52 Ancestors: #52 Augustin Rochon, born on Christmas Eve

Amy Johnson Crow at No Story Too Small has issued herself and her readers a challenge for 2014. It’s called “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks”, and as Amy explains, the challenge is to “have one blog post each week devoted to a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, an outline of a research problem — anything that focuses on one ancestor”.

For the 52nd and final week of this challenge, I chose Augustin Rochon (1728-1805).

Augustin is my paternal 6x great-grandfather and is number 316 in my ancestor list.

Because of the holidays, I wanted to close this ‘challenging’ year by writing about an ancestor who was born on Christmas day. I was disappointed when I didn’t find such an ancestor in my database, but I did find two individuals who were baptized on December 25. I picked the earlier numbered ancestor.

Augustin was born in the evening of 24 December 1728. He was baptized the next day (Christmas) in St-François-de-Sales on Ile Jésus, the island just above Montreal island. [1] He was the eldest of the fourteen children of François Rocheron (Rochon) by his second wife Marie-Charlotte Gingras. Augustin had nine brothers and four sisters. [2] He also had an elder half-sister by his father’s first marriage. [3]

Baptism record of Augustin Rochon, 1728 [4]

François and Marie-Charlotte chose Antoine Parent and Magdeleine Labelle as Augustin’s godparents. Parrain Antoine could write his name, because he signed anthoy parant in the register (see the above image).

Augustin married three times. He and his first wife Marie Josèphe (Marguerite) Beauchamp were united in marriage on 25 February 1754 in Lachenaie, near Terrebonne, north of Montreal. [5] By her, he had one child of unknown gender, who died the day it was born in May 1756. Marie Josèphe died a few days after her infant. [6]

Almost two years after the loss of his first wife and only child, Augustin married Thérèse Filion on 23 January 1758 in Lachenaie. [7] He was 29 years old, while Thérèse was only about 15 years old. Over the course of the next thirty years, the couple had eighteen children, including eldest child, Augustin (1759-1828), my ancestor. [8] Sadly, Thérèse did not survive the birth (and death) of her last child, a daughter, for she died two weeks later on 5 May 1789. [9]

On 1 September 1794, Augustin married for the third and last time to widow Marie Angélique Fagnan. [10] They did not have any children.

Augustin died on 30 March 1805 and was buried two days later in St-Eustache, Deux-Montagnes County. [11] His burial record describes him as being âgé d’environ soixante dix huit ans (he was actually 76 years old) and an ancien laboureur [formerly a ploughman].

Sources:

1. St-François-de-Sales (St-François, Quebec), parish register, 1727-1740, p. 16, no entry no. (1728), Augustin Rochon baptism, 25 December 1728; St-François-de-Sales parish; digital image, “Le LAFRANCE”, Généalogie Québec (http://www.genealogiequebec.com : accessed 23 December 2014).

2. “Dictionnaire”, database, Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) (http://www.genealogie.umontreal.ca : accessed 22 December 2014), François Rochon Rocheron – Marie Charlotte Gingras, Famille no. 16180.

3. “Dictionnaire”, database, Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) (http://www.genealogie.umontreal.ca : accessed 22 December 2014), François Rochon Rocheron – Marie Anne Filiatrault St Louis, Famille no. 13511. Note that René Jetté, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles du Québec (Montréal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1983), 1002 is in error when it says that François’ daughter by Marie Anne died in 1722.

4. St-François-de-Sales, parish register, 1727-1740, p. 16, Augustin Rochon baptism, 25 December 1728.

5. St-Charles (Lachenaie, Quebec), parish register, 1726-1758, no page no., no entry no. (1754), Augustin Rochon – Marie Josephe Beauchamp marriage, 25 February 1754; St-Charles parish; digital image, “Le LAFRANCE”, Généalogie Québec (http://www.genealogiequebec.com : accessed 23 December 2014).

6. Ste-Rose (Ste-Rose, Quebec), parish register, 1743-1768, no page no., no entry no. (1756), [anonymous child] Rochon burial, 15 May 1756; Ste-Rose parish; digital image, “Le LAFRANCE”, Généalogie Québec (http://www.genealogiequebec.com : accessed 23 December 2014). And, Ste-Rose (Ste-Rose, Quebec), parish register, 1743-1768, no page no., no entry no. (1756), Marguerite Beauchamp [sic] burial, 21 May 1756; Ste-Rose parish; digital image, “Le LAFRANCE”, Généalogie Québec (http://www.genealogiequebec.com : accessed 23 December 2014).

7. St-Charles (Lachenaie, Quebec), parish register, 1726-1758, no page no., no entry no. (1758), Augustin Rochon – Thérèse Filion marriage, 23 January 1758; St-Charles parish; digital image, “Le LAFRANCE”, Généalogie Québec (http://www.genealogiequebec.com : accessed 21 October 2014).

8. “Dictionnaire”, database, Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) (http://www.genealogie.umontreal.ca : accessed 21 October 2014), Augustin Rochon Rocheron – Marie Thérèse Filion, Famille no. 34510.

9. St-Eustache (St-Eustache, Quebec), parish register, 1788-1792, p. 13 verso, no entry no. (1789), Marie Thérèse Fillion [sic] burial, 6 May 1789; St-Eustache parish; digital image, “Le LAFRANCE”, Généalogie Québec (http://www.genealogiequebec.com : accessed 21 October 2014).

10. Ste-Thérèse (Ste-Thérèse, Quebec), parish register, 1794, p. 7 recto, no entry no., Augustin Rochon – Angélique Fagnant [sic] marriage, 1 September 1794; Ste- Thérèse parish; digital image, “Le LAFRANCE”, Généalogie Québec (http://www.genealogiequebec.com : accessed 21 October 2014).

11. St-Eustache (St-Eustache, Quebec), parish register, 1804, p. 9 verso, no entry no., Augustin Rochon burial, 1 April 1805; St-Eustache parish; digital image, “Le LAFRANCE”, Généalogie Québec (http://www.genealogiequebec.com : accessed 23 December 2014).

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.