Until today, I didn't have any identified filles du roi (King's
Daughter) in my family ancestry.
While looking up a random couple of ancestors in an on-line database, I saw a note that said they were descendants of a fille du roi.
The couple is Francois Courtois and Marie Josephe Roiroux dit
Laliberte, married in 1756 in French Canada.
After reading this fact and with the help of the on-line PRDH, I
spent about 45 minutes searching back on each branch to identify any marriage
that occurred during the filles du roi period (roughly 1663-1673). For each
that did, I then compared the maternal ancestor's name to
the list of filles du roi in a couple of books a) King's Daughters and Founding
Mothers, The Filles du Roi, 1663-1673 by Peter J. Gagne and b) Les Filles du
Roi en Nouvelle-France by Silvio Dumas.
It turns out that Marguerite Berger, Francois' grandmother,
was a fille du roi from Saint-Sauveur, Ile-de-France, Paris. She was born
in 1653 to Madeleine Jeanne and Jean Berger. After her father died, she
left France for Canada, at age 19.
Marguerite first entered into a marriage contract with Jacques
Buissiere. That was annulled and then she and Charles Courtois were married 9
Oct 1670 in Quebec. Her dowry was 300 livres and she received another 50 livres
from the king. They lived in Lauzon and had six children.
Filles du roi are more generally known as the founding women of French Canada. They were recruited to come to French Canada by Louis XIV. Get the scoop - read on!