Mathurine Robin

Biography

Mathurine Robin’s family was established on both sides of the Atlantic. She married the mason Jean Guyon at Mortagne, in the Perche region west of Paris in France, in June 1615, and eight of their children were born in France. Their eldest daughter, Barbe, married Pierre Paradis before the Guyon migration, so the family’s move to New France took place in stages rather than as a single permanent departure by everyone at once.

Jean and their son Jean left in 1634. The Perche-Québec account, following historian Marcel Trudel, places Mathurine’s arrival with other children in 1636. Around Beauport, now part of Québec city in Canada, they joined a settlement in which Jean’s masonry work and the family’s landholding became important parts of their livelihood. Two more sons were baptized in Canada. Noël, baptized in August 1638, died the following month; François was baptized in December 1639. These entries document both the continuation of the family overseas and a child’s brief life that a simple list of surviving descendants would miss.

The move did not end Mathurine’s connections with Mortagne. On October 18, 1653, she and Jean jointly made a donation to the charitable institution associated with the church of Saint-Jean there. The act concerned a house and was recorded by the Québec notary Guillaume Audouart. The gift maintained a legal and charitable connection with their former parish long after their migration.

Mathurine died at Beauport on April 16, 1662 and was buried at Québec the following day. Her documentary history connects childbirth, migration and household settlement with a joint property decision that reached back across the ocean.