[2024-05-12] Mother's Day maternal lineage
For this Mother's Day, I decided to trace my maternal lineage, as far back as the records in Généalogie Québec would allow me to go.
The line of mothers above me (including the year each was born) begins in France.
- Florence Cantau (~1620) married Pierre Doucinet before 1641 in France.
- Marguerite Doucinet (1641) married Philippe Mathon Labrie in 1662 in Québec, Quebec.
- Marie Mathon Labrie (1681) married Jean-Baptiste Chamaillard in 1704 in Montréal, Quebec.
- Marie Charlotte Chamaillard (1714) married François Roy in 1734 in Pointe-Claire, Quebec.
- Marie Josephe Roy (1738) married Charles Dubois in 1767 in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec.
- Josephe Dubois (1774) married Antoine Watier Lanoix in 1796 in Vaudreuil, Quebec.
- Marie Madeleine Watier Lanoix (1800) married Joseph Martin (dit) St-Jean in 1820 in Vaudreuil, Quebec.
- Zoe Martin (dit) St-Jean (1836) married Olivier Campeau in 1855 in Vaudreuil.
- Josephine Campeau (1876) married Adolphe Charbonneau in 1895 in Fournier, Ontario.
- Malvina Charbonneau (1896) married Osias Pagé in 1920 in Hammond, Ontario.
- Olivette Page (1938) married Harold Hollington in 1958 in Ottawa, Ontario.
- Jennifer Hollington (1966) married Christian Bouchard in 2020 in Ottawa, Ontario.
- Melanie Bouchard was born in 1992 in Ottawa. (Shane Bouchard was born in 1991 in Ottawa.)
The montage of photos, below, includes my great-great-grandmother (Zoe), my great-grandmother (Josephine), my grandmother (Malvina), my mother (Olivette), me and my daughter (Melanie).
What strikes me most about this line of women is how hard they no doubt worked. Extrapolating from how much my mother did—and still does—in a day, and her description of the work her mother did, I can only imagine that every woman in this line of ascension worked extremely hard, especially when you consider the size of their families.
We may not all be mothers, but we all had mothers. And Mother's Day reminds us to take a moment to consider what our mothers and their mothers before them did to help give us the life we have now. I am blessed to both be a mother—to two wonderful children—and have a mother in my life.
Thank you, Olivette, for all that you have done for me and all that you continue to do. Happy Mother's Day.
