Houde

sometimes Houle

This is a very common Québecois name, though all Houdes (and some who spell the name Houle) are descended from a single immigrant ancestor from the village of Manou in the Perche (near St-Langis, Tourouvre and other places where many pioneer families originated).

André Houde (1526-1595) lived in Manou. We do not know his wife's name, but he was the father or perhaps the grandfather of Noël Houde (born about 1590; if André is his father, there is an unusual sixty-plus-year age difference). On December 31, 1617 Noël Houde married Anne Lefèbvre (c1592-1620, daughter of Jean Lefèbvre and Jeanne Doubleau). Their son Louis-Noël was baptized only one week later in the church of St-Pierre in Manou.

Louis-Noël Houde was in Québec by 1647, and worked in the household of Noël Juchereau, Sieur de Chastellées. He soon acquired at least two pieces of property, at St-Augustin (now the neighborhood of the Grand-Allée in Québec city) and at Sillery. He married Madeleine Boucher - age thirteen - in her parents' house at Chateau-Richer on January 12, 1655. (She was the daughter of the immigrant Marin Boucher, also our ancestor through several other lines.) He later acquired more farms, in Beaupré and on the Île d'Orléans, where his family lived until 1682. In that year Louis acquired a much larger piece of land (purchased from the Ursulines) at Lotbinière (parish of Ste-Croix; he donated the land for the church, see photo above). His sons eventually inherited parts of this estate and took "dit" names evoking the landscape - such as Desrochers (stony), Desruisseaux (with brooks), Bellefeuille (beautiful leaves).

Children: Jean (1659?-1701; lived at St-Nicolas, Lévis; married Anne Rouleau); Françoise (1660-1665); Louis (1662-1725, married Marie-Madeleine Lemay); Gervais (1664-1716, married Marie Denevers); Jacques (1667-1748, married Marie-Louise Beaudet); Marie (1669, married Isaac Garnier); Claude (1671-1728?, married Marie-Madeleine Lemay); Louise (1673, married Charles Lemay); Marie-Anne (1674-1675); another Louis (1675-1729, married Anne-Ursule Bisson); Joseph (1678-1749, married Louise-Angélique Grenier); Simon (1680-1716, married Marie Fréchet); Étienne (1682-1750, married Élisabeth-Ursule Denevers); Marie-Angélique (1683-1727, married Guillaume Rognon dit Larouche).

Descent from Claude (1671-1728?): his daughter Marie-Angélique married Louis-François Bourgouin; their daughter Marie-Charlotte married her cousin Louis Boucher; they were great-grandparents of Louise Boucher Martin.