Immigrant women: Marguerite Ardion

As a family historian I am jealous of the TV shows that profile ancestors of celebrities and put their research resources to work to find out interesting facts. Recently I came across the YouTube video of "Do you Know Who You Are?" program profiling Tom Bergeron, TV host of Dancing with the Stars, and other shows.  As he and I are both French Canadian it was no surprise that we might have some ancestors in common. The show focused on one of his ancestors Marguerite Ardion who came from La Rochelle France to Quebec in 1663 as one of the first imported brides  known as "Filles du Roi". She arrived a widow with an infant son Laurent Baudet.  She was my 8th great grandmother. Her son Laurent was the grandfather of my 6th great grandmother Marie Baudet who appears in my Raymond family line.

Leaving La Rochelle -  above left looking back at town - exit from harbor through ancient towers last look for many of the Filles du Roi who left from here through this harbor

 The show available on YouTube Who Do You Think You Are? gave me some insight into her family background in the town of La Rochelle which I visited some years ago. The town was home to many of France's Protestant community in the late 16th and early 17th century. Her parents Pierre Ardion, a stone mason and his wife Suzanne Soret were fervent members of the Reformed church.  Perhaps 80% of the inhabitants of the town were Protestants. They married in the local Reformed church in 1623. They were survivors of a devastating military siege of La Rochelle by the Catholic King in 1627-1628. Cut off on all sides the city was starving to death when it surrendered in 1628. Of the 20,000 inhabitants before the siege only 5,000 survived. Marguerite was born in 1636 and baptized August of that year in the only remaining Protestant church in La Rochelle.

Her father Pierre died in 1641 when she was 5 and her mother Suzanne in 1650 when she was 14.  Without any family her choice to marry a Catholic may have been love or survival. She converted to Catholicism on Jan 1 1659 and on the 12th married her first husband Laurent Baudet in St. Nicholas Catholic church. They had one surviving son Laurent born in 1662. Marguerite was left a widow that same year.

In 1663  Louis XIII began recruiting women to immigrate to New France to offset the unequal ratio of men to women (5-10 times more men than women) in what came to be known as the Filles du Roi. From 1663-1673 about 400 women were recruited to come to New France, marry and begin families to populate the colony. About 40 are in my family tree. Who Do You Think You Are?Marguerite and her infant son arrived that year and she made a marriage contract with Jean Rabouin, another immigrant from her home town of La Rochelle. Jean agreed to raise her son and care for him until he was fifteen.

Jean and Marguerite were among the earliest settlers of the Ile d'Orleans across the river from Quebec City. She had 7 more children before her death in 1679 and it is from this line that Tom Bergeron's family descends. I am descended from her son Laurent Baudet from her first husband.