Roy Ancestry – France to Canada (Part 7)

New France (Canada) circa 1697

Canada A Country by Consent: New France

The land that is now known as Canada was first home to many different nations of native peoples with distinctly different languages and social organizations. What they shared was a great ability to live with the land and it was only by copying native ideas like the snowshoe, birch bark canoes and pemmican: dried lean meat that the Europeans were able to survive the harsh winters and develop a vast fur trade that eventually spread European influence across the country.

Canada is not a country based on ethnic uniformity like many countries. It is not a country forged by the fires of civil war or wars of unification. It is a country which has evolved and been held together by the agreement and will of the various groups who have helped build it over the years. Canada is a Country by Consent. (View the content of this online project which is organized into 27 chapters, many with an audiovisual introduction. The text is enhanced with additional film clips, interviews, essays by guest historians, hundreds of archival images, satellite maps and definitions.)

Etienne Roy (1690-1749) and Marie LaCasse (1692-1764)

 

Etienne (Stephen) Roy was the first male child in our Roy lineage to be born in Canada (New France). When he was born on April 20, 1690, in Lauzon, Quebec, his father Nicolas Roy (1661-1727) was 29 and his mother, Marie-Madeleine LeBlond (1665-1722) was 24. Etienne was fortunate to have his extended family welcome his birth, including his grandparents, Nicolas LeRoy (1639-1690) and Jeanne Lelièvre (1640-1728), and his great-grandmother, Anne LeMaitre (1617-1718). The joy was short-lived, however, when his grandfather Nicolas LeRoy died a few days later on April 27, 1690 at the age of 50 years.

Etienne Roy Profile

Etienne married Marie LaCasse on November 18, 1709, in Beaumont, Quebec when he was 19 years old and was 17 years old. (Source: Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967 Record for Etienne LeRoy. Beaumont (St-Étienne) > 1692-1796, 67. 2nd entry.)

Etienne Roy and Marie LaCasse church marriage record 1709

Marie LaCasse was born on June 19, 1692, in Lauzon, Quebec to Marie-Francoise Bazin, age 19, and Joseph LaCasse, age 22. The LaCasse family records (shown below) indicates that she was the oldest of 15 children – 11 girls and 4 boys. From an ancestry lineage perspective, it is noteworthy that three of the LaCasse girls (Marie, Marie-Francoise and Marie-Angelique) married Roy boys (Etienne, Louis and Jean-Baptiste, respectively).

As the following ancestry tree shows, Etienne and Marie had 10 children in 22 years from 1711 to 1733. This included 6 girls and four boys to carry on the Roy family name. Their third son, Pierre Roy (1725-1764), continues our family heritage.

Etienne Roy and Marie LaCasse Family

Ancestry records show that Etienne Roy died on December 3, 1749, in St. Vallier, Quebec, when he was 59 years old and was buried there. At that time, Etienne and Marie had been married 40 years. Marie LaCasse died on January 5, 1764, in St. Vallier, Quebec, when she was 71 years old. For reference purposes, the vital records for Etienne and Marie are available online and include guidance on how to read French documents.