Jeanne Godequin

Jeanne Godequin was baptized in 1649 in Amiens, Picardy in France. Her parents appear in records as Jacques Godequin and Jeanne Dupuis. At some point after the death of Jeanne’s father, she was most likely recommended by the parish priest and then recruited for the royal program to help populate France's colony in the New World. Like so many of the others, she would have made a long trip overland of at least a few weeks to Dieppe. Here she would bring aboard a trousseau and the dowry she was given by the king’s agent with valuables worth an estimated 300 livres.

Along with our ancestors Chanfrain, Doribeau, and Halier, she and well more than 100 other young women managed a typically perilous voyage, landing in Québec City on Le Saint-Jean-Baptiste, one of two ships that delivered Filles du Roi to New France in 1669.

Vincent Croteau was born in Dieppe on March 29, 1644. We know that he was the son of André Croteau and Marguerite Meteyér. We also know that once he settled in the colony, Vincent’s occupation was a cordonnier or cobbler. Nothing more of his background is available, nor of his journey overseas to New France, nor of his ultimate meeting with Jeanne Godequin, but based on the chronology, it was clear that they were acquainted very soon after she arrived.

The meetings of all of our Filles ancestors with their spouses were highly unlikely to have happened by accident. Most, if not all history sources state that the nuns who sheltered the Filles du Roi in Québec City had a strict vetting system, much like modern-day speed dating, where each girl would ask questions of potential suitors who came to find wives. The girls didn’t always make a decision, nor were they obligated to decide at all, but obviously something about Vincent inspired Jeanne to accept his proposal.

On September 22, 1669, notary Romain Becquet drew up a marriage contract between 22-year-old Jeanne and 25-year-old Vincent Croteau at Cap-Rouge, Québec. This contract, which neither spouse was literate enough to sign, stated among other things that Jeanne was to receive the king’s gift of 50 livres. The date of the actual wedding ceremony that followed is not known. The young couple settled at Sillery, Québec and obviously managed to eke out a living there for a plentiful family. How plentiful? In a period spanning 23 years, they raised 10 children, albeit just seven survived.

The continuation of Jeanne Godequin’s lineage to our family is quite unusual among all 17 other related Filles since her offspring created not one but five branches that led to our Côté family through succeeding generations.

Thus Louis, Nicolas, Charles (twice), and Jacques Croteau would link their mother to both Lazare Côté and Clarice Bergeron through the generations of their families. And no two are alike, as evidenced above.

Jeanne Godequin’s records say only that she was buried October 4, 1727 at St-Antoine-de-Tilly, Québec in her 80th year. No cause of death is stated. Her husband Vincent Croteau had predeceased her, and the records only say that he died between November 1709 and April 1715 at about 68 years of age.