The earliest known ancestor is Gillaume Basset, who with his wife Marguérite Carié (or Cavé) lived in the village of Darnétal near Rouen in the early seventeenth century. The family left some scanty records in the parish church of St-Ouen. The image above is a lithograph made in 1803, representing Rouen as seen from a bell tower in Darnétal.

Their daughter Catherine (born 1651) was a "fille du roi", coming to Canada about 1667, where she married Pierre Bourgouin on October 17 in Québec city. See Bourgouin for their descendants,