In the course of my research into the life of Louis Renaud, I noticed that he and his wife, Marie-Magdeleine Bedard, had a lot of children, 18 in all. I also noticed that their early efforts (1695-1702) did not result in a lot of success. In fact, the continuation of La Ligne was by no means a guarantee. Of their first six children, only their first-born Marie-Magdeleine appears to have survived past the age of 24. Born in November of 1695, Marie-Magdeleine lived until the age of 68 passing away in 1763. She married quite late in life, at the age of 37, but managed to have at least one child, François Xavier Dolbec, at the age of 41.
The next five offspring experienced much briefer lifespans which must have brought a great deal of heartbreak to Louis and Marie-Magdeleine. From 1696 through 1702, Marie-Magdeleine had five pregnancies, of which one, Charles-Jacques, died within 8 weeks of birth. The life of their next child, Marie-Marguerite, is a mystery. The PRDH shows no marriages or date of death for her and I could find nothing on her either beyond her baptismal record. Their next son, Charles, died several months short of his 4th birthday and just two weeks before his two-year-old cousin Louis, the son of Jean-Bernard Renaud and Jeanne Dery. At this point, Marie-Magdeleine had given birth to 4 children and yet only one remained.
The next two children survived their childhood years but not much longer. Pierre lived to the age of 24 but did not marry. Perhaps due to the number of early deaths, Pierre’s younger brother François’ baptismal record indicates he was baptized provisionally. This suggests that the official baptism on 3 August 1702 followed a previous baptism on 1 August when François was born likely because they were unsure if he was going to survive. But survive he did however only until the age of 19. He died on 9 December 1721, the same day as his Uncle Pierre Renaud who was only 42 years old. These were sad times for the Renaud family but the outlook for La Ligne would improve. Louis and Magdeleine’s remaining 12 children survived into adulthood.
There are some interesting differences and similarities between the lines of Louis’ offspring and those of his father. Of most importance is the change in context. Both of Louis’ parents, Guillaume Regnault and Marie De La Mare, were born and raised in France. Given their respective birth places, it is not likely these two would ever have met and married had they remained in France. Guillaume was from the small village of Saint-Jouin-sur-Mer on the shores of the English Channel while Marie was from a densely populated urban environment of Rouen. By contrast, Louis Renaud and his wife Marie-Magdeleine Bedard, were Canadian born coming from the same community of Charlesbourg.
The comparisons between Marie De La Mare and Marie-Magdeleine Bedard highlight some similarities but also notable differences which may reflect the changes in the larger community between the two generations. Marie De La Mare’s years of child bearing lasted for a period of 23 years (40% of her life) while Marie-Magdeleine’s lasted 26 years (37% of her life). While Marie De La Mare had a pregnancy roughly every 2.3 years, Marie-Magdeleine Bedard was pregnant once every 1.4 years!
Both generations were fairly even in gender. Marie De La Mare and Guillaume’s family consisted of 5 females and 5 males while Louis and Marie-Magdeleine Bedard’s family consisted of 8 males and 10 females. All but one of Guillaume’s children married as Joseph died before the age of two. However, seven of Louis’ children never married. Four of the males died before marrying while three of the females never married though two of the unmarried daughters, Marie-Louise and Adrienne lived to the ages of 75 and 62 respectively. Adrienne’s spinsterhood is confirmed by a notarial record for a codicille dated 9 June 1755. I could not locate the actual document but the notarial index refers to her as a fille majeure, which is an “adult girl.” Adrienne was 40 years old at the time. Had she been married; she would have been referred to as the wife or widow of her husband.
The average age at marriage of the two families is consistent for the males. Guillaume’s sons married at an average age of 25.5 years whereas Louis’ sons were marginally younger at 25.25 years of age. However, there is a sizeable difference in marriage age for the females. Guillaume and Marie’s daughters married at an average age of 20.8 years while Louis and Marie-Magdeleine’s daughters married at an average age of 25.4 years. One of the most likely reasons for this difference is that the ratio of women to men in the colony had improved to the point that there were many more women of marriageable age at the time Louis’s daughters were reaching that threshold. The competition to make a match would have been much greater as the men would have had more options.
Additionally, it could also be true that more of the eligible males had little to offer until they had been able to establish themselves at an older age. As I indicated in a prior post, Mary Ann La Fleur’s study noted that the increased population made a father’s task of securing land for their children “increasingly difficult as land became more expensive and harder to attain. Fathers now acquired smaller lots in the back lots, or back rangs, of the seigneurie. They also gave out shared lots, and sometimes asked sons to repay the cost of land acquired.” For Louis’ daughters, it may have created problems for him to provide a sufficient dower to complete a match. There may well be other reasons but there is not likely any record that would specifically address any one individual case.
Second marriages could often complicate issues with widowers competing with younger, less established males for potential brides. We know of at least one second marriage in the lineage, that of Charles Renaud whose first wife, Elizabeth Garneau, died in 1748. In April 1750, Charles married Marie-Anne Giroux.
The average age of death follows much the same pattern as that for marriage in that the males of the two different generations did not see much difference in their mean life expectancy. Guillaume’s sons lived to an average age of 39.2 years. The mean age is affected by the death of Joseph prior to the age of two. But even removing Joseph’s early death, the average age only increases to 48.75 years. Louis’ sons lived on average only to the age of 37.4 years. Louis had two sons that died very early, one after just a few weeks and the other just 3 years of age. If those two early deaths are removed, the other six males lived on average 49.3 years with Charles living to the age of 81!
Just as in the average age of marriage, the difference in average lifespans for females varied between the two generations. Guillaume and Marie’s five daughters lived to an average age of 51.8 years. Louis and Marie-Magdeleine’s daughters had an average life span of 60.1 years. This excludes their third child, Marie-Marguerite who was born on January 14, 1698. Since her date of death is unknown and there is no record of a marriage for her. It is assumed she died young but without knowing anything specific, I had to exclude her.
There was a wide variance in ages despite the relative similarities in average life span between the two generations. If we break out the life spans into categories a different picture emerges that indicates that while mortality was higher in the early period (Age 0-25), the likelihood of living into old age (Age 55+) was significantly higher in the second generation. While only 10% of the Renaud-De La Mare offspring died before age 25, 24% of the Renaud-Bedard line perished before attaining the Age of 25. While 40% of the Renaud-De La Mare line lived to the age of 55 and beyond, 59% of the Renaud-Bedard line lived beyond the age of 55.
This limited demographic analysis exploring a few characteristics suggests that the second generation of the family line produced more pregnancies than the first. The study would need to expand to Louis’ siblings’ offspring to see if the characteristic similarities between the first and second generations is reproduced in the families of Louis’ brothers and sisters. If representative, the period of Marie De La Mare’s child bearing years (1669-1692) sees less infant and childhood mortality but shorter life spans for females than the period of Marie-Magdeleine Bedard (1695-1721) where infant and childhood mortality increased but overall life expectancy once beyond childhood increased especially for women.
While much of the focus of this blog centers on the male lineage, we should not overlook the importance of the women who entered the family by marriage. Both Marie De La Mare and Marie-Magdeleine Bedard must have been strong women both mentally and physically to be up to the task of giving birth to 10 and 18 children respectively and then raising them. They also had to endure the loss of children at very young ages which while not uncommon had to be difficult. While the Renaud lineage has survived for more than 400 years, it is safe to say, it would not have done so without the contributions of these women.
For more information see the Resources page associated with this post @ https://www.renaudfamilyhistory.com/resources.