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As the date
of his birth is untraceable, we will rely on the date of his death;
François
was buried on September 7, 1727, at the age of forty. Therefore,
he was born in 1687 at Rivière-des-Trois-Saumons, a region to the
east of the seigneurie de l'Islet-Saint-Jean where his family was settled.
When François was born, his eldest brother
Pierre
was fifteeen and young Élisabeth had just reached her second
bithday. The clan included two parents and eight children.
François
spent his enfancy there and, five years later, his family moved to Kamouraska
where they settled for good.
When his father
died during summer of 1702, François was fifteen years old.
He surely felt helpless seeing his father suffer one whole year from a
disease that would eventually take him. In 1695, Marie-Anne
had left the family after her marriage to Pierre Boucher. Pierre
l'aîné and Jean had left in 1697 and in 1701, Joseph
had
also married. Fortunately, three sons ; Pierre le cadet, Louis
and François were still at home and helped manage this large
property of twelve arpents (acres). François was the
last of the nine children to quit bachelorhood; everything leads
us to believe that he got married around 1712 or shortly thereafter.
Unfortunately, the registers of marriages for Kamouraska burnt between
1709 and the beginning of 1727, which makes François's life
more of a mystery, still. He did not have far to go to meet his beloved
Marie;
she was living in Kamouraska. Marie, who was baptized in Sainte-Famille
de l'Ile d'Orléans church on september 8, 1697, was the daughter
of Jean Dionne dit Sansoucy and Charlotte Mignot.
François,
a twenty-five years old man, married a young fifteen years old girl, barely
out of her adolescence. Marie was a niece of Catherine Dionne,
Joseph's Michaud wife; Joseph was François's brother.
At the time
of the census of the seigneurie in 1723, "François owns a
land of four and a half arpents of frontage by thirty two in depth, with
cost of thirty sols de Francean arpent of frontage for rent and one sol
an arpent for quit-rent, the same also owning a house, a barn, a stable
and a piece of arable land of six arpents" The land survey
of 1726 taken by Noël Beaupré indicates a land of four arpents
and seven and a half perches for François. François's
neighbours were the daughter of late Noël Pelletier, to the north-east,
and heirs of late Louis Michaud, his brother, to the south-west.
After the death
of François buried on September 7, 1727, Marie Dionne
widow with five young children (Antoine, François,
Joseph,
Benjamin and Madeleine, married again on July 4, 1729, in
the church of La Pocatière, to Philippe Boucher. From this
second uniion were born five children who were kept with the five ones
from François Michaud. The second husband of Marie
was buried on May 28, 1747 leaving her with young children. One did
not find yet the date of the Marie's death.
