Jacques Bourgeois - an enterprising ancestor

All of the Bourgeois of Acadian descent share a common ancestor Jacques Bourgeois, a man who distinguished himself as a surgeon, farmer, ship builder, trader, and founder of Beaubassin.

According to recent research(1), Jacques Bourgeois was baptized on January 8th 1621, the illegitimate son of a widow Marguerite Bourgeois and of the deceased Nicolas Grandjehan in the church of St-Romain in the town of La Ferté-Gaucher near Paris. He was raised under his mother's maiden name. The Grandjehan and Bourgeois families had various alliances with the order of Malta. It is probably in the nearby commandery of Coutran that Jacques received his medical training.

He arrived in Acadia in 1643 as a ship surgeon with D'Aulnay's contingent and settled in Port-Royal.
For a narration of D'Aulnay's convoluted mission to Acadia see:
http://www.cyberacadie.com/Biographie/g6_charles_de_menou.htm

That very same year he married Jeanne Trahan aged fourteen, born in Bourgeuil, Anjou province. She was the daughter of Guillaume Trahan and Françoise Corbineau, the most prominent family of Port-Royal.

In 1646, the governor D'Aulnay granted Jacques and his wife an island (Isle aux Cochons) situated upstream from Port-Royal which he farmed diligently. The 1671 census shows him as having 20 arpents under cultivation, 33 head of cattle, and 24 sheep as well as 10 children.

In 1654, Sedgwick a british major armed by the citizenry of Boston, attacked Port-Royal even though France and England were at peace. The city was defended by brother-in-law, Germain Doucet de La Verdure who negotiated its reddition. The capitulation papers that Germain presented to Robert Sedgwick mention that, in order to insure that Germain fulfilled the terms of the capitulation, he left his "brother-in-law" and lieutenant, Jacques Bourgeois, as hostage. The english did not occupy Port-Royal after 1657 and the French did not reestablish a presence until 1670. During that time Port-Royal was administered by a syndic headed by Guillaume Trahan.

In addition to his work as a farmer and surgeon, Jacques Bourgeois also set up as a marine merchant. His boats follow the coast to trade with the MicMac indians in the Bay of Fundy and to the south to trade with the Bostonians. His trading activities were assisted by his knowledge of English which he may have learned while a prisoner.

In 1671, Jacques assisted by his three sons and two of his sons in laws founded the settlement of Beaubassin (now Amherst Nova Scotia) where he built a mill and shipyards. Jacques and his son, Guillaume, returned to live at Port Royal after the establishment at Beaubassin, although they kept farms at the new settlement.
In 1686, Jacques and Jeanne moved definitively to Beaubassin to live with their son, Germain.

At the beginning of Sept. 1696, the English Colonel Benjamin Church from Boston attacked Beaubassin, which has been left undefended by the French. Jacques is enlisted to negotiate with the English contingent from Boston. Jacques obtained a promise from Church that the residents would be left in peace, but Church reneged on his promise and the soldiers from Boston burned most of the homes in the region. The Acadians of Beaubassin were forced to flee to the woods; however, the English respected the Acadians' capabilities as marksmen and refused to chase the Acadians out of the reach of their ship's cannons. They were eventually able to return to Beaubassin but Jacques and his wife left to return to Port-Royal.

Jacques died shortly before 1700, as he is not listed in the census of that year. In 1702, the commandant of the fort at Port Royal referred to him in an official report as the late Jacques Bourgeois.

For a history of Beaubassin see:

http://collections.ic.gc.ca/neo-ecossaise/en/historique/beau.htm

and :

http://www.creda.net/~ccmuseum/acadian.htm

For a history of the people who settled Acadia and some notes on Jacques Bourgeois:

http://www.acadiansingray.com/appendices-Acadian%20Pioneers.htm


(1) Pierre-Paul Bourgeois' bilingual book A la recherche des Bourgeois d'Acadie, from La Societé Historique de Grande-Digue, C.P. 117, Grande-Digue, N.B. E0A 1S0, Canada."

A cousin of Eulalie Bourgeois on her way to sainthood

The Roy family has strong connections to Sherbrooke, Quebec. Anthyme Roy and Georgiana Paré died there. Their daughter Laura Roy married to Robert Drouin raised her family there. One of Anthyme's sons, Arthur Roy of Billerica Ma. had a cottage just outside Sherbrooke which his family kept well into the sixties. There is yet another more subtle connection to Sherbrooke. This town's south west area is dominated by a huge grey building - the provincial house of the Sisters of the Holy family (petites soeurs de la Ste-Famille). That house was built and the religious order founded by a cousin of Eulalie Bourgeois - Sister Marie-Léonie Paradis.

Eulalie's father Édouard Bourgeois married Marie Louise Grégoire on January 13th 1823 in St-Cyprien-de-Napierville. Marie Louise Grégoire was the daughter of Joseph Grégoire and Louise Brouillet who married June 11th 1804 in L'Acadie. Marie-Louise's sister Émilie was the eighth child of Joseph and Louise. She married Joseph Paradis in L'Acadie on October 3rd 1837. On May 12th 1840, she gave birth to Élodie Virginie Paradis. When Élodie was five years old, her father rented out his L'Acadie property and at first rented and then purchased the mill in the La Salle seigneury. She was educated in the convent in Laprairie and in August 1857 joined the sisters of Ste-Croix under the religious name of Mother Marie-Léonie.
In 1862, she was in New York city for eight years working in an orphanage. In 1870, the american nuns of Ste-Croix separated from the french branch. Élodie returned to Montreal. At the age of 30, urged on by father Sorin, she joined the sisters of the Holy-Cross and moved to Indiana where she taught for five years. Meanwhile in Memramcook, New Brunswick, father Lefebvre whom Élodie had known in her childhood in Laprairie had founded a college which was to become the University of Moncton. He requested that Élodie come to teach domestic science and run the school's kitchen. Élodie left Lake Linden, Mi. where she had moved after Indiana and once in New Brunswick tried to found an institute dedicated to the teaching of domestic science. This endeavour encountered much opposition from the local church.
After spending 21 years in New Brunswick, Élodie was transferred to Sherbrooke where she found the support to start a new religious order, the sisters of the Holy Family, and the institute of the same name. At her death on May 3rd 1912 at the age of 72, over 600 nuns had joined her order. She had travelled throughout North-America to set up institutes - as far as Menlo Park California.
In 1952, a tribunal was formed to start instructing the canonisation of Mother Léonie-Élodie. 73 witnesses were heard. Her writings scrutinized. This is a slow process. On January 31st 1981, Pope John Paul II signed a decree which officially recognized Élodie as venerable. She was beatified (the first to be so on Canadian soil) in 1984.

Notes for this biography were taken from Pierre Brault's Histoire de L'Acadie.

You can see a picture of hers at:

http://www.marieleonie.org/biographie.html

Addendum: When Élodie joined the Sisters of Ste-Croix at the age of 14, her father was prospecting for gold in California. How people travelled in those days!

L'Acadie & The Bourgeois family

Anthyme Roy's and Georgiana Paré's eldest son Émile married Eulalie Bourgeois in Bennington, Vt. The Bourgeois family has a most interesting history and settled in L'Acadie, Qc. - an area in close proximity to where I live. The Bourgeois came to L'Acadie after being deported from Beau Bassin, Nova Scotia to Boston in 1755. As soon as they were allowed to depart from Boston they and a number of other Acadian families made their way north on foot following the Hudson River, Lake Champlain, and the Richelieu River. Some 500 Acadians thus settled in the area of la Petite Rivière de Montréal (the small Montreal River) which they promptly renamed Petite Cadie and subsequently L'Acadie in honour of their ancestral home. They arrived in small bands - as many as 80, 0n August 19th 1768 but some had managed to escape (illegally) from Boston as early as 1758. In those days L'Acadie (which was also to be spelled Lacadie) was a huge tract of land covering an area from Chambly to the Richelieu river and from Laprairie to the American border. At first, civil records were entered in the registers of the parish of St-Philipe-de-Laprairie as there were no churches on the territory. These registers include marriages (these were validated in Laprairie) and baptisms having taken place during the exile period as Acadians were not allowed to practice their religion in Massachussets and had no access to priests in any event.
A church was erected in the village of L'Acadie as early as 1784. The parish is named Ste-Marguerite de Blairfindie in honour of the wife of the scottish seigneur David Alexander Grant.
This church is considered an architectural jewel. Its picture and those of houses in the village can be found at:
http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~marcotte/Velo/Villes/Lacadie.html

As population grew, more villages and parishes were created: St-Cyprien de Napierville to the South, St-Luc to the north, St-Blaise to the east, and St-Jacques-le-mineur to the west.
Two years ago, the village of L'Acadie was annexed to the city of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu. It remains a charming village where old houses have been well preserved and restored surrounded by a thriving agricultural area.

Useful sites

Here are links to useful background sites on Quebec & Acadian history, geography, and genealogy: (english language ressources)

Timeline: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Timelines_of_Quebec_history

History: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Quebec_history

Acadian history: http://www.acadian-home.org/frames.html

Links to Acadian history & culture: http://www.acadiancultural.org/history.htm

Quebec geography ( click on Quebec tourist regions):

http://www.quebecweb.com/tourisme/Geograpang.html

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/Quebecprov_Geography.asp

Atlas: http://atlas.gc.ca/site/english/maps/reference/provincesterritories/quebec

You can find the location of cities at:

http://www.mapblast.com/(0foym145oy12ptagi20roi55)/Home.aspx

Online genealogical dictionary: http://www.genealogie.umontreal.ca/en/

General Quebec genealogical links: http://www.islandnet.com/~jveinot/cghl/quebec.html

http://listingsca.com/Quebec/Society/Genealogy/

American-French Genealogical Society: http://www.afgs.org/genepges.html

Acadian genealogy links: http://chiasson.chebucto.org/

The Roy name

Over 27 different persons with the surname Roy migrated to New France. The surname Roy was common in France and may have many origins. In the middle ages, the word roi meant rule or master. Roi was adopted as a patronym by persons who were masters or the best at a given trade. It could also refer to someone who had won at a game. In Brittany, the first person of a group to complete a pilgrimage to St-Jacques-de-Compostelle would add the name Leroi to his first name. Finally, the Roy name was also adopted by persons who administered the property of the king or a lord.
The name's spelling has varied over the years. Anthyme's father, François, is usually referred to as Roi in registers. Their first ancestor to come to Canada was known as Nicolas Leroy.
To complicate matters, french canadians often had a second surname especially if their ancestor had been a soldier. They often used one name for some matters and the second surname for others. Their children could adopt both or either surname. As time went by, descendants of Nicolas Leroy came to refer to themselves as Roy dit Leroy to differentiate themselves from descendants of other Roy such as the Roy dit Desjardins or the Roy dit Lauzier. In the beginning of the 20th century, families stopped using the second surname and family surnames were standardized. The Roi, Leroi, and Leroy names are now spelled Roy.
The Roy family association regroups all of the descendants of the 27 Roy who came to North America. Their website ca be found at:http://www.genealogie.org/famille/roy/english.htm