Some of the earliest settlers in Québec were granted large estates and became the 'landed gentry' of the colony. They were entitled to prefix "Sieur" to their names, as a sort of pseudo-nobility (very few were actually related to the French nobility). Most of our ancestors don't fall into this category, but a few do.

Quentin Moral dit Cantin (1622?-1686), Sieur de St-Quentin, is of entirely unknown origin. His wife was born in Rouen, but as they were married in Trois-Rivières, that proves nothing about his birthplace. (He was also not her first husband.) One source claims he was born in Valence, in Provence (in what is now the department of Drôme) but this is in the far southeast of France, where very few Canadian families originated. There is no known record of his birth or baptism. In any case, he settled in Trois-Rivières, where he acquired a considerable estate, and was a patron of the church of St-Maurice, where many of the family events are recorded. He married Marie Marguerie (1620-1700), widow of Jacques Hertel (two sons, two daughters) in 1652 at Trois-Rivières; she was the daughter of François Marguerie, Sieur de la Haye and his wife Marthe Romain.

Children: Marie-Marthe (1661-a1712, married Antoine Dubois); Marie-Jeanne (1653-1714, married Jacques Maugras and Gilles Couturier); Marie-Gertrude (1658-1736, married Jacques Joyal or Joyelle dit Lafrenière); and Marie-Thérèse (1665, married Etienne Veron dit Grandmesnil).

We do not know how Gertrude Moral met her husband Jacques Joyelle or Joyal, but they were married in the church of St-Maurice when she was eighteen, on November 10, 1676. He was evidently a great deal older than she (at least 41, perhaps as old as 56) and had probably been married before, though we find no record of that. They lived in Trois-Rivières at first, where Gertrude gave birth to at least her first three children; the birthplace of the next two is unknown; and then they lived in St-François-du-Lac, where she gave birth to one or two more; then in Sorel, where the last few were born - a total of ten. (see Joyal/Joyelle) Their son Joseph's daughter Marie-Anne married the immigrant Jacques Martin, also of St-François-du-Lac.