Pierre Goicheau was the father of Acadian founder Jean dit Tranchemontagne Garceau, who was born about (or before) 1680 and was serving as a soldier at Fort Naxouat, in present-day New Brunswick, by August 1696.

Jean’s 1703 marriage record at Port Royal to Marie Levron names his parents as Pierre Garsseaux and Jacquette Soulard, although the evidence presented here strongly suggests that Jacquette was probably his stepmother rather than his biological mother.

Additionally, his marriage entry tells us that he was a soldier serving at the garrison in Port Royal. In that record, his surname is spelled Garsseaux, but elsewhere it’s spelled Garceau and other phonetically similar surnames.

We are exceedingly fortunate that their marriage record provides the names of his parents, which is actually quite rare when the parents never left the old country.

Not only does it tell us their names, but it provides a location as well. Parish of St. René of the diocese of Poitiers.

Yippee!!!

We’re home free, right?

Nope!

As it turns out, as specific as that location sounds, it isn’t.

There isn’t a parish of St. René in the diocese of Poitiers, but there is a Saint-Rémy.

Not only that, but while one Pierre Goicheau, did marry Jacquette Soulard, it wasn’t in Saint-Rémy.

This one makes my head hurt, and my heart ache.

Normally, in my 52 Ancestors articles, I write an article for each individual parent, but in this case, I really can’t do that. What I can and will do is to present the evidence arguing in both directions. Barring the discovery of additional records, Jean Garceau’s biological mother remains unidentified.

We now have additional information about Jacquette Soulard, who married Jean’s father, Pierre Goicheau, along with other evidence that shifts our interpretation of this record.

Sometimes, the real story is not what’s actually contained IN the records. Sometimes life is shaped by the forces surrounding the records – the silence that holds heartache and tragedy.

That silence envelops the Garceau family.

What We Know

We know for sure that on August 24, 1696, Jean Gorseau dit Tranchemontagne, is on the list of soldiers serving with the military company of Claude-Sébastien de Villieu at Fort Naxouat, also called Nashwaak, a French wilderness fort that served as the Acadian administrative capital after Port Royal was captured by the English in 1690.

The log fort was located near present-day Fredericton, New Brunswick at the intersection of the St. John and Nashwaak Rivers, on the south shore across from Bowie Island. Their neighbors were the Native people.

Built in 1691 and 1692, and overlooking the river, the fort was a trading post, about 120 feet square, that became a small military base with only a few buildings and quarters for about 40 soldiers.

Given that we know Jean was on the roster on August 24th, it stands to reason that he was also with the unit on August 14th and 15th when Villieu’s unit, along with Abenaki forces, laid siege to the English fortification at Pemiquid, present day Bristol, Maine, after the English commander violated a truce, murdering several Abenaki chiefs at an assembly.

Jean was among the men who defended Fort Naxouat from an English attack that took place on October 18^th, 1696. Joined by their Mi’kmaq neighbors, a few scattered French settlers, and the notorious French pirate, Captain Pierre Maisonnat dit Baptiste who arrived on foot and without a ship, they managed to fight off four times the number of English soldiers. The priest gave a final communion before the battle, because they knew they would all be slaughtered if they lost, which was certainly the expected outcome. They were both outmanned and outgunned.

In the greatest of ironies, it was the weather, a sudden, unexpected winter storm descending upon them, that saved the French garrison and Jean. The English soldiers from Boston were unprepared for the Canadian weather. The English hastily departed after two miserable days and nights, leaving two ships behind, which provided Baptiste with another vessel to resume his life of piracy. Both feared and revered, Baptiste was endeared to the French at Port Royal. He saved them more than once.

We don’t know when Jean Garceau arrived at Naxouet, but it could well have been on February 14, 1694 when “the vessel La Bretonne was fitted out to bring help…This vessel carries 10 soldiers to replace those who may be missing from among the 40 that His Majesty wishes to maintain at the said fort…” Jean Garseau dit Tranchemontagne may well have been among them, although there is no roster.

If Jean was on that ship, then he was present at the Raid on Oyster River, also called the Oyster River Massacre, on July 18, 1694, when a group of Abenaki and Maliseet. along with French soldiers, raided an English settlement at present-day Durham, New Hampshire, on the border between New England and Acadia.

The attack began at daybreak, with the small forts quickly falling to the attackers. In all, 104 inhabitants were killed and 27 taken captive, with half the dwellings, including the garrisons, pillaged and burned to the ground. Crops were destroyed and livestock killed, causing famine and destitution for survivors. Much like the English had done to the settlers at Port Royal in 1690.

The European French and English wars were brutal in the North American colonies.

Jean is again found among the 26 soldiers at Naxouat on the September-December 1697 payment roster.

In 1698, Fort Naxouat was abandoned and dismantled, and Villieu used the material to construct Fort Saint John across the bay from Port Royal which was still under English control.

Located at the mouth of the Saint John River, Fort Saint-Jean became the Acadian capital at that point, and the garrison’s soldiers were stationed there.

Then, in 1700, Port Royal was returned to the French, with Villieu as the administrator. He moved the capital of Acadia back to Port Royal, along with the soldiers who were then quartered at Fort Anne.

This move provided Jean with the opportunity to meet Marie Levron whose family lived across the river.

Jean Garceau (spelled Garsseaux in his marriage record) dit Tranchemontagne married Marie Levron in Port Royal on November 20, 1703, where the priest recorded that he was the son of Pierre Garsseaux and Jaquette Soulard of the parish of St. René in the diocese of Poitiers.

Pierre and Jacquette are neither referenced as living nor deceased. Normally, if a parent is deceased, it says so, so one would presume Pierre and Jacquette were living, although if they died after Jean left France, he would probably not have known.

Searching for Saint-Rémy

Cousin Mark, who is much more fluent in archaic French records than I am, did a lot of work to locate Pierre and Jacquette in the given parish, but he did not find them there.

He did find a very old parish church by that name in the town of Saint-Rémy just northwest of Niort in the Deux-Sèvres department. Unfortunately, those records only reach back to 1693, but the church is much older. Mark reviewed the records in three parishes, page by page, to gather what he could. But that’s not where he found Pierre and Jacquette.

Mark found Pierre Goicheau and Jacquette Soulard marrying on July 2, 1685, in Saint-Marsault in La Forêt-sur-Sèvre, Deux-Sèvres.

Saint-Rémy is 59 km, or approximately 35 miles, south of Saint-Marsault, so not exactly close, especially before the days of automobile travel.

It would be highly unusual to find two people with the exact same rather unusual names marrying, but it’s not impossible.

Mark tells us that:

There are three parish churches named Saint-Rémy in the department of Vienne, all some distance northeast of Poitiers, one in the village of Saint-Rémy-sur-Creuse and two in the villages of Chenevelles and Liegné-les-Bois, near to each other. Departmental parish records for each go back to the period of time of this research.

There is also a very old parish church in the town of Saint-Rémy, just northwest of Niort in the Deux-Sèvres department. 

Unfortunately, despite the church’s obvious age, departmental parish records for Saint-Rémy, Deux-Sèvres, only go back to 1693, but I believe this is the one referenced in the marriage record, based on my review, page by page, of the parish records in the other three parishes and what I found at Filae.com.

Before I engaged in the very tedious and difficult reading of old parish records in French, I consulted and thoroughly researched Jean and his parents’ names at Filae.com. Filae is the primary genealogical site for French genealogy, similar to Ancestry.com, and was purchased by MyHeritage a couple of years ago. I’ve subscribed to it for several years, since I started my research into French origins.

They have original records, but only back to about 1700. Besides family trees, they include the database of what genealogical societies in France have researched for older records. I have found, by comparing what is listed and my own viewing of the original records, that the two in the area, Cercle Généalogique Poitevin and Cercle Généalogique des Deux-Sèvres are very reliable and comprehensive.

I searched between 1650 and 1700 for Jean Garceau and the name’s phonetic variants, and for Pierre Garceau and Jacquette Soulard between 1630 and 1730. For Jean Garceau, there were only two family trees and absolutely no records for the Vienne department. Both trees were Acadian.

Searching Deux-Sèvres, there were 14 genealogical society entries for a Jean Garceau spelled a few different ways. Based on other evidence, none could be the one we are looking for.

For Pierre Garceau, it was about the same: no records for Vienne from 1630-1730, but for Deux-Sèvres for the longer time frame, there were 51 entries by genealogical societies. This is one reason I believe it likely that the Saint-Rémy indicated was the town in Deux-Sèvres and not the three villages in Vienne. Again, however, none of the entries pointed to the Pierre we are seeking and none with a wife named either Jacquette or surnamed Soulard.

But I hit pay dirt with my search for Jacquette Soulard. While there were just three entries for Vienne, none of interest, there were 47 entries for Deux-Sèvres.

Five of them showed children’s births to her and a Pierre Gaucheau or Goicheau, between 1686 and 1698, at villages about 30 miles north of Saint-Rémy: Saint-Marsault, La Ronde, and Moncoutant.

Given the wide variations in spelling in parish records based on varied pronunciation of the names and the subtle changes over time, it is very easy to see Gaucheau becoming Garceau or Garsseaut by the time Jean arrived in Acadia.

Pay Dirt in Saint-Marsault

Mark found 47 entries for Soulard in the Saint-Marsault parish register, including Pierre Goicheau and Jacquette Soulard’s marriage. Five additional records showed their children’s births between 1686 and 1698, recorded in three villages: Saint-Marsault, La Ronde, and Moncoutant.

Their marriage record, originally translated by ChatGPT, corrected by Mark, then retranslated with a much-improved version that agrees with Mark, reads as follows:

On the same day (which was July 2, 1685 (referencing the preceding entry), Pierre Goicheau, a laborer, thirty-three years old, son of the deceased Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin (or Coutin), received the nuptial blessing with Jacquette Soulard, eighteen years old, daughter of Jacques Soulard and the deceased Perrine Estancheau.

Those present were François Goicheau, the full brother of the said groom and a laborer; the said Marie Cousin (or Coutin), his mother; the said Jacques Soulard; and Pierre Soulard, paternal uncle of the said bride. The laborers declared that they did not know how to sign.

That tells us that Pierre Goicheau was born about 1652.

The Five Children of Pierre Goicheau and Jacquette Soulard

I can’t imagine why Cousin Mark is still speaking to me given the amount of work he has invested in my ancestors (who aren’t his), especially after I asked him if he could dig deeper and see what else he could discover. Miraculously, though, he is and has graciously agreed to share his meticulous research.

Mark found baptismal records for five of Pierre Goicheau and Jacquette Soulard’s children.

• Mathurin Goicheau was baptized August 23, 1686, at Saint-Marsault, a little over a year after their marriage. Mathurin was also the name of one of Pierre’s brothers, but the brother was surprisingly not the godfather.

There was not enough time between their marriage in July of 1685 and August of 1686 for Jacquette to have given birth to Jean too.

They probably lost a child in 1688.

• Louis Goicheau was also baptized at Saint-Marsault on May 15, 1689.
• Jacques Gaucheau was baptized at Moncoutant on September 7, 1691.

The surname is spelled differently, and the location is just 7.5 km or about 4.5 miles east of Saint-Marsault, so still quite near where they married and the two earlier children were baptized.

The Moncoutant baptism could actually have taken place in one of two churches in close proximity to Moncoutant.

The 15th-century Church of St-Gervais and St-Protais is located in the center of Moncoutant, on the old road. It was enlarged in the 1600s and partially rebuilt in the 1800s.

All old churches were either on the main road, generally in the center of town, or at crossroads.

La Chapelle-Saint-Étienne is located slightly outside of Moncoutant in this beautiful crossroads village whose origins are lost in antiquity. You can even see the old well in the yard to the right of the church. The church dates from at least 1219 when it was mentioned in a bull of Honorius. Destroyed in the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453), it was partially restored later.

In 1598, the year the Edict of Nantes was signed, the church was reported to be in very poor condition, and in 1686, the church was reported to be in danger of collapse, inside and out. The record further notes that:

In a chapel there is an arm in which there is a silver vase containing some linens, without the appearance of relics and which is nevertheless traditionally called the arm of Saint-Étienne.

The small cemetery, completely cut off by roads, is in the middle of the town. The priest is sick and crippled.

Going to the waters of Bourbon, he has taken as his replacement a priest named Avice, previously in Largeasse and coming from the diocese of Bayeux. The inhabitants are very unhappy about it. He let three people die (sic) at the door of the church, without giving them communion. He has no sign of a priest, neither in his clothes nor in his speech. He drinks wine very often and, in church, does nothing decent.

And then, in 1695, immediately following a famine:

The sanctuary is still in danger of ruin and has only 4 bushels of rye as income.

If this is the church closest to where Pierre Garsseau and Jacquette Soulard lived, the beleaguered condition of this ancient church and the resident priest’s lack of sobriety explain why they might well have looked elsewhere to have at least some of their children baptized.

Famine Strikes

In 1693, when Jacquette would have been expected to give birth to their next child, the Poitou suffered a catastrophic famine that lasted through 1694.

Cold, exceptionally wet weather ruined successive harvests. Grain reserves disappeared, prices soared, malnutrition spread, and disease followed. Approximately 1.5 million people died in France, roughly 10% of the population, although some estimates are double that. The crisis was intensified by Louis XIV’s war expenses, increased taxation, and military requisitions.

People, desperate for food, were reduced to eating wild herbs, roots, and contaminated bread. Peasants rioted and attacked revenue collectors, tax offices, and military units. The ravages of hunger triggered waves of fatal intestinal infections, including typhus, which quickly spread throughout the population, including churches.

The tiny, neighboring rural parishes of Moncoutant and Saint-Marsault were ground zero for the devastating convergence of Louis XIV’s oppressive policies and the 1693-1694 famine.

Peasants in these two towns resorted to eating boiled grass, thistles, acorns, and decaying roots dug out of the woods. The parish registers note a surge of deaths caused not just by starvation, but by “le mal de gorge” (severe throat/intestinal infections) and typhus brought on by eating contaminated organic matter.

Dead bodies were found lying along the roads, in ditches and fields. People walked until they couldn’t anymore, begging, and died where they dropped.

The Goicheau family would have been struggling mightily, along with their neighbors, and if starvation didn’t prevent Jacquette from becoming pregnant, they buried a child in 1693 or 1694.

Parish registers reflected many deaths and almost no births. Starving women stop ovulating.

Given that Jean was already serving in Acadia in 1696, and likely arrived in 1694, he would have been at least 15 when the famine hit, and possibly somewhat older. The famine provides a reason for Jean to enlist in the military. The official enlistment age was dropped from 18 to 16 during this time, but some recruiters, desperate to be paid in bread, turned a blind eye if boys a year or two younger joined up. Everyone needed to eat.

Jean probably enlisted in the Compagnies franches de la Marine in 1693 or 1694 to secure daily bread rations during the famine. He would have been quickly processed and shipped to New France. We don’t know when he arrived at Fort Naxouat, but it was assuredly before August 24, 1696 when he is listed on the muster roll.

This strongly suggests that Jean was born no later than 1680, and probably earlier. If born in 1680, he would only have been 16 when serving at Fort Naxouat in New Brunswick, which is extremely young.

If he arrived in 1694, then he was probably born around 1678.

If he was 16 in 1693 and enlisted to survive the famine, he would have been born in 1677, when his father was 25.

It’s amazing that Jean survived, and no wonder that he left France. His childhood, beginning in 1681 and continuing through the famine, was spent surviving one kind of trauma or another. By the time Jean was 20, he was probably a battle-hardened warrior in another land.

Pierre and Jacquette had apparently found sustenance and conceived a child in the summer of 1694.

• Pierre Gaucheau was baptized April 1, 1695, at La Ronde, a village just west of Moncoutant and south of Saint-Marsault, likewise in the La Forêt-sur-Sèvre commune.

There is no death record, but this child apparently died because another child by the same name was born in 1698. The devastating effects of severe malnutrition don’t simply resolve when a food source is restored. Mothers’ bodies don’t recover well, and the frequency of stillbirths, low birth weight infants, and infant deaths are elevated for some time afterward.

Another child was probably born and died in 1697.

• Their fifth child was also named Pierre Gaucheau, likely born after his brother Pierre died, and was baptized on August 26, 1698, also at La Ronde.

There, the trail goes cold.

Mark was unable to find any additional baptisms, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t additional children.

Jacquette was 18 in 1685, so in 1698 she would have only been 32, clearly young enough to bear more children. Either she died, Pierre died, they attended church elsewhere, or the records are missing.

Based on several records, we know that Pierre, and therefore Jean, lived at Saint-Marsault for some time, at least a decade, because Mark found several records placing Pierre there.

Both Pierre and his brother François witnessed their father Nicolas’s death entry on November 23, 1680, five years before Pierre married. That parish entry gave Nicolas’s age as 70, meaning he would have been born about 1610. Pierre was born when his father was about 42.

The Neighborhood

It was less than 5 miles between Moncoutant and Saint-Marsault, so Jean Garceau’s parents probably lived someplace in between.

La Ronde, where the fourth and fifth children were baptised, is dead center between Moncoutant and Saint-Marsault.

The small village of La Ronde is located at a crossroads between Moncoutant and Saint-Marsault and has its own church, L’Eglise Notre Dame La Ronde, La Forêt-sur-Sèvre, which dates from the 12th century and was rebuilt in 1478 following a fire.

This historic building at the main intersection across from the church in La Ronde probably marked the way for Jean Garceau’s parents too – although they would have been familiar and didn’t need a sign.

Today, a Madonna figure still resides in the alcove between the door and window, faithfully guarding the residents of the home and looking across the street at the church.

These quaint French villages of a few houses each are all connected by tiny one-lane roads threading their way like ribbons through farm country that has been tilled since before time was recorded. It seems that every couple of miles there’s a tiny crossroads village, so small there’s not even a stop sign, with its requisite Catholic church to serve the local villagers and farmers. Often you can see the steeples from one village to the next.

It was someplace here that Jean Garceau was born, grew up, and ultimately said goodbye to his family as a soldier. He probably remembered this scene well – the crossroads, the churches, the villages, and yes, his parents and siblings.

He would have never forgotten the hunger pains either, the hollowed-out eyes of starvation, waiting for the grim reaper to put an end to their suffering. He probably wondered if his family had survived after he joined the military. We know that thousands died, but we can’t say their names. Jean’s family members and friends perished, but his light survived.

Leaving France meant escaping the inevitable, and reserving the few scarce resources for his family members left behind. That’s all he could do for them.

Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin

Mark was able to locate a few more records for Pierre Goicheau’s parents, although neither their marriage record nor the baptisms for their children were found.

Nicolas’s death record in Saint-Marsault in 1680 was witnessed by Pierre and his brother François, who, five years later, witnessed his brother Pierre’s marriage in the same church.

Nicolas and Marie also had a daughter, Jeanne Goicheau, who was married at Saint-Marsault on July 8, 1686, listing her parents as Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin. Witnesses at this wedding included her brothers Pierre, François and Mathurin Goicheau, which tells us that Nicolas and Marie had at least four surviving children.

They likely welcomed several more children into their lives between 1635, or so, and about 1660, when Marie would have been 43.

Nicolas Goicheau was also recorded as godfather to a Nicolas Couzin, son of a François Couzin, clearly a relation to his wife, in January 1646 at Saint-André-sur-Sèvre, a tiny country crossroads village consisting of a few picturesque French houses, a church and cemetery to the northwest of La Forêt-sur-Sèvre, the same place where Pierre’s future wife, Jacquette Soulard, was baptized in 1666.

This church clearly served the needs of nearby farmers whose families would have walked to church.

Saint-André-sur-Sèvre is only about three and a half miles from Saint-Marsault.

Given that family records are found in both churches, they probably lived someplace along this beautiful, quaint French country road, winding through the beautiful countryside between the two towns.

François Goicheau, Nicolas and Marie’s son, was also listed as a witness to Marie’s death at Saint-Marsault in 1692, where her age is given as 75, so born about 1617. Mark notes that François is listed twice in that record, so it’s unclear if that was a clerical error or if there were two men by the same name.

Mark found 88 results for a Marie Cousin between 1600 and 1700 within just 20 km of La Forêt-sur-Sèvre, and it is likely she was a godmother to a few infants, but he could find no other records that related to Goicheau/Gaucheau. Marie Cousin seems to be a common name, unlike Nicolas Goicheau by whatever spelling.

Mark did find additional information about François, although it’s a bit confusing, but then again, everything about this family has been “interesting.”

Complicating this still further, there is a marriage record at Saint-Marsault, the acknowledged village for much of the family records, on 16 Jul 1691, of François Goicheau, age 30, so born about 1661 and a Perrine Geay, age 20. The record shows his parents as François Goicheau and Marie Cousin! – and as a witness a brother François! There are just too many men named François in this picture, and some are assuredly incorrect!

I need to locate the original Deux-Sèvres record to see what it really shows.

The groom’s father should have been Nicolas, not another François, and I doubt he had another brother with the same name, although his death record at Saint-Marsault, of 12 Jan 1695, age 35, likewise shows as a witness a brother François and sister Jeanne. In addition, Marie Cousin’s death record of 1692 shows as witnesses two sons named François! I guess it’s possible.

The famine took hold in the fall of 1692 when summer grain crops failed. The King’s soldiers had depleted any supplies that might have normally been held in reserve, so the suffering began immediately.

Marie died on May 1^st of 1692, so she was spared the fate of starvation. While I’m sure they grieved her passing, I’m equally as sure that her family thanked the Lord that she did not suffer what was coming.

The death of Francois Goicheau in January of 1695 was almost assuredly a result of the famine. While the acute starvation ended in the fall of 1694, survivors would have been in terrible health, mere walking skeletons, and the famine-induced diseases and their after-effects persisted for years.

We don’t know what happened to the rest of the family.

Jacquette Soulard’s Family

While it’s extremely unlikely that Jacquette Soulard is the biological mother of Jean Garceau (Goicheau), I can’t definitively close the curtain on that possibility either.

Mark was hoping to find additional information that might reveal more. While there is nothing conclusive regarding the probability or possibility of Jacquette being Jean Garceau’s mother, I’m including Mark’s research in case one day we discover that, in fact, she is.

As I could not find any record of Pierre’s parents’ marriage, likewise I could not find any record of the marriage of Jacquette Soulard’s parents, Jacques Soulard and Perrine Estancheau, under either name or its variants, anywhere in France.

There is a record of the baptism of a Perrine Estancheau on 20 May 1623 at Montravers, about five miles northwest of Saint-André-sur-Sèvre. The parents listed were François Estancheau and Michelle Bodet. This would require that Perrine gave birth to Jacquette at around age 43, which is certainly possible.

I did find Perrine’s death record of 17 May 1668, at Saint-André-sur-Sèvre, less than two years after the birth of Jacquette. Her husband Jacques Soulard is named, and witnesses include her brother Jacques Etancheau, brother-in-law Pierre Soulard and sister Catherine Etancheau, leaving no doubt of her identity. No other children of Jacques and Perrine were found. Her death may have been as a result of childbirth if she did give birth to Jacquette at age 43 and was again pregnant.

There were 17 births of a Jacques Soulard between 1600 and 1650 within 200 km of La Forêt-sur-Sèvre, but none within the immediate area, making it impossible to determine which, if any, were relevant without a marriage record naming his parents. Jacques may have remarried a Michelle Brouard. A marriage record at Saint-André-sur-Sèvre of a Pierre Soulard on 10 Aug 1708, age 33, so born about 1675, names his parents as Jacques Soulard and Michelle Brouard. A brother François Soulard is named as a witness. I found no record of any remarriage for Jacques. It would be surprising if Jacques Soulard did not quickly remarry given Jacquette’s very young age, but without a marriage record, one has to put other pieces together to draw inferences.

I also could not find a definitive death record for Jacques. There is a death record for a Jacques Soulard on 28 Apr 1695 at Combrand, Deux-Sèvres, several miles to the north of Saint-André-sur-Sèvre. He is likely the same Jacques Soulard baptized in the same parish on 24 May 1609, although the death record shows an age of 60, so born about 1635, and married to a Françoise Guesdon or Guion. As I mentioned, there were several Jacques Soulards in the greater area so I cannot draw any clear conclusions.

Revisiting Saint-Rémy

How many times have you failed to find something where you thought it should be, then gone back and revisited that same drawer again?

Mark did the same thing:

I’ve also taken another look at the area around Saint-Rémy, keeping in mind there are no records for the parish before 1693. Saint-Rémy is close enough to La Forêt-sur-Sèvre and the surrounding villages such that most of the same records that appear within 200 km are the same for both locations. I first checked for any records for a Pierre Garceau or Goicheau. The Pierre Goicheau that married Jacquette Soulard was born about 1652 according to the marriage record.

For the name Pierre Garceau and its many spelling variants, there were no results at all within 20 km of Saint-Rémy. Within 200 km there were no baptisms around the 1650s. One occurred in 1637 and another in 1671, both at some considerable distance from Saint-Rémy. There were no marriages at all for a Pierre Garceau within 200 km. For a Pierre Goicheau, the only marriage was that to Jacquette Soulard. As I mentioned earlier, I could find no baptisms for any of the children of Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin. Nor were there any Pierre Goicheau baptisms by other couples between 1638 and 1697 within 200 km. As I noted, there was an almost total lack of records for Nicolas Goicheau, the earliest being his appearance as godfather in 1646. Throughout France, there were only ten entries at Filae for a Nicolas Goicheau from 1560 to 1700, and four of those I’ve already noted.

Moreover, Filae shows no records of a Jean Garceau or Goicheau born to a Pierre Garceau or Goicheau or any spelling variants, nor a Jacquette Soulard, anywhere in France between 1620 and 1700.

Evaluating the Possibilities

When Jean Garceau married, he gave his parents’ names as Pierre Garsseaux and Jacquette Soulard. Jean did not know how to write, so the priest would have written the names as he heard them.

We know from Mark’s research that this couple was married in 1685 and had a baby in 1686, thirteen months later, and it wasn’t Jean.

Jean’s father, Pierre, was 33 in 1685 when he married, so born about 1652, although we have no baptismal record for him. Jacquette was 18, baptized on November 28, 1666, in the village/commune of Saint-André-sur-Sèvre, six km northwest of Saint-Marsault.

When Jean married in 1703, in Acadia, given that he was already serving in 1696 as a soldier, he could not have been born later than 1686. If he were born in 1687, he would have been only nine years old in 1696 as a soldier, and 16 in 1703 when he married. That’s simply impossible.

Given what we know, only a few scenarios are possible, and the situation is further complicated by upheaval in the part of the Poitou where Jean’s family lived.

Could Religious or Social Upheaval Have Affected the Records?

Jean could have been born before his parents, Pierre and Jacquette, were married. If that’s the case, then he was born in 1685 or earlier – and several years earlier given his 1696 military service.

If Jacquette was his mother, it raises the question of why his parents didn’t marry when Jacquette was pregnant with Jean, since they clearly did marry in July of 1685. French girls were considered of marriageable age at 14, and she turned 14 in 1680.

This scenario, at least on the surface, has several flies in the ointment. However, taking into consideration what was happening locally might make a difference.

Protestantism was deeply established in the Poitou, including the present-day Deux-Sèvres. This was not a distant national controversy to the local families. Moncoutant had a substantial Protestant community, and its own municipal history specifically says that the community suffered the notorious dragonnades late in the seventeenth century.

In 1681, the Poitou became the first region in which Louis XIV used the dragonnades.

Royal dragoons, shown in this 1886 painting by Jules Girardet, were forcibly quartered in Protestant homes, where they were permitted to intimidate, abuse, rob, and otherwise torment the occupants until they converted to Catholicism.

In 1681, Jacquette would have been 14 or 15.

We know Pierre and Jacquette had some connection with Moncoutant, because one of their children was later baptized there, and Jacquette was born just north of there.

We have no evidence that Pierre or Jacquette was Protestant. Their marriage received a Catholic nuptial blessing, and Jacquette was baptized in a Catholic church in 1666.

We have no marriage or baptismal records for the children of Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin, nor for a first marriage for Pierre Goicheau. Nicolas witnessed a Catholic baptism in 1646 in the church at Saint-André-sur-Sèvre that includes both the Couzin and Soulard families, so he was Catholic at that time. These records substantially reduce the likelihood that either family was Catholic in the 1670s or 1680, but does not entirely remove the possibility.

Pierre and Jacquette’s children were baptized in Catholic churches, except for Jean, whose baptismal record is missing. Still, in the 1680s, they were living in upheaval –  among frightened neighbors, forced conversions, soldiers quartered in private homes, destroyed religious communities, and families fleeing or practicing their faith secretly.

Protestant baptisms and marriages could have been recorded separately before 1685. After the Protestant pastors were banished and churches destroyed, records were lost, and a Protestant background would probably have been hidden. Catholic baptism and marriage became compulsory. A missing earlier marriage or baptism might reflect religious disruption, although there is no evidence that this explains Jean’s missing baptismal record or those of the children of Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin.

It does, however, provide insight into the times in which they were living.

So, what are the possibilities surrounding Jean’s birth and parents?

Possibility 1: An Earlier marriage and baptism at Saint-Étienne that were not recorded 

It’s possible that Pierre and Jacquette (or another wife) were married at nearby Saint-Étienne, and Jean was baptized there too, but neither event was recorded due to the chronically drunken condition of the priest. If the wife was Jacquette, they remarried at Saint-Marsault.

However, given that they couldn’t read or write, how would they have known that their marriage wasn’t recorded? And if that was the case, then why was Jean not rebaptized too?

This is a rather unlikely scenario, but still a possibility.

Possibility 2: Jean was born in 1680 or 1681 to Jacquette before she married Pierre

If Jean was born when Jacquette was 14 or 15, that would have been in late 1680 or 1681, which means he was only 15 or 16 by the time he was serving at Fort Naxouet in 1696, and probably two years younger when he enlisted during the famine.

This is really the only tiny sliver of a window in which we can make this scenario of Jacquette being Jean’s mother work. However, it still doesn’t explain why Jacquette and Pierre didn’t marry when she was pregnant, given that they did marry in 1685. Unless they did marry at Saint-Étienne and remarried later when they discovered their marriage hadn’t been recorded, or unless they were Protestant, which is highly unlikely.

Given Jean’s age, this scenario is highly unlikely, bordering on the nearly impossible.

Possibility 3: Pierre was previously married

A more probable scenario is that Jean’s father, Pierre, was married previously and Jean was born about 1677 or 1678 to Pierre’s first wife, who died. Pierre then married Jacquette in 1685, who was functionally Jean’s mother, so he thought nothing of listing her as such.

In this scenario, if Pierre, who was 33 in 1685 when he married Jacquette, had originally married at 25, in 1677, which was still relatively young, Jean Garceau would have been born about 1677 or 1678, so 14 or 15 when the famine struck in 1692, 18 or 19 in 1696 in Naxouet, and roughly 25 when he married Marie Levron in Acadia. That’s much more reasonable.

That said, being born out of wedlock might have been a reason for Jean to join the military relatively young too, but given the dates and that Jacquette and Pierre married in 1685, I’d wager the famine was Jean’s motivation. His parents were probably glad to see him go, not because they didn’t love him, but because it gave him a chance for survival.

There’s absolutely no way for Pierre Goicheau and Jacquette Soulard to be the parents of Jean Garceau who was serving in Naxouet in 1696 if he was born after they married. Yet, when Jean married in 1703, he clearly said they were his parents, even though the parish name given was not where Pierre and Jacquette lived when Jean left.

Saint-Rémy is improbably distant from Saint-Marsault where all of the other Garceau and Soulard records are clustered. These families were farmers and laborers, as recorded in parish registers. They didn’t simply come and go, moving around the country at will. They were tied to the land and the landowners, and their children would have been baptized in nearby churches.

Maybe Saint-René as recorded in Acadia was not Saint-Rémy, and maybe the parish given was simply wrong or misunderstood. Mark is a meticulous researcher and first tried to find a parish of either St. René or St. Rémi(y), as either could have been what was written or intended. Spelling was not standardized at that time, and he searched all over France.

Based on Mark’s findings, I believe we have enough evidence to conclude that this is the correct family, and that Jean Garceau spent his childhood and much of his formative years living on a farm near Saint-Marsault, and one way or another, was raised by his stepmother, Jacquette Soulard.

I think this is really the only reasonable possibility.

Visiting Saint-Marsault

Thanks to Mark’s exhaustive work, I was able to visit Saint-Marsault in the spring of 2024 on a bus tour.

I felt as if I was literally walking in their footsteps, and that was before Mark had discovered the additional information, including Pierre Goicheau’s children’s baptisms and his parents’ death records in the same parish.

Our guide had made room in the schedule for this detour, and our tour bus pulled up outside on the main road, at a pull-off beside a park along the village stream. Our time at this stop was limited to about 15 minutes.

These old churches are often difficult to get to, with little, if any, parking at the actual church. The original members didn’t need parking as they simply walked or perhaps rode to church in a wagon.

The church, L’Église Saint-Martial (Saint-Marsault, La Forêt-sur-Sèvre), stood on a little hill, just up from the main road. This ancient church dates back to the Middle Ages in this tiny village and was named after a third-century saint venerated for his role in the spread of Christianity in France. The church was restored in the 18^th century, but the various parts date from different periods in its history. The bell tower dates from the 12^th or 13^th century, so it would have already been “old” when Jean and his parents attended church here in the late 1600s.

We walked up the slight hill from the contemporary road that now bypasses the church.

The priest promised to meet us, but no one was there. Our knocks echoed on the thick wooden door but went unanswered. My heart was sinking with disappointment.

I tried to console myself by telling myself that at least I was there, in that sacred place, and able to view the exterior. Parts would have looked much the same as when Jean and his parents trod this same land.

We walked around to the side when one of my Acadian cousins discovered that they had left the church’s side door open for us.

Oh, happy day!

This beautiful door looks to be original. Pierre and Jacquette would have come and gone through this door, perhaps announcing themselves to the priest through the window if they were in need of a baptism or were sent to fetch the priest for last rites for someone.

This church is stunningly beautiful. I could picture my ancestors here and hear their voices echo across time.

Young Jean was probably being hushed to stay quiet during the services. He was probably 7 or 8 when his father married Jacquette, so would have been watching as the priest united his new family.

Jean would have sat in these pews and perhaps knelt on the floor. As young boys will, his attention probably wandered as the priest’s voice droned on in Latin, and he looked out the windows at the clouds.

Of course, I took the opportunity to light a candle to honor my ancestors, exactly as they would have done. That flame of love that burns eternal, timeless, and endless.

Light and sacred prayers winging their way across the ages – 339 years from Pierre’s wedding to my return.

I always wonder if my ancestors are watching or somehow know that I’ve returned home.

Are they here with me? Silent souls in the church they loved so.

I closed my eyes, feeling them and drinking in the elixir of their devotion.

Where they celebrated life and mourned death.

Seeing what they saw in the alcove. Acadians were staunchly religious. They fought and sacrificed for the right to worship in the Catholic faith.

The priest’s door, slipping into the side chapel.

These doors were reinforced because the church served as a place of safety during times of attack.

Knowing that they sat here, stood here, knelt and worshipped here made it difficult for me to leave. I walked through that same doorway they had. Part of my soul is connected here through an invisible umbilical cord reaching across endless generations.

More than one tear slipped down my cheeks as I stepped outside and walked back down that hill.

Tears of joy, tears of longing, tears of separation from something I had just found. How could I possibly have become so connected so quickly? Or maybe it wasn’t quickly.

Maybe it was threads and ropes and bonds reaching across the centuries.

Maybe it was my ancestors holding me, calling me.

Maybe it was my own struggle to reach them, and theirs to survive.

Maybe, maybe our hands and our hearts had finally touched and bonded, here, in this sacred place.

Not just Jean Garceau and Pierre Goicheau either, but Jean’s grandparents, Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin, and those unknown and unnamed who had come before. Generations who had probably trod on these same stones, under this same roof, worshipping and praying for those they loved.

I knew I had to leave, but I wasn’t ready. Something was holding me here. But our time was up.

I began my walk down the hill, back to the bus, my eyes blurred by tears. I told myself that crying like this was ridiculous.

Why was I having this visceral reaction?

Then, I noticed a pathway to the far side of the church, behind the foliage. I had to follow it. But I also needed to hurry, as everyone else was already headed for the bus and I was already bringing up the rear.

More tears flowed at my next discovery.

Alone, I walked around to the far side of the church, where I happened upon a courtyard of sorts, with a fountain. That seemed rather…odd.

I wondered what this was. I only had a quick minute, as everyone else was already boarding the bus, so I had to turn around without exploring. I was climbing the steps, on my way out, when I made the discovery that illuminated where I had just stood.

As I held onto the railing, I looked down and wondered what I was seeing. It looked quite unusual. Upon closer inspection, I realized that tombstones had been recycled into the landscaping, beneath the railing, beside the steps that led up to the front of the church. That’s when it hit me. The “garden” was the old cemetery, which, of course, was just outside the door of the church. Now it all made sense!

The most that could be recovered from this photo is “ici repose,” meaning “here rests.”

This was the parish cemetery, apparently paved over when the gravestones were recycled into the landscaping. The fountain and statue of the Madonna are all that’s left to honor those who were buried here.

This is where generations of Garceau family members rest, marked by only that fountain and the dust of their bones.

I had no idea I had just been standing on generations of my ancestors. Perhaps they summoned me. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t leave.

I hear you.

I see you.

Maybe their ache, still lingering from the horrors of famine, reached my heart. Standing there, that day, I didn’t yet know about that terrible chapter that occurred here. How many died – their deaths perhaps never recorded, and buried quickly by the few well-enough to dig a grave.

And the tiny graves of Pierre and Jacquette’s babies.

Eternal Spring

As I crossed the street to board the bus, I noticed the old well in the little park.

The lush green foliage and spring flowers were thriving along the stream that conferred life – its water sustaining and nourishing the community.

The priest drew the cool water from the well and blessed it to make it sacred, although it was already the sacred key to life and always had been.

A community well was dug near the stream to provide clean water, and everyone took their bucket to the well, where they exchanged news of the day. Today, that’s just a memory, but the well remains, as do the whispers of our ancestors, traveling on the breezes.

Children had probably played here since time immemorial.

The Goicheaus were laborers, living on a nearby farm, so they would have come and gone, traveling along this road, perhaps visiting the well when they were in the village. From time to time, they probably gathered flowers and laid them on the graves of their ancestors and family members as they passed by. In a time when graves were marked by neat wooden crosses, before gravestones were recycled as something else.

My family stood exactly in this spot – right here – some 340 years ago, and before. Probably for centuries. Today, the well housing remains in the little park beside the stream, across the main road and down the hill from the church. The park probably exists because it’s low and the stream likely floods in the spring.

Dandelions bloomed that day just as they did when spring announced itself on those long-ago spring days, too.

I noticed this stately tree and wondered if it stood witness then, or if just the well and stream remain from that time.

Did the tree shelter Pierre’s descendants who heard stories beneath its branches about the life and times of Pierre, Jacquette, and Jean? The one who went to seek his fortune across the ocean in Acadia during the starving times called the “years of misery” by the peasants?

Did Pierre’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren play beneath these protective branches, beside the stream?

Did this tree, or its ancestors, bear witness to generations of Garceau family members who married and worshipped here, as Pierre and Jacquette’s babies were baptized and some were buried beside the church?

Did it witness the funerals of Pierre and Jacquette, and Jean’s grandparents, Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin?

Maybe this little park is, in reality, a living memorial to their lives. Maybe the tree, like them, was once young and has now grown old, holding cherished memories that it has no one left to share with.

That is, until one of us returns home.

_____________________________________________________________

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