royal. Their child, Mathieu was reportedly the first French child born in Acadia.
• Jeanne Motin survived, but her story is long and difficult. She first married d’Aulnay not long after arrival, followed a few years later by his arch-rival, Charles La Tour in 1653, eventually moving south to Cape Sable with La Tour and dying there around 1663 with a newborn.
• Of course, Guillaume Trahan, Francoise, and at least one daughter survived.

Otherwise, every single person on the Saint-Jehan either perished with no record and no descendants surviving to 1671 when the first census was taken, or returned to France at some point.

Perhaps Acadia was too different from France and not what the passengers had hoped or expected. Or, perhaps they died in the intervening years. Acadia was a harsh mistress.

What About Francoise in Port Royal?

We know that Francoise was alive in 1639, because her daughter, Jeanne Trahan was the godmother for Jeanne Motin and Charles D’Aulnay’s infant daughter, and Francoise is mentioned, but not noted as deceased.

Francoise is also mentioned in 1649 in d’Aulnay’s first will, although not by name, where he mentions that his wife, Jeanne Motin, who he had described as a “devout and modest little servant of God”, “Will not forget the wife of Guillaume Trahan.”

Guillaume Trahan became an influential leader in Port Royal. He, and other early settlers were given land along the river beside the fort and garrison where ships docked, trading transpired, and the moving and shaking occurred.

In addition to being the heart of commerce, Port Royal endured multiple attacks, some quite severe, from d’Aulnay’s arch-rival, Charles La Tour, in the 1640s. Port Royal subsequently fell to the English in 1654, then was ransacked and pillaged.

Unfortunately, there are few records during this timeframe.

Port Royal, the river and countryside were post-card beautiful, and when not under attack, exquisitely peaceful.

Francoise witnessed and survived those terrifying episodes and also basked in the beauty of Acadia. The photo above was taken on Hogg Island, where her daughter and son-in-law lived – so she surely enjoyed this scene often.

Death and Grief

The next indirect evidence we have of Francoise is when Guillaume remarries.

According to the 1671 census, Guillaume has remarried and has a family with his second wife. Their oldest child is Guillaume, age 4. So, if Guillaume remarried five years earlier, about 1666, then we can estimate Francoise’s death occurred in or about 1665 in Port Royal, nearly 30 years after she and Guillaume settled there.

Francoise would have been buried in the churchyard, beside the fort, and within sight of their home.

The Acadian’s Catholic cemetery was destroyed in 1755 when the Acadians were expelled by the English, and it has always been believed that the graves were marked with white wooden crosses that deteriorated with time.

The one and only stone recovered just happens to be for Joseph de Menou, apparently a son of Jeanne Motin and Charles Menou d’Aulnay, with a clearly inscribed date of 1651.

The Canadian National Park Service states that:

During the summer of 1989, archaeologists working at Fort Anne uncovered a stone bearing the name, Joseph de Menov Sievr Dones and the date of 1651. The eldest son of Charles de Menou d’Aulnay Sieur de Charnisay, Joseph had inherited his father’s titles after Charles’ death the previous year. The purpose of the stone is not known.

Please note that at that time, V is equivalent to U in script.

This relic is confusing, because Joseph, born about 1640 is supposed to be the eldest son of Joanne Motin and d’Aulnay, who, along with their other children, was sent back to France to be raised by their grandparents after d’Aulnay’s 1650 death left his wife riddled with debt.

If that’s the case, then either this is not a gravestone, or they had a second child by that same name that died in 1651. If they had a second child, he would not have the title “Sieur”, but other than a gravestone, what else could this possibly be?

Either way, this stone assuredly speaks silently of grief and tragedy within the close-knit Acadian community. Jeanne Motin was Francoise’s close friend, as attested in d’Aulnay’s will, and Jeanne’s husband had died tragically in 1650.

Then Jeanne had to send her eight children back to France, where she would never see them again. Oh, my aching mother’s heart. Jeanne also married La Tour, a man she probably secretly despised and whose wife her husband had murdered, as a matter of survival and expediency. It’s unclear whether her children were shipped back to France before or after this 1653 marriage.

Jeanne’s heart must have been broken, over and over, and the heart of Francoise, as one of her closest friends, would have ached right along with Jeanne.

The two best friends and sisters-of-heart probably stood together on the shoreline, watching the ship with all eight of Jeanne’s children pull away from the dock, and sail away. Grief times 8.

Perhaps the two women stood here, Francoise holding Jeanne as she sobbed, until either the ship was entirely out of sight, or the daylight sank beyond the horizon and night overtook them. Jeanne would never see her children again, including the baby. How the children must have wept and cried for theri mother, too. They had already lost their father.

The two close friends eventually died about the same time, although after Jeanne Motin remarried in 1653, she lived across the bay in Saint-Jean for three years, then retired to Cape Sable in 1656 until her death in 1663. When Jeanne died, she had five children by LaTour, aged from about 9 to a newborn

I’m sure the two women missed each other terribly, and their reunion, on the other side, was glorious.

Francoise’s Children

We have a few facts about Francoise’s children.

In 1636, on the Saint-Jehan, Francoise and Guillaume had two children. One of those children was Jeanne Trahan, born about 1629.

Francoise would have witnessed Jeanne’s marriage in about 1643 to Jacques Bourgeois. Jacques was a surgeon and the most prosperous settler in Port Royal, so that marriage would have been considered a very good match. Jacques worked for d’Aulnay, who probably arranged the marriage. It’s evident that those couples were close.

We know that Francoise had a second living child when they sailed in 1636, but we don’t know if that child was male or female. If male, he died before 1671 and before having children who survived to 1671 when the first census was taken.

If that child was a female, she would have been between newborn and 8 years old. If she was the first child born after their marriage, in 1628, she would have been marriage age about the same time as her sister. If she was between that age and newborn, so born between about 1630 and 1636, she would have been eligible to marry between 1644 and about 1651.

A Trahan daughter married Germain Doucet sometime before 1650 when Germain Doucet and his wife were mentioned in d’Aulnay’s will, although Doucet’s wife is not mentioned by name.

The reason that Germain Doucet’s wife is believed to be Francoise and Guillaume Trahan’s daughter is because in 1654, Jacques Bourgeois, who we know was married to Jeanne Trahan, is described as Germain Doucet’s brother-in-law in the Articles of Capitulation.

That can only mean one of two things. Germain Doucet was either married to:

• Jacques’s sister, but Jacques came alone in 1642, and there is no known sister
• The sister of Jeanne Trahan, Jacques’ wife. Jeanne arrived with her parents and with another known sibling. Francoise would also have had time to have another daughter after their 1636 arrival who would have been marriage age before 1654.

Of those two options, it’s MUCH more likely that Germain Doucet married a daughter of Francoise Corbineau and Guillaume Trahan.

Germain Doucet was also a powerful man in Port Royal, so he, too, would have been considered a good marriage partner by Guillaume Trahan for his daughter.

Unfortunately, as Commander of the Fort when Port Royal fell in 1654, Germain Doucet was shipped back to France iwith his wife and children, if they had any. No records of Germain or his family after the fall of Port Royal are known.

In 1654, Francoise would have said goodbye to one of her only two children, much as she had said a painful goodbye back in 1636 to her own family in France. This turn of events must have seemed horrifically unfair.

To the best of our knowledge, Francoise only had two children who survived to adulthood, or more specifically, to adulthood and to the 1671 census, or who had descendants who survived to the 1671 census with the Trahan surname. No unknown Trahans are recorded or noted in parish records after 1702, no dispensations that would suggest that Francoise had another surviving child, and no Belle-Ile-en-Mer declarations after the deportation.

Francoise would have brought several more children into this world. She would have spent most of her adult life pregnant, praying for children destined not to survive.

Unfortunately, infant mortality was high, and less than half of the children born made it to adulthood. In her case, it was far more than half.

If Francoise married at 16, and had children through age 42:

• She would have had 12 children if she gave birth to a child every 24 months and that child lived long enough to be weaned.
• We know that often babies were born 18 months after the prior birth, so if she had a baby every 18 months, she would have borne 16 children.
• If every other child died at or shortly after birth, meaning that she had every other child 12 months after the previous birth, she would have had around 20 children.

This means that Francoise buried at least 10 children, probably more like 15 or 16, and possibly as many as 18. I can’t even begin to imagine her pain. She must have both looked forward to each birth with hope, but also with a sense of dread.

Additionally, she had to say a forced goodbye to her adult daughter in 1654, never knowing what happened to her.

Francoise suffered an immense amount of grief.

Some of those tiny bodies would have rested in graves in the parish churchyard in France, beside whatever parish church they attended. Possibly Chinon or Bourgueil or perhaps someplace inbetween.

One might have been a burial at sea, or in an unmarked grave in the cemetery at Le Have.

The rest would have perished in Port Royal and been buried beside the church, within sight of where Francoise lived. Perhaps that’s how she held them close, even in death.

Francoise’s Grandchildren

The ray of sunshine in all of this is that Francoise DID have grandchildren that she knew and could enjoy. Jeanne Trahan, who married Jacques Bourgeois, had eight living children before Francoise’s death.

Jeanne also had at least five children who died during that timeframe.

If Francoise Corbineau was born in 1607, she would have had her last child sometime about 1649 or 1650.

Her daughter, Jeanne gave birth to her first child about 1644, so for the next six years or so, both mother and daughter would have been bringing children into the world together. The difference is that most of Jeanne’s children born during that timeframe lived, and none of Francoise’s did. While pregnant herself, Jeanne would have stood beside yet another tiny grave, holding her mother as she grieved each baby’s passing, – probably at least four times. We don’t know how many times Jeanne, as a child, stood beside her mother at the cemetrey before that.

I’m sure Francoise never lost track of each child, or their names, or when they were born and died. Their tiny images would have been permanently seared in her mind, and on her heart. She probably thought of them often, wondering what they would have been like as they grew up, married, and had children of their own.

Her daughter, Jeanne lost a child born in about 1650. We don’t know if that child died as an infant or older, but we do know the child died before 1671. Francoise likely stood graveside with her daughter, burying grandchildren born about 1648, 1650, 1654, 1656, and 1663. She may also have stood with her daughter whose name we don’t know, who married Germain Doucet, in a similar capacity – and that daughter assuredly stood with Francoise and her sister, Jeanne, too.

How did Francoise bear that level of grief? Perhaps this small cross, excavated on the fort grounds, provides a clue. Part of the land where the fort is located belonged to Guillaume and Francoise during their lifetime.

This tiny cross that speaks so profoundly of faith could have been part of Francoise’s rosary. Maybe her well-worn rosary was placed in her hands in her coffin.

In 1665 or so, Francoise’s daughter, Jeanne, and her 8 living children, along with Guillaume, all stood around another grave, saying their final goodbyes, as they buried Francoise, who would have been in her 50s. Not at all old by today’s standards.

Both of the other original female Acadian settlers who sailed aboard the Saint-Jehan in 1636 and remained in Acadia were still living. Along with Francoise’s family and the other residents of Port Royal, Marie Catherine Vigneau, who had married Pierre Martin would have been standing graveside, but Jeanne Motin was living in Cape Sable and would have been unaware of her old friend’s passing until long after she was buried.

Such was life in Port Royal.

Francoise’s Legacy

What an incredible life Francoise lived and legacy she left.

Francoise was probably born in Chinon, lived someplace between there and Bourgueil, then sailed for Acadia in her mid-twenties with her husband and two small children. She settled in the remote outpost of Le Have for several months, and then became one of the founding Acadian mothers in Port Royal.

She must have been an extraordinarily strong woman.

Francoise probably never dreamed of, desired, or wanted a life of adventure – but the dice rolled differently and fate had other plans. Francoise sailed thousands of miles across that Atlantic, becoming an original French settler in Acadia. She helped to forge a new “Acadian” culture in a foreign land that her descendants would always think of as home.

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I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the affiliate links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

• FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
  • FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA tests
  • FamilyTreeDNA – mitochondrial DNA test
  • FamilyTreeDNA – Family Finder autosomal test
• MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
• AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
• AncestryDNA Plus Traits
• 23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
• 23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

• MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
• Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
• Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
• OldNews – Old Newspapers with links to save to MyHeritage trees
• MyHeritage Omni comprehensive “everything included” subscription plan
• Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
• NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Books

• DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
• DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US
• The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA – for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
• The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA for those ordering the paperback from outside the US

Genealogy Books

• Genealogical.com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books
• American Ancestors – Wonderful selection of genealogy books

Genealogy Research

• Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research