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Simon-René Simoneau was the 6th great-grandfather of Robert Perrault and the fifth child of René Simoneau and Marguerite Delepraye. He was born in 1664 on the Île de Bouin in the heart of the Vendean Breton marsh in the district of Les Sables d'Olonnes in old Poitou, (the current department of Vendée), France. He was baptized on October 10,1664 in the church of Bouin.
René was a soldier in the Company of Saint-Martin, and it is thought that he immigrated to New France about 1692 around the age of 28. He was known as René Simoneau dit Sanschagrin ("without worry" or "without sorrow"), a nickname that would seem to indicate that he had a cheerful disposition. The first mention of René in Canada occurs with his marriage in 1699. He could not sign his name on his marriage contract, and we must assume that he was a man of little education.
On November 23, 1699, René Simoneau married Jeanne Moreau, the daughter of Jean Moreau dit LaGrange and Anne Couture. A fille du roi, Anne Couture had immigrated to Canada in 1665 at the age of 24 from Saint-Hilaire d'Illiers, Orléanais. She married Jean Moreau dit LaGrange on November 12, 1665 at Château-Richer. Jean was born about 1635 in Saint-Philibert-de-Grandlieu, Nantes, Brittany; the date of his immigration is not known. Jeanne, the fifth of their seven children, was born on January 28, 1676 in Sainte-Famille, Île de Orléans, Québec. Jeanne had first married Joseph Dalleret at Saint-Laurent, Île de Orléans on November 23, 1695; however, Joseph died before the birth in 1697 of their only child Marie-Angélique.
Following their marriage, René and Jeanne resided with her parents in St-Laurent, Île de Orléans, where their first child, René, was born on October 4, 1700. It is through this child that our Simoneau ancestors are descended. On Friday, April 1, 1701, René Sr. was hospitalized for 16 days, at which time he left the army. By 1702, the Simoneau family had moved to Saint-Thomas de Pointe-à-la-Caille in Montmagny where their daughter Jeanne was born on April 7, 1702. Six more children were born in Saint-Thomas before 1718.
On August 23, 1716, René received a concession of 6 arpents (acres) of land from Jean-Baptiste Couillard, Seigneur de la Rivière du Sud. In return, René was required to pay the seigneur each year on All Saint's Day (November 1), "6 livres in silver and 6 live capons of seigneurial income and 6 sols of income."
It is thought that René and Jeanne were very poor, living at the threshold of misery. In 1726, they sold some of their land to their son Jean-Baptiste and divided the remainder of their belongings among their other children. In return, the children guaranteed the care and subsistence of René and Jeanne "until the end of their days." For the most part, the fulfillment of this obligation appears to have fallen to Charles, their sixth child, with the financial assistance of the other children. René and Jeanne remained in Saint-Thomas until Jeanne's death on April 25, 1740.
After the death of his wife, René lived in Saint-Nicolas, Lévis with one of his sons, either René or Michel. On July 6, 1744 René Simoneau dit Sanschagrin died in Saint-Nicolas at the age of 80 and was buried the following day in the cemetery of this parish.
[Source: "History of René Simoneau dit Sanschagrin and Jeanne Moreau"
by Pierre Simoneau, at freepages.genealogy.rootweb.com/~simoneau/]
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