Page 17 - Fortier Family History

Fortier Genealogy by Mark B. Arslan (http://arslanmb.org/fortier/fortier.html) Antoine Fortier (1644-1707) & Marie Magdeleine Cadieu (1659-1715) Preface Many of the Fortier families in Canada trace their ancestry to Antoine Fortier, a native of Dieppe, Normandie, France, who came to Québec in the early 1660s. He married Marie Magdeleine Cadieu at Beauport in 1677 and settled at Île-d'Orléans. This web site is intended to be a compendium of the research done on him and his descendants. Much has been published on this family in various historical books and family histories, some of it accurate, some not so accurate. As is often the case with family histories, once something is in print, it often is considered to be "gospel". It is my hope that this web site will facilitate a critical examination and discussion of the facts, legends, and myths surrounding this Fortier family and to allow us Fortier researchers and descendants to learn more about our origins and our relatives' contributions to early North America. The best way to separate fact from fiction and to resolve conflicting information is to go back to the primary sources (see Documenting Your Genealogy Research - Guide to Citing Sources). These include records of marriages, births and baptisms, deaths and burials, census listings, tax lists, probate and land records, etc. The information in the descendant listings on this web site will include documentation of the primary sources as much as possible, and transcriptions of many of those sources will be presented in links below. This is a working document; it will be modified and (hopefully) improved as more researchers provide input and, most importantly, evidence. Historical Narrative Antoine Fortier was baptized 26 June 1644 in the parish of St-Jacques, Dieppe, Normandie, France. He was one of at least four children born to Noël Fortier (Forestier), shipwright, and Marie Marthe Golle, who were married 26 May 1638 at the parish of St-Rémy in Dieppe. In approximately the early 1660s, Noël Fortier and his son Antoine arrived in New France and settled initially at Beauport, near Québec city. In an agreement signed 17 October 1667 (Notary Rageot), Antoine Fortier formed a partnership with three other men to commercially fish the St-Lawrence River. This fishing venture probably took Antoine to the area of Tadoussac (about 115 miles downriver from Québec city where the Saguenay River empties into the St-Lawrence) where, in June of 1669, Antoine served as a witness for nine Catholic baptisms of Amerindians. Church of St-Jacques, Dieppe, Normandie, France; original steel engraving drawn by David Roberts and engraved by T. Higham, 1834