Bourgouin

also Bourguignon

The Bourgouin family originated in Fontenay-le-Comte, the village in Poitou which in medieval times had one of Europe's great monasteries (above) - several of the English kings (who were also dukes of Normandy and counts of Poitou) are buried there. Our ancestors lived in the parish of Nôtre-Dame, where François Bourgouin (c1615) married Andrée Bastard (c1620) in about 1640.

There may have been other children; but we know only of Pierre Bourgouin dit Bourguignon, who emigrated to Québec in July 1662, and was living in La Bazinière in 1689. He died in Beauport in 1719. His profession was weaving. At Québec city in October 1667, he married Catherine Basset, a "fille du roi." They had eight children: Pierre (born and died 1668); Jacques (1670, married Marie-Jeanne Matte and Marie-Jeanne Mesny); Noël (1673, died young); Marie-Catherine (1674, married Pierre Retail); Claude (1676-1733, see below); another Pierre (1681, married Marie-Madeleine Chenet); Marie-Madeleine (1683), and an unnamed boy, stillborn in 1685.

Claude Bourgouin dit Bourguignon (1676-1733) was born in Lauzon on October 24, 1676 and baptised about two weeks later in Québec city. In November 1698 he married Marie-Thérèse Magnan (daughter of Étienne Magnan and Élisabeth Migneron) at Pointe-aux-Trembles. They had at least five children: Marie-Catherine (married Thomas Rondeau); Antoine-François (married Anne Blouard); Marie-Françoise (married Louis Cluseau); Marie (died young); and Louis-François (married three times; see below).

Louis-François Bourgouin was born April 27, 1707 in Tilly, and baptized on May 3. He was married there (in the church of St-Antoine) on April 30, 1731 to Marie-Angélique Houde (dite Desruisseaux). The first-born child is our ancestor: Marie-Charlotte (1737, married Louis Boucher at St-Nicolas de Lévis in April 1758). Other children were: Jean-Louis, Marie-Angélique, Marie-Josephe, and Jean-Baptiste. Marie-Angélique Houde died in 1739, age 30; Louis-François then married Marie-Angélique Hayot and had one firther child, Jean-François; the second wife died as well; he then married Marie-Thérèse Boucher, widow of Joseph Demers and aunt of the same Louis Boucher who married Louis-François' eldest daughter. They also had one child, François.

Marie-Charlotte Bourgouin Boucher was a great-grandmother of Louise Boucher, the mother of Joseph Arthur Martin.