Roy Ancestry – France to Canada (Part 3)

 

Emigration from France to New France

Historical records indicate that France did not supply a great number of emigrants to its colonies across the Atlantic. In fact, just 15,000 Frenchmen and Frenchwomen sailed for New France in the 17th century. About two-thirds of them stayed in the colony for a short period and either returned to France or died without getting married. By comparison, the British Isles, with a population just over one-third of France’s, sent almost 380,000 immigrants to the New World over the same period.

Early Pioneer Travel

Although relatively few French people migrated to New France (considered a distant, wild and dangerous country), the result of this small founding population was that the French-Canadian stock grew from a relatively small number of people, about 10,000 immigrants. If we consider the male immigrants, from whom family names were transmitted through the generations, the number is reduced to about 4,500 – the total of immigrants who had at least one son who married.

New France circa 1650

 

Commemorating our first Roy ancestors to come to Canada

Roy Association Arms

The Roy Family Association of America (Association des Familles Roy d'Amérique) proudly states that the “ROY surname or LeRoy appears at the beginning of New France.” With 24 different Roy ancestors, that surname is at the top of the list before 1800, according to research by the Institute of Statistics of Quebec (Institut de la statistique du Québec).

In our Roy family lineage, Nicolas LeRoy and Jeanne Lelièvre were the first ancestors to come to Canada. To commemorate the 325th anniversary of their arrival in New France, a plaque in their memory was created by the Roy Family Association on August 26, 2000. The adventures of Nicolas LeRoy and Jeanne Lelièvre are told in the Roy Ancestry - France to Canada (Part 4).