Richard dit Sansoucy

and

Richard of Auray

We find ten or so Richard families in Québec, but only two in Acadia, and we are descended from both. Nearly all the later Richards and their Cajun descendants come from Michel Richard, who was born about 1630 in the Saintonge (parents unknown) and was in Acadia by 1654, as a soldier - he apparently took part in the defense of Port-Royal that year against an English attack. In 1656 he signed a marriage contract with Madeleine Blanchard (daughter of Jean; see Blanchard - we are descended from Madeleine's sister, but not from her), who was only twelve at the time. But the first of their children was born the following year, so apparently there was no delay between the contract and the actual marriage (as was common in Nouvelle-France and Acadia). In the 1671 census he is listed as a farmer with 14 arpents of cleared land as well as 39 farm animals; but in 1678 he had only 10.

Their children, all born at Port-Royal: René dit Beaupré (1657 or 1658-1693, married Madeleine Landry); Pierre (1661, married Marguérite Landry, 10 children); Catherine (1663, married François Broussard); Martin (1665-1748, married Marguérite Bourg, 10 children); Alexandre (1668, married Élisabeth Petitpas; some sources cite a second wife, Isabelle, but these two are probably the same person; she was the widow of Olivier Boudreau); Anne (1670-a1764, married Germain Thériault); Madeleine (1670); Marie-Josèphe (1672); Cécile (1676, married Pierre Forest, brother of our ancestor René); and Marguérite (1679). Madeleine died soon after this last birth, and Michel married Jeanne Babin, daughter of Antoine Babin and Marie Mercier. The Babins were neighbors, and Jeanne was fifteen. They had one more child: Michel Richard (see below). The elder Michel died between 1686 and 1689; in 1689 Jeanne married Laurent Doucet.

Michel Richard the younger (dit Lafond) married Agnès Bourgeois (1686-1757), sister of our ancestor Claude, on February 25, 1707. She was about six months pregnant at the time. They had eight children: Marie-Jeanne (1707-a1752, married Honoré Bourgeois); Michel (1708-1764, married Marie-Madeleine Blanchard); Joseph (1710-a1763, married Marie-Josèphe Leblanc); Marguérite (1712, married René Lanoue and was exiled with him to Charleston, South Carolina, where she died about 1756); Marie-Madeleine (1714, married Paul Leblanc); Jean-Baptiste (1717-1799, married Marie-Josèphe Hébert; they settled in St-Jacques de l'Achigan after the exile); Zacharie (1720-1764, exiled to Martinique with his wife Isabelle Blanchard); and our ancestor Victor Richard, who on January 21, 1746 married Marie Richard (daughter of François Richard and Anne Comeau, and despite the surname, not his cousin).

Victor Richard was born in Port-Royal in 1721, and married Marie on January 21, 1744 at Port-Royal. They were exiled to Duxbury, Massachusetts, where they are recorded in the censuses of 1757 and 1763. Sometime after that they moved to St-Jacques de l'Achigan, like many other exiled Acadians. He died there April 29, 1795, and his wife (born August 21, 1720) died there April 1, 1802.

François Richard and Anne Comeau were married in Port-Royal on October 24, 1710; Anne died there in April 1722.

The other Richard family is descended from Jean Richard and his wife Anne Christin, who were married in the fishing village of Auray near Morbihan (photo above) in Brittany in the early 1680s and soon afterwards came to Acadia. Auray is also where the Dugas clan originated, and it is reasonable to suppose that the families knew each other or were related. We know of only one son: François Richard, who was born in 1685 in Auray and must have come across the Atlantic as an infant. On October 24, 1710 he married Anne Comeau (daughter of Jean Comeau and Françoise Hébert). They had four children: François (married Marie-Geneviève David in 1737); Joseph (married Anne Bastarache in 1734); Marie-Anne (married Charles Orillon dit Champagne in 1734); and Marie-Josèphe (married Victor Richard, see above).

The daughter of this marriage, Anne, married Joseph-Timothée Prince on October 12, 1767; they were cousins (he had several Hébert ancestors). They were great-great-grandparents of Marie Eva Jean Martin.