Individual Details

Marguerite ABRAHAM — Fille du Roi

Parents: Godegrand (also recorded as "Godgaud") Abraham, master doublet-maker, and Denise Fleury, of Boulevard de la Tonnellerie, parish of St-Eustache, 1st arrondissement, Paris, Île-de-France.

Birth: Sources disagree — one record gives January 3, 1637 (baptized January 5, 1637, parish of Saint-Eustache), while the narrative account gives 1645. The 1637 date is supported by parish baptismal records; the 1681 census (below) is roughly consistent with an even earlier birth, so the 1645 date may be a transcription or estimation error.

Dowry: 100 livres, of which 50 livres were provided by the King — confirming her status as a Fille du Roi, part of the group of women sent to New France between 1663 and 1673 to help colonize French holdings in North America.

Death: Died November 9, 1695, in Beaumont, Québec (per burial record, Parish of Beaumont), consistent with the "died after 09/11/1695" note in the genealogical record. She would have been about 58, not 50, if the 1637 birth year is correct.

Family background in Paris

• Her mother, Denise Fleury, remarried Antoine Hullot, a clothier, on February 13, 1639 (contract before notaries Simon Le Mercier and Jean Chapelain, Office VII). The contract names two children from the first marriage — Simon and Marguerite — who were to be fed and housed. Denise Fleury could not sign her name.

• A post-death inventory for Denise Fleury was drawn up February 22, 1639, before the same notaries; no marriage contract is mentioned in that record.First marriage
Joseph-Ozanie Nadeau, dit Lavigne — settler, born 1637, died February 10, 1677, buried February 12 at Sainte-Famille, Île d'Orléans. Son of Maçia Nadeau and Jeanne Despins, of Genouillac, Charente, Poitou-Charentes (Angoumois).

• Marriage contract: dated in the genealogical source as September 6, 1665, at the home of notary Duquet, Sainte-Famille, Île d'Orléans; the narrative account gives the marriage itself as November 6, 1665, also at Sainte-Famille — the earlier date is likely the contract, the later the actual ceremony, though this isn't certain from the sources as given.

• The couple settled at Sainte-Famille. In the 1667 census, Joseph-Ozanie was recorded as 30, Marguerite as 23, with one daughter (Marie, 4 months old) and 7 arpents of cultivated land.

Children (5):
1. Marie — baptized May 1, 1667, Ste-Famille; died January 26, 1678.
2. Jean-Baptiste — born April 16, 1669, baptized the 22nd; buried March 1, 1735. Married Anne Casse.
3. Adrien — born February 28, 1672, baptized March 13 at Ste-Famille; died March 14, 1672, buried the 15th.
4. Denis — born May 25, 1673, baptized June 18 at Ste-Famille; died March 3, 1759, buried the 4th at Saint-Michel-de-Bellechasse. Married twice: Charlotte Casse, then Elisabeth Roy.
5. Catherine — born June 5, 1676, baptized the 14th at Ste-Famille; died July 21, 1746, buried the 22nd at Saint-Pierre, Île d'Orléans. Married Jean Leroy.Second marriage
Guillaume Chartier — son of Olivier Chartier and Marie Cornet, of Ste-Marie de La Haie-Fouassière, Loire-Atlantique, Pays-de-la-Loire. Born 1636, died after April 4, 1697.
• Marriage contract dated January 26, 1678 (notary Duquet), Québec; married January 31, 1678, at Sainte-Famille.

• The couple settled at Sainte-Famille, Île d'Orléans; no children from this marriage.

• 1681 census: Guillaume Chartier, 45; Marguerite Abram, 35 (note: this age doesn't align well with either 1637 or 1645 as a birth year); children Jean (13), Denis (9), and Catherine (6) — from her first marriage; household had 1 rifle, 1 ox, and 5 arpents of cultivated land.

• Separation: On June 7, 1694, before the bailiwick court of the Île d'Orléans, Marguerite sought separation of body and property from Guillaume. The couple separated by mutual agreement due to ongoing discord, divided their assets, and she moved to Beaumont to live with one of her sons, where she later died.Narrative summary

Marguerite crossed the Atlantic as part of the Filles du Roi program, leaving Paris for the Île d'Orléans near present-day Québec City. She married Joseph-Ozanie Nadeau dit Lavigne in 1665 at Sainte-Famille — one of the colony's earliest and most significant parishes — and the couple first lived there before her later years took her to Beaumont, a developing seigneury on the south shore of the St. Lawrence. Her daily life would have centered on the demanding domestic work of a colonial settler: gardening, food preparation, spinning wool, tending livestock, and raising children under difficult frontier conditions. After Joseph-Ozanie's death, she remarried Guillaume Chartier in 1678, though that marriage ended in a formal separation in 1694. She died in Beaumont on November 9, 1695. As a Fille du Roi, wife, mother, and settler, she was part of the foundational generation of French colonial Québec, and has many descendants who trace their lineage back to her.

Sources

• Burial record, Parish of Beaumont, November 9, 1695; Parish Registers of New France, BAnQ.
• Parish records, Saint-Eustache, Paris; Archives de Paris.
• Yves Landry, Les Filles du Roi au XVIIe siècle, Montréal: Éditions du Septentrion, 1992.
• Marriage record, Sainte-Famille Parish, Île d'Orléans, 1665; Drouin Collection, BAnQ.
• 1666, 1667, and 1681 Colonial Census Records, New France; Land records, Seigneury of Beaumont.
• Jean-Paul Macouin, Les Familles pionnières dans les archives du Minutier central des notaires de Paris.
• Migrations.fr, "700 Filles du Roy" — http://www.migrations.fr/700fillesroy.htm#A
Discrepancies worth resolving with further research: birth year (1637 vs. 1645), father's given name (Godegrand vs. Godgaud), and the exact date of the first marriage (contract vs. ceremony date).
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Birth	5 Jan 1637	Saint-Eustache, Paris, Île-De-France, France
Christen	5 Jan 1637	Saint-Eustache, Paris, Île-De-France, France
Immigration	1665	Elle arrive au Canada comme Fille du roi. - Canada, Nouvelle-France
Immigration	18 Jun 1665	Departure from Dieppe on the ship 'Le Saint-Jean-Baptiste' - Québec, Canada, New France
Marriage	6 Nov 1665	Orleans, Quebec, Canada - Ozanie-Joseph Lavigne Nadeau
Residence	1666	Recensement - Île D'Orléans, Québec, Canada, Nouvelle-France
Death	Aft 9 Nov 1695	Beaumont, Québec, Canada, Nouvelle-France
Burial	12 Nov 1695	Sainte-Famille, Saint-Laurent, Québec, Canada, Nouvelle-France
Related2Me.ca	4 May 2025	https://related2me.ca/2025/05/04/abraham-marguerite-1645-1695/
Alt name		Margueritte Abraham
Reference No		C495

Spouse	Ozanie-Joseph Lavigne Nadeau (1637 - 1677)
Child	Jean-Baptiste Lavigne Nadeau (1669 - 1735)
Child	Denis Nadeau (1673 - 1759)
Child	Catherine Nadeau (1676 - 1746)

Father	Godegrand Abraham (1615 - 1645)
Mother	Denise Fleury (1623 - 1665)
Sibling	Simon Abraham (1635 - )