My 2021 French ChallengeAZ: B for Badeau

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Marennes. Vue aérienne du centre-ville avec l’église Saint-Pierre et les places de Verdun et Chasseloup-Laubat. Par Jacques DASSIÉ — Travail personnel, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62776212

Geneviève Badeau is my 6th great-grandmother on my maternal grandfather’s side. Born and baptized on November 7, 1683, in Beauport, she was the daughter of Jean Badeau and Marguerite Chalifour.

Jean and Marguerite were married in the chapel of Beauport on October 26, 1665. The 1667 Census for New France reveals that the couple (with no children yet) had settled on Île-d’Orléans. Jean was 26, Marguerite, 16—she was in fact 14. According to the 1681 Census, they then had numerous children and still live there.

Geneviève’s paternal grandfather, Jacques Badeau, is from La Rochelle (Charente-Maritime). Thanks to Fichier Origine website, we learn that he married Anne Ardouin on October 13, 1630, in Marennes, at Saint-Pierre parish, also in Charente-Maritime.

Jacques Badeau was a saulnier—occupation then related to the salt industry—in La Rochelle. His first trace in New France dates back to 1647 when he entered into a contract in order to settle with his family in Québec and to work with the Jesuits. In this contract, Jacques is declared a ploughman.

Four children made the trip to Québec with Jacques and Anne: François, notary, and surveyor, baptized in 1632, in the parish of Sainte-Marguerite in La Rochelle; Madeleine, baptized in 1634 at the same parish; Jeanne, born about 1639; and, Jean, my ancestor, born about 1641. The two youngest ones’ birthdate is estimated from the age mentioned in the 1667 Census.


Jacques was buried in Québec in 1658 and Anne Ardouin passed away in 1670. As for their son Jean, he was buried in Québec in 1711, already a widower as Marguerite Chalifour predeceased him in death in 1705.

But now, let’s get back to my ancestor Geneviève who married Paul Casti, on October 17, 1704, in Québec. The couple settled for a while in Trois-Rivières and in Pointe-aux-Trembles afterward.

Wait, I think I’ll stop here for now, because Paul will be featured tomorrow for the letter C. And let me tell you this: their life was not a dull one!