Most people of French-Canadian descent can trace their first ancestor in North America to the early 17th century. My first ancestor in Canada, Jean LANDIÉ dit LESPERANCE, arrived in Quebec about May 1756. He was a corporal in the Mauran Company of the 2nd battalion of the La Sarre Regiment which, with the Royal-Roussillon Battalion, had departed France from the port of Brest in March or April of that year.

Jean was born about 1727 to Jean LANDIÉ and Jeanne MAURON of the village of Ramounet, parish of Dolmayrac, diocese of Agen. Located in Livradois, in the former Duchy of Aiguillon, about 2 miles south of Sainte-Livrade-sur-Lot, Dolmayrac is a quaint village of about 25 houses crowded near a church on the top of a rock buttress that rises sharply from the adjacent gently rolling farmland. This was probably a fortified town in the Middle Ages. The parish had a population of about 600 in 1681 so it has never been large. During a 1997 trip our compact car couldn’t maneuver around a turn in the road near the center of town because the streets were narrow with houses built right up to the road on both sides. The soil is too rich for grapes so a variety of other crops especially sunflowers and corn are grown in the area.

I haven't been able to find any specific record of the birth of Corporal Jean in Lot-et-Garonne. However with considerable help from Andre Masset of the Groupement Heraldique et Genealogique d'Agenais, we have determined that Corporal Jean was probably the son of Jean LANDIÉ who was born before 1692 in Dolmayrac and died there in 1767. The older Jean and Jeanne Mauron had at least two other sons, Philippe born before 1729 and Francois born in 1731. I have a record of Philippe's marriage in Bordeaux, France. This same Jean the father, with a second wife, Antoinette Mauron, had a son Jean (again!) born in Dolmayrac in 1734 and possibly a daughter, Marie. Antoinette could have been a sister or cousin to Jeanne, the first wife of Jean the father. The Mauron family were millers. It is possible that the still-operating Moulin (windmill) de Beausse near Ramounet belonged to the Mauron family.

Complicating the search for Corporal Jean's birth is the fact that in the four primary marriage contracts and church records of his two marriages in Canada, he gave three different surnames for his mother: deceased Marie Ollinieret; deceased Marie Bosse; deceased Marguerite Peres or Ceres; and Marguerite (no last name cited). Jette's Fichier Histor (Fichier des Mariages du Quebec 1731-1825) available at Salle Gagnon in the Central Library of Montreal started off with a typewritten "Marie Cope" which was changed in pen and ink to "Marie Bosse". PRDH also likes Marie Bosse. Drouin says Marie Crose. L'Assomption Repertoire Q34C says her name is Marie Cope but somebody has added Marie Crose to copies of that repertoire. These secondary sources seemed to have relied on only one of the four possible primary sources, the church record of Jean's first marriage at L'Assomption on 29 May 1758 in which his mother's name appears to be an indistinguishable letter followed by "OPE". It was common to write a double S as a single P, accounting for the BOSSE used by Jette and PRDH.

I had thought the mother's name was PERES. One reason is that the name PERES is the only one of those cited above that appears in the records in the vicinity of Dolmayrac in the appropriate time frame. On 25 November 1727, Antoine PERES was a party to a notary document executed in the neighboring parish of Montpezat. My second reason is that the Canadian document in which this name appears is the one that most clearly states Jean's true origin which I have verified in France: paroisse de dommerai (Dolmayrac), diocese d'agen, en agenais. But another possibility exists concerning this woman. On 31 May 1794, a Marguerite LANDIÉ died at Ramounet at age 85. So she was born about 1709. Could she have been the third wife of Corporal Jean's father? We have not been able to place this woman in the LANDIÉ family tree. Although her burial record says LANDIÉ she could have been born PERES. If Jean the father's second wife died and married Marguerite early, she could have raised Corporal Jean from a youngster. This would account for this woman's name appearing in Canadian records.

Nonetheless, Monsieur Masset has some interesting theories why Jean's mother was Jeanne Mauron. He notes that in all the Canadian documents, Jean's father is clearly "Jean". And the only Jean Landier in Dolmayrac who was of an age appropriate to the approximate birth year of Corporal Jean was the Jean Landié who, with Jeanne Mauron, had the son Philippe before 1729 and the son Francois in 1731. Corporal Jean said that he was 19 when he joined the French army in 1745. He said he was 28 at he time of his first marriage in 1758. So he was likely born between 1726 and 1730. I prefer 1726 because he was under no external pressure to give a young age when he joined the army. As noted above father Jean had a child Jean with Antoinette MAURON in 1734. So it is likely that Jeanne MAURON died when Corporal Jean was very young.

In July 1998 I found the enrolement (enlistment) of Jean LANDIÉ dit LESPERANCE in the French Army Archives at the Palace of Vincennes at the eastern perimeter of Paris. The key information essentially in the order that it appeared in register under the Mauran Company of the La Sarre Regiment was: Jean LANDY dit LESPERANCE; son of Jean; didn't know the name of his mother; without profession. Native of Dormerac (sic) in Agenois (sic), jurisdiction of Ste Livrade; height 5 feet, 1 puce (about 5'5"); chestnut-colored, shiny hair; round face; grey eyes; the nose "souste" (Probably the ancient French word "soutil" which means "thin".); large mouth; scar high on the right side of his forehead; small beard. Age 19 years. Enrolled 5 February 1745 for six years.

Thirty-three years later, at his first marriage, Corporal Jean had to come up with the name of his mother. This must have been a stressful time. His prospective bride was 3 ½ months pregnant. He may have had the figurative shotgun at his back. M. Masset believes that the first name he used for his mother, "Marie Ollinieret" might have been phonetically a nickname he had heard as in child in reference to his mother - "Molinieret", or local jargon for a small female miller, which she well could have been because she was from the family who owned the local grain mill. "Molinieret" became "M. Ollinieret" which in turn became "Marie Ollinieret" in the dialog between Corporal Jean and the notary who wrote the contract for Jean's first marriage. I have trouble with M. Masset's theory because French for a female miller is "meuniere".

M. Masset has an equally interesting theory as to how Corporal Jean, in another marriage document, could have come up with "Bosse" as the name of his mother. The area where the Mauron family's mill was located was known as "la Beausse" after the stream that runs there. The Mauron family mill was on this stream. Reminding ourselves that Jean was very young when his mother died, it was possible for this illiterate soldier to come up with "Beausse", phonetically "Bosse", as his mother's name.

Corporal Jean's home parish in France is also pretty well botched up in Canadian primary and secondary records. But Jette in his Fichier Histoir has it correct - the parish of Dolmayrac, Diocese of Agen. There are two towns named Dolmayrac near Agen. One is a southern suburb of Agen. The names LANDIÉ or LANDIER do not appear in the records of this town. The name LANDIÉ does appear frequently, in the appropriate time frame, in the records of the parish of Dolmayrac near Ste-Livrade-sur-Lot. Further, Monsieur Masset tells me that in the period that Corporal Jean lived there, the Dolmayrac on the southern edge of Agen was not in the diocese of Agen.

Corporal Jean's probable paternal grandparents were another Jean LANDIE who married Marguerite FABRE about 1685 at or near Dolmayrac. This couple had at least one other son, Pierre.

Corporal Jean's probable paternal, paternal great-grandparents were still another Jean LANDIÉ (who died before 1696) and Anne LALAURIE. They also had at least one other child, Antoinette. We are fortunate in having a readable copy of Antoinette's marriage contract which was made on 21 December 1695 in the home of her brother Jean (Corporal Jean's grandfather) in the hamlet of Ramounet, located less than a mile south of Dolmayrac. In the 17th and 18th century, the LANDIÉ name appears often in conjunction with the hamlet Ramounet. I believe that Corporal Jean was actually from Ramounet which was part of the parish of Dolmayrac.

We will likely never know for certain, but I will bow to M. Masset and use Jeanne Mauron as the mother of Corporal Jean. The soldier's acknowledgement at his 1745 army enlistment indicates that the names that he came up with later were likely creations of his to satisfy the need to have some name on the marriage documents.

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