DNA evidence confirms that this Martin family - from Bourgueil, near Tours - is the same family that produced our patrilineal ancestor Jacques Martin, from Nemours, a hundred miles away. We have not been able to discover the common ancestor, but he cannot be too many generations back from the two ancestors who emigrated to Nouvelle-France and Acadia (our Y chromosome is an exact match with that of Romeo Martin, descended in the male line from the Bourgueil family). They lived in the parish of St-Germain (above photo; the church was completed in 1115).

The earliest known ancestor is René Martin, who married Étiennette Poirier at St-Germain in Bourgueil about 1590. Their son Pierre Martin was born about 1601, and married Catherine Vigneau at Bourgueil on June 30, 1630. They came to Acadia in 1636, evidently with several children. Both had died before the 1678 census. As the records are very incomplete, we are not sure about the number of children or their birth order. Here is the best guess of several genealogists: Étienne was the oldest, born in Bourgueil and baptized on June 1, 1631. His godmother was Jeanne Vigneau, the wife of a minor nobleman and castellan, François Duberle (she was presumably the child's aunt). But Étienne must have died young, because he did not accompany his parents to Acadia. The second child was Pierre (baptized October 5, 1632) , who married twice; his first wife was a Micmac Indian, by whom he was our cousin Romeo's ancestor. The third child was Urbain, baptized in Bourgueil on March 31, 1634; evidently died young. The fourth was Mathieu (1639-1724), born and died in Port-Royal, and left descendants.The fifth was Marie-Madeleine, born about 1642, and married Pierre Morin; they had twelve children and many descendants in Acadia. The sixth (probably) was our ancestor Marguérite, who was born about 1644 and married Jean Bourg about 1667 and died on April 24, 1707 - see Bourg for descendants. The seventh and youngest child was Andrée, born about 1649; married twice, to François Pellerin and Pierre Mercier dit Caudebec. (see Pellerin for her descendants)

Pierre Martin the immigrant also had a brother Robert, born in Bourgeuil about 1605. he married Marguérite Landry (sister of our ancestors René Landry and Antoinette Landry Bourg). Their son Barnabé (1636-1693) also emigrated, and married Jeanne Pelletret in Acadia; they had seven children. Their descendants intermarried with several other families in our genealogy, but we do not seem to be descended directly from them.