Individual Details

Full Name: Anne Marie Bourg
Birth Date: c. 1691
Death Date: January 14, 1766

The Exile’s Long Journey: The Life of Anne Marie Bourg

A Childhood in Pristine Acadia (c. 1691–1706)

Anne Marie Bourg was born around 1691 in the maritime colony of Acadia, a French settlement nestled along the tides of the Bay of Fundy. She was the daughter of Martin Bourg, an early pioneer born in Port-Royal, and Marie Potet. Growing up, Anne Marie lived in a close-knit community bounded by deep-seated family connections and a unique way of life centered on marshland farming. Her parents managed a growing homestead alongside her siblings, including Marie, Pierre, and Ambroise. As a child, she witnessed the gradual expansion of her family's footprint as new settlements bloomed across the landscape, eventually leading them toward the raw, rich lands of Cobequid (modern-day Truro, Nova Scotia).

The Cobequid Homestead and a Growing Lineage (1707–1754)

Around 1707, at approximately sixteen years of age, Anne Marie married Alexis Aucoin in Cobequid. Alexis, born in 1684, was a resilient local settler who shared her pioneering spirit. Together, the young couple built a home from the ground up, clearing land and raising livestock in a fertile region that quickly became a thriving agricultural hub. Over the next quarter-century, their family expanded significantly as Anne Marie gave birth to six sons: Pierre, Sylvain, Alexis Jr., Joseph, Claude, and Amand. For decades, she watched her sons reach adulthood, break their own farms, and marry into prominent Acadian families like the Brault, Blanchard, Hébert, and Lacroix households. By the early 1750s, Anne Marie had transitioned into a revered family matriarch, welcoming numerous grandchildren, including Joseph, Radegonde, and Ozite, into a world that seemed secure and prosperous.

The Great Upheaval and the Loss of a Generation (1755–1759)

The peaceful world Anne Marie had spent her entire adulthood building was violently shattered in the autumn of 1755. Caught in the geopolitical crossfires of the French and Indian War, the British colonial authorities launched a systematic, forced expulsion of the Acadian population, an event known historically as Le Grand Dérangement. Anne Marie, her aging husband, and their children were ripped from their ancestral farmlands, separated from extended family, and loaded onto overcrowded transport ships. The psychological and physical toll of the deportation was immediate and devastating. In 1756, her youngest son, Amand, succumbed to disease. Just a year later, in 1757, her eldest son, Pierre, also passed away under the brutal conditions of their displacement.
The family's tragedy culminated in 1759 when they were forced onto ships bound across the Atlantic Ocean toward France. During this grueling oceanic passage or immediately upon reaching French shores, a devastating wave of sickness swept through the remaining family. Within months, Anne Marie lost her husband, Alexis, and three more adult sons—Sylvain, Alexis Jr., and Claude—leaving a trail of broken families and young orphans in their wake.

Final Years in Boulogne-sur-Mer (1760–1766)

Stripped of her home, her country, and nearly her entire immediate generation of children, the elderly widow survived the perilous Atlantic crossing. Along with her remaining son, Joseph, and several orphaned grandchildren, she was sent to the coastal northern port town of Boulogne-sur-Mer in the Département du Pas-de-Calais, France. For her final six years, Anne Marie lived as a displaced refugee dependent on meager royal allowances, far from the marshlands of Acadia she had known for over six decades.

On January 14, 1766, at the advanced age of seventy-four, Anne Marie Bourg closed her eyes for the last time. She was carried to her final resting place in the parish cemetery of Saint-Nicolas in Boulogne-sur-Mer. Though she died in exile, a stranger to the European land where she was buried, her profound resilience preserved her family line. Her surviving grandchildren later carried her memory forward, serving as an enduring link to the pioneering Acadian world that British forces tried to erase.

References and Sources

• Find a Grave Memorial - Anne Marie Bourg (1691–1766)
• White, Stephen A. Dictionnaire généalogique des familles acadiennes. Centre d'études acadiennes - Université de Moncton, 1999.
• Arsenault, Bona. Histoire et généalogie des Acadiens. Les Editions Leméac, 1978.
• Delaney, Paul. The Acadians in France, 1762–1773: The Rolls of the Acadian Refugees in France. Archives Nationales de France.

Birth	Abt 1691	Truro, Colchester, Nova Scotia, Canada
Marriage	1707	Nouvelle-Écosse, Canada - Charles Alexis Aucoin
Death	14 Jan 1766	Boulogne-Sur-Mer, Pas-De-Calais, France
Burial	14 Jan 1766	Saint Nicholas Cemetery, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Pas-de-Calais, France
Related2Me.ca	30 Jul 2026	https://related2me.ca/2026/07/30/anne-marie-bourg-c-1691-january-14-1766/

Spouse	Charles Alexis Aucoin (1684 - 1759)
Child	Pierre Aucoin (1708 - 1757)

Father	Martin Bourg (1650 - 1717)
Mother	Marie Potet (1657 - 1717)