Leblanc

dit Miramichi

The family comes from Martaize, a village in Poitou near Aulnay. The seigneur d'Aulnay, first governor of Acadia, recruited many of the Acadian pioneer families from his own neighborhood. The parish church of St-Maurice is pictured above. Some researchers claim that Daniel Leblanc's paternal ancestors can be traced back several generations in Martaize (Pierre, his son Alphonse, his son René) but other genealogists doubt this. In any case René Leblanc was the immigrant Daniel's father; his mother's name is not known.

While still living in Martaize, Daniel Leblanc (born 1626) must have known his wife Françoise Gaudet, but we do not know whether he married her just before or just after he came to Acadia. Probably after, as there is some evidence that he was in Port-Royal in 1645, and the marriage probably took place in 1649 or 1650. She had already been married to a man named Mercier, and was a few years older than Daniel. In 1650 Daniel acquired a farm about thirteen kilometers upriver from Port-Royal, near the swampy area called Marais-à Belisle, on the north bank of the Annapolis River. The area was called "Miramichi" by the local Micmac Indians. He became a highly respected farmer and civic leader, and was one of the six local men selected to form a governing council during the brief English occupation of 1690. He died after 1693 but before 1698. His wife outlived him, but was dead by 1700.

Children: Jacques (1651-, married Catherine Hébert, 15 children, lived at Rivière des Habitants (modern Cornwallis) in 1693 and died at St-Charles-des-Mines, date unknown); Marie-Françoise (1653, married Martin Blanchard, 3 children); Étienne (1656, a sailor, evidently lost at sea); René (1657, married Anne Bourgeois, sister of our ancestor Germain Bourgeois - 6 children, one of whom was the notary René Leblanc mentioned by Longfellow in his epic poem Evangeline); André (1659, married Marie Dugas, sister of our ancestors Claude and Martin Dugas and of their sister Madeleine, Germain Bourgeois' wife, 10 children); Antoine (1662, married Marie Bourgeois, yet another sister of Germain, 10 children); and our ancestor Pierre (see below).

Pierre Leblanc (1664- ) married twice: first to Marie Terriot or Thériault in or about 1684, and then to Madeleine Bourg about 1697. We know of only one child, Pierre, from the first marriage. With Madeleine he fathered eight children: Joseph (dit Cajétan, 1698-1778, married Marguérite Bourgeois, sister of our ancestor Claude Bourgeois, deported to Methuen, Massachusetts); Anne (1697?-1792, married Joseph Bourgeois, brother of Claude and Marguérite; also deported to Massachusetts, but died in Bécancour in Québec); Jean-Simon (1703-a1775, married Jeanne Dupuis; with their children deported to Westboro, Massachusetts); Marie (see below); Pierre (1708-a1763, married Françoise Thériault); Paul (dit Polet; listed in the 1763 Massachusetts census; died in Bécancour in 1773; married Marie-Josèphe Richard); Madeleine (1714-1715); and Charles (1716-1805, married Madeleine Girouard.

Marie Leblanc was born in Port-Royal on January 1, 1706, and baptised on March 31 - an unusually long delay. She married Claude Bourgeois at Port-Royal on November 24, 1721. They were deported to Massachusetts along with most of their relatives, and Marie appears in the 1760 census of Amesbury, where she is erroneously said to be 51 years old. Later she and her husband moved to St-Jacques de l'Achigan, like many other of our Jean ancestors; she died there on January 24, 1781, and was buried the next day. See Bourgeois for descendants. She was a great-great-great-grandmother of Marie Eva Jean Martin.