Jacqueline Freslon

Biography

Jacqueline Freslon and her twin sister Renée were baptized together at La Trinité in Angers, in western France, on January 28, 1635. Their parents were René Freslon and Renée Loger. Jacqueline's Canadian life began nearly three decades later, when she crossed to New France around 1662 and entered a marriage agreement with François Garnier dit Pellerin.

The contract was drawn up before Guillaume Audouart in December 1662; their marriage followed in January. Jacqueline was among the women who migrated before the organized Filles du roi programme.

Their first child, Isaac-Joseph, was born in November 1663. A census taken three years later places Jacqueline with François, their young son and an engaged worker named Pierre in the settlements near Sillery. The entry captures an early stage of their household, before most of their children had been born.

By 1681 they were living at Dombourg, now Neuville, on the St. Lawrence’s north bank upstream from Québec city in present-day Canada. Seven children appear in that census, from eighteen-year-old Joseph to little Angélique. The household possessed seven cattle and cultivated fifteen arpents. Jacqueline's childbearing years extended from the early 1660s to the end of the 1670s; family reconstruction identifies eight children altogether.

She lived long enough to see those children establish households of their own, but also to lose adult daughters. Marie-Étiennette and Marie-Angélique both died in 1703. Jacqueline was buried at Neuville in April 1712, after almost half a century of marriage. François survived her until 1719.

The burial listing places Jacqueline Freslon at Cimetière de Pointe-aux-Trembles, Neuville, Capitale-Nationale Region, Québec, Canada.