Coats of Arms displayed at one time or another by Quebec
The Quebec Settlement of New France
Part I - When French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1534 claimed the St. Lawrence River valley for France, the indigenous people he met used "Canada" to describe the area. This name probably derives from a Huron-Iroquois Indian word, which means a "settlement", and Cartier originally named the St. Lawrence River the "rivière du Canada", where it flows past a native settlement that he visited. Canada later became the name for the entire area.
Cartier went back to France, but returned to Canada in 1541 with 400 colonists to found the settlement of Fort Charlesbourg-Royal. He located the fort on the Cap Rouge (Cape Red) promontory, which dominated the north bank of the St. Lawrence River, about 250 miles upstream from the Pointe-des-Monts where the river enters the Gulf of St. Lawrence. However, this settlement failed, and was abandoned two years later.
It was not until 1608 that Samuel de Champlin returned to found a new settlement, which he called "L'Habitation de Quebec". He located it on Cap Diamont (Cape Diamond), another promontory on the north bank of the river, but 9 miles downstream of Cap Rouge. The name "Quebec" is an Algonquin Indian word, which means "narrow passage", and describes an abrupt narrowing of the river passage near the cliffs of Cap Diamont.
The name New France (Nouvelle France) was used as early as 1616 for France's North American territories, which were made up of four colonies. These were Canada, with its river settlements of Quebec (1608), Trois-Riveres (1634) and Montreal (1608); Terre-Neuve (modern Newfoundland); Acadia (modern Nova Scotia and New Brunswick); and the Hudson Bay Colony, which were contested lands north of Canada claimed by both France and England. Louis XIV combined these four colonies in 1663 into the viceroyalty of New France, with Quebec as its capital. When Rene-Robert La Salle claimed the Mississippi River Basin in 1682 for New France, it became a fifth colony, which he named Louisiana in honor of the king.
When the first census of New France was taken in 1665 and 1666, it only counted Canada's population - there being too few people in the other colonies to bother with. This census showed a total of 3,215 people in 538 separate families in Canada, with 2,135 people in Quebec, 625 in Montreal, and 455 in Trois-Riveres. However, mistakes were made, and 70 families were not counted. When historian Marcel Trudel in 1995 adjusted the census for these errors and omissions, his revised count showed 4,219 people in 608 families in Canada, with 2857 people in Quebec, 760 in Montreal, and 602 in Trois-Riveres. New England by comparison in 1660 had a population of about 33,000 people. Continue on to
that descend to Ellen Yandeau
A plaque at Montmorency Park in Quebec honoring the first colonists of the city.Hebert Family Lineage leading to Ellen Yandeau:PRDH-IGD Family Group Sheet for Louis Hebert & Marie Rolet, from research by the Univ. of Montreal.
Louis Hebert (c.1575-1623), the son of Nicolas Hebert and Jacqueline Pajot, was born about 1575 at 129 de la rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, France, this address being located not far from the Louvre. His father was a fairly successful apothecary, which is more or less the same as a modern pharmacist, and young Louis entered into the same profession as his father. Louis married Marie Rollet (d. 1649) on Feb. 19, 1601 at Saint-Sulpice Church in Paris, Marie being a widow who had previously been married to Francois Dufeu. However, Marie and Dufeu apparently did not have any children before his passing.
Louis on March 20, 1606 signed a contract with his cousin, the explorer Pierre Dugua de Monts, to serve for a year as an apothecary tending to the sick at the Port-Royal Colony in the Americas, which had been founded by Dugua the previous year. The site of this colony is on the south shore of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Canada, but back then this area was known to the French as Acadia. Louis sailed for Acadia on the "Le Jonas", which left La Rochelle, France on May 26, 1606, and arrived on July 27, 1606 at Port-Poyal, after a two-month voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. He returned to France the following year, and made a second trip to the colony in 1610 or 1611, returning home again sometime prior to Aug 1613, when the British raided Port-Royal, and burned it to the ground.
Samuel Champlain, who in 1608 had founded the Quebec settlement, visited Port-Royal prior to the British raid there. He is said to have met Louis Hebert there, and was so impressed with him that he recruited Louis to come and settle at Quebec. However, Louis first went back home to France, where he gathered his wife and children, and got his affairs in order, before setting sail with his family on March 11, 1617 from the Norman port of Honfleur. They salied on the "Saint-Étienne", with Normand Morin as captain, and with Samuel Champlain on board. Their ship dropped anchor on July 15, 1617 at Quebec, and Louis subsequently became the apothecary and surgeon for the settlement. He received a stipend and tract of land for his services from the "Company of 100 Associates", which held the trading concession for Canada, and funded the colonization efforts there.
Louis died on Jan. 25, 1627, after slipping on an ice slick outside the front door of his house. He was buried in the cemetery of the Recollets (Franciscans), there being no real church until 1633, when Champlain built the chapel of Notre Dame de la Recouvrance (Our Lady of Recovery). However, a fire in 1640 burned this chapel to the ground. Construction then began in 1647 of a new church to be named Notre-Dame de la Paix (Our Lady of Peace), which was consecrated in 1664. Ten years later it became a cathedral. Hebert's wood coffin was subsequently exhumed, and reburied here in 1678 in a new-built vault. However, the cathedral was destroyed by fire in 1743 and 1922, and then rebuilt, so that little remains of its original structure. There is also a 1918 monument on the Rue Port Dauphin in the Old City that honors Hebert as the first settler of Quebec.
CHILDREN (HEBERT) - Louis and Marie had three children all born in Paris, including their son Guillaume Hebert (c.1614-1639), who follows.
PRDH-IGD Family Group Sheet for Guillaume Hebert & Marie Rolet, from research by the Univ. of Montreal.
Guillaume Hebert (c.1614-1639), the son of Louis Hebert and Marie Rollet, was born about 1614 in Paris, probably in the same general area of the city as where his father was born and married. He sailed as a boy with his parents in 1617 to the Quebec settlement in "New France", where he married Helene Desportes (1620-1675) on Oct 1, 1634 in the chapel of Notre Dame de la Recouvrance (Our Lady of Recovery), which Samuel Champlain had just built the year before. Guillaume died while still a young man on Sept. 23, 1639 in Quebec, where he was buried near the chapel, which burned the following year. .
A plaque at Montmorency Park in Quebec honoring the first colonists of the city.
Guillaume's wife Helene Desportes was probably born in the later half of 1620, most likely in Quebec. Various documents give her age as 14 years in 1634, 38 in 1659, 46 in 1666, and 48 in 1667, which all agree with a 1620 birth. Her parents were Pierre Desportes and Françoise Langlois, but little is known about them, except that they probably arrived about 1619 in Quebec with their brother-in-law Abraham Martin. They were definitely in Quebec by Aug. 21, 1621, when Pierre signed a document making an appeal to the king. Although most historians consider Helene to be the first white child born in Canada, some of them dispute when and where she was born.
An important event in young Helene's life was when English privateer David Kirke and his brothers took possession on July 19, 1629 of Quebec, without the shedding of any blood. The Kirke brothers then transported Helene and her parents, along with Samuel Champlain and many of the other French colonists, to England. They were then later repatriated to France. Although it was two years after Louis Hebert, the patriarch of the Hebert family had died, his family, which included Helene's future husband Guillaume Hebert, did not leave the colony and return to France, with the others. Instead they remained in Quebec, and submitted themselves to British authority.
PRDH-IGD Family Group Sheet for Noel Morin & Helene Desportes, from research by the Univ. of Montreal.
Helene's parents died either enroute back to France, or not long afterwards in France, and she was taken in by her maternal aunt Marguerite Langlois, and Marguerite's husband Abraham Martin. The Hebert family meanwhile waited out the British occupation in Quebec for three years, until 1632 when the King of England returned Quebec to France with the signing of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Helene was now able to return to the Quebec settlement, and she arrived on May 16, 1633 with the Martin family. She married Guillaume Hebert the following year, when she was 14-years old, on Oct 1, 1634 in Quebec at the Notre-Dame chapel that Samuel Champlain had recently built.
Guillaume Hebert died only 5-years after his marriage to Helene, and his wife, now 19-years old with three young children, married Noel Morin (c.1609-1680) on Jan. 9 1640 at the Church of Notre-Dame in Quebec. This was just a little short of 4 months after Guillaume's premature death. She and Morin went on to have several children of their own. Their daughter Louise Morin is also listed below, with one of her children with Guillaume Hebert. Helene died on June 24, 1675, probably in Quebec, but her place of death and burial are not known. There are articles on Helene Desportes in Wikipedia and the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Helene and Noel Morin, along with her parents are listed among the first colonial families of Quebec shown on a memorial plaque in Montmorency Park in the middle of the city.
CHILDREN (HEBERT) - Guillaume and Helene had three children (see their family group sheet above and right). Their daughter Francoise Hebert follows.
CHILDREN (MORIN) - Helene and Noel Morin (her second husband) also had several children (see their family group sheet above and right). Their daughter Louise Morin (1643-1713) also appears in the DESPORTES LINEAGE as the wife of Charles Cloutier, which represents a second line of descent from Helene Desportes to Ellen Yandeau.
PRDH-IGD Family Group Sheet for Guillaume Fournier & Francoise Hebert, from research by the Univ. of Montreal.
Francoise Hebert (1638-1816), the daughter of Guillaume Hebert and Helene Desportes, was born in the Quebec settlement of Samuel Champlain (modern Quebec City area); and baptized there on Jan 23, 1638 in the chapel of Notre Dame de la Recouvrance (Our Lady of Recovery), which burned the following year, and was later replaced by the Notre-Dame-de-Quebec Cathedral. She later married Guillaume Fournier (c.1623-1699) on Nov. 20, 1651 in the recently built Notre-Dame-de-Quebec Cathedral. She was only 13-years old at the time, and Guillaume, at age 28, was 15-years her senior. Their first child was born two-years later, but died when only a month old. Francoise died in Montmagny, which is in the modern Quebec City area, and she was buried there on March 16, 1716 in the cemetery of St-Thomas Church.
Francoise's husband Guillaume Fournier was born about 1623 in the town of Coulmer in Normandy, France and immigrated to the Quebec settlement of Canada as a young man. Although his name appears with the date 1634 next to it on a plaque in Montmorency Park that lists the first settlers of Quebec City, there is no actual mention of him in Quebec prior to 1651, when he married his wife Francoise there. This indicates that 1634 is probably much too early an arrival date for him. Guillaume died on Oct 24, 1699 in Montmagny (modern Quebec City area), and he was buried there on Oct. 25, 1699 in the cemetery of St-Thomas Church.
CHILDREN (FOURNIER) - Francoise and Guillaume had several children (see the family group sheet above and right), including their daughter Marie-Francoise Fournier, who follows.
PRDH-IGD Family Group Sheet for Jacques Boulet I & Marie-Francoise Fournier, from research by the Univ. of Montreal.
Marie-Francoise Fournier (1671-1734), the daughter of Guillaume Fournier and Francoise Hebert, was born on April 30, 1671 in Quebec City, and baptized there on May 2, 1671 at the Notre-Dame-de-Quebec Cathedral. She married Jacques Boulay I (1664-1738) on April 21, 1686 in Montmagny (modern Quebec City area) at St-Thomas Church. She was 14-years old at the time, and Jacques at age 22 was 8-years her senior. Their first child was born the following year. She died on July 15, 1734 in Montmagny (modern Quebec City area), and she was buried there on July 16, 1734 in the cemetery of St-Thomas Church.
Marie-Francoise's husband Jacques Boulet "Boulay" I (1664-1738) was born in Chateau-Richer (modern Quebec City area), and baptized there on Feb. 6, 1664 in the La-Visition-de-Notre-Dame Church. His parents were French-born Robert Boulay (1631-1707) and Francoise Grenier "Garnier" (1634-1709). He died on April 30, 1738 in Montmagny (modern Quebec City area), and was buried there on May 1, 1738 in the cemetery of the St-Thomas Church.
CHILDREN (BOULET) - Jacques and Marie-Francoise had several children (see the family group sheet on the right), including their son Guillaume Boulet, who follows.
PRDH-IGD Family Group Sheet for Guillaume Boulet & Marie-Anne Dandurand, from research by the Univ. of Montreal.
Guillaume Boulet (1702-1764), the son of Jacques Boulet I and Marie-Francoise Fournier, was born on Sept 11, 1702 in Montmagny (modern Quebec City area), and baptized there on Sept. 17, 1702 at St-Thomas Church. He married Marie-Anne Dandurand (1715-1779) on on June 10, 1734 in Montmagny at St-Thomas Church. He was 31-years old at the time, and she at age 18 was 13-years his junior. Their first child was born the following year, but probably died an infant. Guillaume died on Jan. 8, 1764 in Montmagny, and he was buried there on Jan. 10, 1764 at St-Thomas Church.
Guillaume's wife Marie-Anne Dandurand (1715-1779) was born on July 20, 1715 in Montmagny (modern Quebec City area), and baptized there on July 28, 1715 in St-Thomas Church. Her parents were French-born Antoine Dandurand (c.1663-1738) and his Quebec-born wife Marie Verieul (1679-1755). Marie-Anne died on Sept. 16, 1779 in Montmagny, and was buried there on Sept. 18, 1779 in the cemetery of St-Thomas Church.
CHILDREN (BOULET) - Guillaume and Marie-Anne had several children (see the family group sheet on the right), including their son Jacques Boulet III, who follows.
PRDH-IGD Family Group Sheet for Jacques Boulet III & Marie-Anne DesTroisMaison, from research by the Univ. of Montreal.
Jacques Boulet III (1741-1814), the son of Guillaume Boulet and Marie-Ann Dandurand, was born on July 29, 1741 in Montmagney (Quebec City area), and baptized there on the same day in St-Thomas Church. He married Marie-Anne DesTroisMaison (1747-1826) on Nov. 12, 1764 in St-Pierre-de-la-Rivere-du-Sud (modern Quebec City area) at St-Pierre-du-Sud Church. He was 23-years old at the time, and she at age 20 was 3-years his junior. He died on Nov. 7, 1814 at Montmagny, and was buried there on Nov. 8, 1814 in the cemetery of St-Thomas Church.
Jacques' wife Marie-Anne DesTroisMaison (1747-1826) was born on Feb. 19, 1747 in St-Pierre-de-la-Rivere-du-Sud (modern Quebec City area), and baptized there on the same day at St-Pierre-du-Sud Church. Her parents were Quebec-born Philippe DesTroisMaison (b. c.1716) and his wife Marie-Helene Maranda (1705-1765). Marie-Anne died on March 25, 1826 in Montmagny (modern Quebec City area), and was buried there on March 27, 1826 in the cemetery of St-Thomas Church.
CHILDREN (BOULET) - Jacques and Marie-Ann had several children (see the family group sheet on the right), including their son Jacques Boulet IV, who follows.
PRDH-IGD Family Group Sheet for Jacques Boulet IV & Marie-Angelique Roberge, from research by the Univ. of Montreal.
Jacques Boulet IV (1767-1847), the son of Jacques Boulet III and Marie-Ann DesTroisMaison, was born on april 28, 1767 in Montmagny (Quebec City area), and baptized there on April 29, 1767 at St-Thomas Church. He ended up in the Montreal area, and married Marie-Angelique Roberge (1779-1857) on May 26, 1800 in St-Hyacinthe (30 mi NE of Montreal), and baptized there at the Notre-Dame-de-Rosaire Church. He was 33-years old at the time, and she at age 19 was 14-years his junior. He died on Aug. 26, 1847 in La-Presentation (near St-Hyacinthe), and was buried there in the cemetery of St-Hyacinthe Church.
Jacques' wife Marie-Angelique Roberge (1779-1857) was born on May 31, 1759 in St-Charles (12 mi E of Quebec City), and baptized there on June 1, 1757 in the Bellechase Church. Here parents were Joseph-Marie Roberge (1749-1823) and Marie-Angelique Corriveau (b. 1754). She died on Oct. 10, 1757 in La-Presentation, and was buried there in the cemetery of the St-Hyacinthe Church.
CHILDREN (BOULET) - Jacques and Marie-Angelique had several children (see the family group sheet on the right), including their daughter , who follows.
PRDH-IGD Family Group Sheet for Xavier Francois Goyette & Marie Rose Boulet, from research by the Univ. of Montreal.
Marie-Rose Boulet (b. 1806), the daughter of Jacque Boulet IV and Marie-Angelique Roberge, was born on Nov. 6, 1806 in St-Hyacinthe (30 mi NE of Montreal), and baptized there on Nov. 8, 1806 at the Notre-Dame-de-Rosaire Church. She married Xavier Francois Goyette (1804-1888) on Feb. 13, 1827 in La-Presentation (near St-Hyacinthe) at the St-Hyacinthe Church. She was 21-years old at the time, and her husband at age 22 was just one-year older. She died sometime after the Canada 1871 census, in which she appears living with her husband in Stukely North, Quebec, which is about 55 miles east of Montreal.
Marie's husband Xavier Francois Goyette (1804-1888) was born on Feb. 19 1804 in Vercheres (Greater Montreal area), and baptized there on Feb. 20, 1804 at St-Francois-Xavier Church. His parents were Francois "Amable" Pascal Goyette (1763-1824) and Marguerite Daches (1762-1819). He died on June 15, 1888 in Adamsville, Quebec (38 miles SE of Montreal), and was buried there in the cemetery of St-Vincent-Ferrier Church.
CHILDREN (GOYETTE) - Xavier-Francois and Marie-Rose had several children (see the family group sheet on the right), including their daughter Emerance "Marie" Goyette, who follows.
PRDH-IGD Family Group Sheet for Pierre Bourdon & Emerance Goyette, research by the Univ. of Montreal.
Emerance "Marie" Goyette (1828-1905), the daughter of Xavier-Francois Goyette and Marie-Rose Boulet, was born on Jan. 26, 1828 at La-Presentation (20 miles W of Quebec City), and baptized there on Jan. 27, 1828 at the St-Hyacinthe Church. She married Pierre Bourdon (1807-1872) on May 21, 1845 in Henryville, Quebec at St-Georges Church. Henryville is about 28 miles SE of Montreal, and only 8 miles or so north of the U.S. border. She was only 17-years old at the time, whereas Pierre at age 37 was 20-years her senior, and only 1-year younger than than her mother. Emerance died on July 11, 1905, probably in Montreal, as she was buried there in the cemetery of the Notre-Dame Basilica.
Marie's husband Pierre Bourdon (1807-1872) was born on June 29, 1807 in Lavaltrie (Greater Montreal Area), and baptized there on June 30, 1807 at Saint-Antoine Church. His parents were Marc Bourdon (1778-1841) and Therese Riel dite L'Irlande (1781-1857). The "L'Irlande" in Therese's surname is a reference to her descent from Irishman Jack Reilly (Jean-Baptiste Riel), who immigrated about 1704 to Quebec. Pierre died on June 2, 1872 in Lanoraie (Greater Montreal Area), and he is buried there in the cemetery of Saint-Joseph-de-Lanoraie Church.
CHILDREN (BOURDON) - Pierre and Marie had several children (see the family group sheet on the right), including their daughter Philomene Bourdon, who follows.
Philomene "Phila" Bourdon (1846-1880), the daughter of Pierre Bourdon and Emerance "Marie" Goyette, was born on March 7, 1846 in Highgate, Vermont (USA); and baptized on May 3, 1846 in Henryville at Notre-Dame-de-Stanbridge Church, Henryville being a Canadian city that sits only 8 miles or so north of the U.S. border. She married John James "Theodule" Yandow (1845-1910) on July 2, 1846 in Burlington Vermont (USA) at St. Joseph's Church. She died many years before her husband in Essex Vermont, most likely at their home. She is buried in Winooski, Vermont, which is near Essex, in Saint Francis Xavier Cemetery.
Philomene's husband John Yandow, the son of Pierre Yandow and Marie Hortense Rochon, was born on April 19, 1844 in the Blainville area of Montreal, Quebec, and baptized there next day on April 20, 1844 as Theodule Guindon in the church of St. Therese de Blainville, according to records in the Drouin Collection at the Univ. of Montreal. John and his siblings left Canada with their parents in 1855 or 1856 (according to various sources), and came to Vermont in the United States. Some sources state that he came to the U.S. when he was 11-years old, which is consistent with a circa 1855 arrival date. Although Theodule Guindon was his birth name in Montreal, he became known as John James Yandow after his arrival in Vermont. A few months after his first wife Philomene died, he married his second wife Virginia Parizo (1854-1927) on May 1, 1881 in Winooski, Vermont, and had a few more children with her. He died of pneumonia on Feb. 27, 1910 in Williston, Vermont, and he is buried nearby in the Holy Family Cemetery in Essex.
CHILDREN (YANDOW) - John and Philomene had several children, who are listed in the YANDOW GENEALOGY. Their daughter Ellen Yandeau, follows.
A photo of Ellen Yandeau taken in the 1930s in Los Angeles, CA.
Ellen Yandeau (1868-1943), the daughter of John James Yandow and Philomene Bourdon, was born on Nov. 19, 1868 in Essex, Vermont. Although her original birth name was Ellen Yandow, she changed her maiden surname in later years to the more french-looking spelling of Yandeau, as did her sisters Mary, Carrie and Eva. In addition, the sister's mother Philomene, who had been born Philomene Bourdon, changed her maiden surname to Bordeau, even though Bourdon was the orignal french spelling. Interestingly, the original french spelling of Yandow was actually Guindon, not Yandeau, as the French-Canadian grandfather of Ellen and her sisters changed the family name from Guindon to the more american-looking Yandow in the 1850s, when he emigrated with his family from Quebec to the United States.
Ellen married Henry Patrick Carty (1845-1925) on Feb. 19, 1889 in Winooski, Vermont. Ellen was 20-years old at the time, whereas Henry at age 43 was almost 23-years older than she was. Ellen and Henry left Vermont for California, probably about 1891 or so, and Henry and his younger brother John Henry were running a livery stable by 1892 in Santa Barbara, California. Henry died on March 10, 1925 in Los Angeles, California, and Ellen died there on Oct. 11, 1943, many years after Henry's passing. Ellen is buried next to her daughter Mamie in Calvary Cemetery in east Los Angeles, whereas Henry is in a family plot in Santa Barbara. For the children of Ellen and Henry, please see the CARTY GENEALOGY.
Old Quebec Family Lineages Leading to Ellen Yandeau
HEBERT LINEAGE
The Hebert and the Desportes families were among the earliest colonists to arrive at Samuel Champlain's Quebec settlement. Their names appear on the memorial plaque below, with red dots next to their names.
A plaque at Montmorency Park in Quebec honoring the first colonists of the city.
DESPORTES LINEAGE
CLOUTIER LINEAGE
DROUIN LINEAGE
GUYON LINEAGE
The Quebec Settlement of New France - Part II
Robert Giffard (c.1587-1668) was an apothecary and ships surgeon, who from 1621 to 1627 sailed several times to Quebec. Louis Hebert, who had taken care of the medical needs for the settlement, died in 1627 from an unfortunate accident, which left the colony without anyone trained to take care of the sick and injured. The "Company of 100 Associates", who funded the colony and held the trading concession for it, were having trouble at the time attracting new settlers to Quebec. Giffard no doubt saw this as an opportunity to get favorable terms from the company for agreeing to become a colonist.
An 1881 wood cut of Robert Giffard's house, based on earlier photographs. A fire in the 1870s destroyed the house.
Giffard was thus granted on Jan. 15, 1634 the seigneury of Beauport in Quebec, one of the first awarded in Canada. He agreed in return to settle there, and bring in other settlers, particularly badly needed craftsmen. He did most of his searching for potential settlers in the Perche province of France, where he recruited the families of Jean Guyon, a stone mason, and Zacharie Cloutier, a carpenter, to come to Quebec. Their lineages appear above. Others probably recruited by Giffard include Robert Drouin, a brick maker and tile layer, Noel Langlois, a sailor, and Jean Bourdon, a surveyor. Giffard may have also recruited the Gagnon brothers - Mathurin, Pierre and Jean - who came to Quebec and later became merchants there. Guyon, Cloutier, Drouin, Langlois and Gagnon are all ancestors of Ellen Yandeau (the blue links lead to lineages). She also descends from a Jean Bourdon, but her Bourdon ancestor was a lawyer, who spent most of the time in France, and he is not the same as the aforementioned Jean Bourdon, the surveyor.
Guyon and Cloutier were Giffard's first tenants on his seigneury, and they built Giffard's manor house on the southwest end of it, near the Notre-Dame River. This house was where Robert Drouin on July 27, 1636 signed a contract to marry Cloutier's daughter Anne. Jean Guyon drafted the document, as there was no notary then in the colony. He also wrote it almost a year before the actual marriage took place. Although there had been earlier marriages in the settlement, the Drouin-Cloutier agreement is the oldest surviving document of its kind in Canada. Gifford's house, where the signing took place, was so well built that it stood for over two more centuries. It was in fact the oldest building in Quebec, and was still in use in 1870s, when it was destroyed by fire. (Ref: Robert Giffard articles in Wikipedia and the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.)
The map below, which was made in 1641 by the surveyor Jean Bourdon, shows land holdings in the Beauport seigneury, of which Robert Gifford was sire.
Filles du Roy who are ancestors of Ellen Yandeau:
The "Filles du Roi", or "King's Daughters", were single women recruited by agents of King Louis XIV to settle in Quebec, and provide wives for the colonists. The crown gave these women passage on ships from the ports of Dieppe, Rouen or La Rochelle in France, and after their arrival in Quebec City, some continued on to Montreal, where they received lodging for a time at the Maison Saint-Gabriel. The crown also paid their dowries if they married colonists, which for women from poor families was a huge incentive. Ellen Yandeau descends from the Filles du Roy in the table below.
Birth, Death and Marriage Records for Quebec and Vermont (available online at Ancestry.com, and Familysearch.org).
Drouin Institute, Online Databases of Quebec Births, Marriages and Deaths. The Drouin Genealogical Institute since 1899 has been collecting and cataloging the vital records of Quebec, which since 1938 has included the microfilming of these records. Their data collection is available online through the various websites listed below.
PRDH-IGD Database (Univ. of Montreal) - This is a database of birth-marriage-death data derived from the Drouin Collection.
free services
NosOrigines.com - The "Généalogie du Québec et d'Amérique française (Genealogy of Canada)" website presents the data in the Drouin Collection in the format of lineages for the french-canadian settlers of Quebec. Many of the lineages contain links to images of the Drouin Collection that are available online for free on FamilySearch.org (see below).
FamilySearch.org is an archive of historical documents and genealogical records from the Genealogy Library of the LDS Church. The site has actual images from the Drouin Collection that are indexed and transcribed.
Grave and burial locations where known are listed with tombstone photos (when available) on
Tanguay, Cyprien, 1890, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes depuis la fondation de la colonie jusqu'à nos jours: published by Eusèbe Senécal, 1871-1890, Québec, Canada. Available in the Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa, Canada, and also available online at Ancestry.com.
University of Montreal, Research Programme in Historical Demography (PRDH). The University has used the Drouin Collection databases to compile a computerized population register that contains biographical files on all individuals of European ancestry who lived in the St. Lawrence Valley of Quebec. This is the same website as the PRDH-IGD database listed above under the Drouin Collection.
by Janet & Michael Clark
This history is an evolving document.
Despite our best intentions it probably contains mistakes.
Please let us know if you spot any by sending an email to Mike Clark
The Quebec Settlement of New France 
