Individual Details

Julienne Baril, also known in some records as Julienne Du Baril, was born about 1591 in Mortagne-au-Perche, a principal town of the Perche province in France. Mortagne served as an important local center within the Diocese of Sées and was at that time part of the distinctive cultural and administrative unit of Perche, situated between Normandy and Maine. She was baptized on 24 August 1591 at Saint-Jean Church in Mortagne-au-Perche. The baptismal record identifies the parish church as the location, a reminder of the role that parish registers played in documenting the lives of ordinary people in early modern France.

During her lifetime, Baril resided in Saint-Langis-lès-Mortagne, a smaller community located near her birthplace. Her residence in Saint-Langis appears continuous, spanning from her early years through to her death in 1627. The parish of Saint-Langis-lès-Mortagne was also part of the province of Perche and under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Diocese of Sées. The province maintained its identity as a territorial division of France until the administrative reforms of the French Revolution, which replaced provinces with departments in 1790.

On 7 February 1611, Baril married Marin Boucher in Saint-Langis-lès-Mortagne. Boucher, born in 1589, would later become notable for his emigration to New France. The union of Baril and Boucher produced seven children, a detail preserved in family records. The marriage and family life of Baril occurred in a rural provincial setting, at a time when France was emerging from the religious conflicts of the sixteenth century and undergoing gradual consolidation under the Bourbon monarchy. The Edict of Nantes (1598), issued during her youth, brought a measure of peace between Catholics and Protestants, though tensions remained in the early seventeenth century.

Baril’s life coincided with the reigns of Henry IV (1589–1610), Louis XIII (1610–1643), and the increasing authority of the French monarchy over provincial regions. Although Perche was geographically distant from Paris, broader political and religious developments would have shaped local governance, taxation, and parish life. The Catholic Church maintained a central role in recording vital events such as births, marriages, and deaths, evidenced by the preservation of Julienne Baril’s baptismal, marriage, and burial entries.

She died on 15 December 1627 in Saint-Langis-lès-Mortagne and was buried there two days later on 17 December 1627. Her death occurred in the same parish where she had married and raised her family, underscoring the relatively localized life paths of many inhabitants of early modern rural France. Her burial in the parish also reflects the importance of local religious institutions as custodians of communal memory.

Julienne Baril’s lifetime represents an era when migration patterns from Perche to New France were beginning to develop, though she herself did not emigrate. Her husband, Marin Boucher, would survive her by several decades, living until 1671. His later movement to Canada situates the family within the larger transatlantic migration story of the seventeenth century, though Julienne’s own life remained centered in Perche.

In summary, Julienne Baril lived from approximately 1591 to 1627, spending her entire life within the Perche province of France. She was baptized in Mortagne-au-Perche, married in Saint-Langis-lès-Mortagne, and resided there until her death and burial. Her life cycle events—birth, christening, marriage, death, and burial—are consistently tied to the religious and civic institutions of Perche, reflecting both the stability of rural French provincial life in the early seventeenth century and the central role of parish structures in documenting personal histories.

Birth	1586	Mortagne-Sur-Gironde, Poitou-Charentes, France
Marriage	7 Feb 1611	Saint-Langis-Lès-Mortagne, Perche, France - Marin Boucher
Death	15 Dec 1627	Saint-Langis-Lès-Mortagne, Perche, France
Burial	17 Dec 1627	Saint-Langis-Lès-Mortagne, Perche, France
Reference No		C785

Spouse	Marin Boucher (1589 - 1671)
Child	François Boucher (1617 - 1672)

Father	Jean Baril (1551 - 1610)
Mother	Raoulline Crête (1560 - 1616)