The newspaper invites you to trace each month the family history of several personalities who have roots in our country. A sociologist by training and passionate about genealogy for forty years, Jacques Noël is the author of the essay The Quebec Diaspora. This impressive diaspora, which shines at the top of the arts, sports and politics, is completely ignored by Quebecers. Today we invite you to discover the origins of Avril Lavigne, who will be performing tonight at Place Bell in Montreal and on Friday, May 6 at the Videotron Center in Quebec City.
Her name is Avril, but she was born in September. She has French citizenship, but speaks the language of Piaf with difficulty. She was born in Belleville, but has nothing to do with the famous Triplets. Her name is Lavigne, but her ancestor was a Tessier.
The family history of one of Canada’s most famous rockers, who has sold 40 million albums, is a bit confusing at first glance, even for knowledgeable genealogists who have seen many others.
Avril Ramona Lavigne was born in Belleville, Ontario on September 27, 1984. Her father Jean-Claude Lavigne (1954) was born in Moselle, leading some to say the pretty blonde was of French descent.
In the midst of the Cold War, grandpa Maurice Yves Lavigne, born in Saint-Jérôme in 1934, was quartered in Lorraine on a Canadian NATO base. An aviation mechanic, he married the young Lucie Dzierzbicki (1937-2004) in 1953, whom he brought back to Ontario a few years later, with their son Jean-Claude. That’s it for the French Connection.
After retiring from the army, Maurice Yves worked for Canadair in Montreal. He died in Saint-Eustache in 2003 after a long battle with amyloidosis.
Tessier
To find a French ancestor on the Lavigne side, you have to go back to Urbain Tessier dit Lavigne (1624?-1689).
Originally from Breil (in what is now Maine-et-Loire), probably recruited by Jérôme Le Royer de La Dauversière who was looking for courageous pit sawyers to build a country, Tessier was one of the first Montrealers. And a whole cheeky one.
On January 10, 1648, the Sieur de Maisonneuve himself granted him a concession. A plaque on the Royal Trust building, near Place d’Armes (see photo below), bears witness to this. Let Madame Plante and the revisionist wokes take it for granted!
In the fall of 1648, he married in Quebec the very young Marie Archambault (1636-1719) who gave him 16 children. And will die at 83. A force of nature like all those generations of women who gave birth to our people with 10-12 children at the table, for three centuries.
Three years later, Urbain was allocated a piece of land of 30 arpents, along rue St-Urbain which, three centuries later, would furnish the Canary-Mango universe of a certain Mordicai who would go so far as to associate our great -mothers to sows.
Life is not easy in Ville-Marie. In 1661, Tessier was kidnapped by the Iroquois. A traumatic experience from which few settlers came out alive.
It is a young widow who saves his life, taking him as her husband. After 525 days of capture, he was brought back to his family thanks to the intervention of Father Simon Le Moyne (according to Marguerite Bourgeois, he would have lost only one finger).
Vine
His son Jean-Baptiste Tessier dit Lavigne (1672-1736) kept the nickname Lavigne which he passed on to his descendants. His family lives on Saint-Laurent Street and the children are on the move. One of his four sons, Jean-Baptiste, will turn to the Country of Illinois. Another, Joseph, drowned during a trip to the West. Jacques (1719-1758) settled in Longueuil, but he and his wife died very young; it is another brother, Nicolas, who will raise their 7 children.
A few generations later, after abandoning the name Tessier and passing through Lavaltrie and L’Assomption, the descendants of Jacques Lavigne moved to the Outaouais. Urgel (1823-1904) and his wife Emilie Thibert settled on Emilie’s parents’ farm in Papineauville.
After Émilie’s death, Urgel remarried Émilie’s cousin, Marie-Anne Légaré (1837-1879). Around 1875, the couple moved across the river to Plantagenet, a small corner of French-speaking Ontario where the diaspora still thrives today.
But Marie-Anne also dies prematurely. In 1881, Urgel finds himself working as a day laborer in Plantagenet, with three young kids to take care of, including Joseph (1876-1962) who will have 11 children.
It is the grandson of Joseph, Maurice Yves, who will return to the land of the ancestors to marry a Frenchwoman who will give birth to the father of the famous Canadian rocker.
PATERNAL LINE OF AVRIL LAVIGNE
◆ LAVIGNE, Jean-Claude (1954-
◆ LOSHAW, Judith Rosanne (1955-
- Married February 1, 1975, Belleville, Ontario
◆ LAVIGNE, Maurice Yves (1934-2003)
◆ DZIERZBICKI, Lucie (1937-2004)
- Mr. 1953 Chehange (Moselle), France
◆ LAVIGNE, Osias Joseph (1904-1994)
◆ FINGER, Anita (1905-2005)
- Mr. October 8, 1927, Saint-Jérôme
◆ LAVIGNE, Joseph (1876-1962)
◆ TREMBLAY, Victoria (1876-1952)
- Mr. April 9, 1894, Papineauville
◆ LAVIGNE, Urgel (1823-1904)
◆ LEGARE, Marie-Anne Desanges (1837-1879)
- Mr. April 29, 1870, Papineauville
◆ TESSIER called LAVIGNE, Charles (1796-1832)
◆ LANGLOIS, Marguerite (1793-1831)
- Mr. October 28, 1817, L’Assomption
◆ TESSIER called LAVIGNE, Jean-Baptiste (1770-1809)
◆ JANSON, Marie-Anne (1772-?)
- July 14, 1793 Lavaltrie (St-Antoine) (8 children)
◆ TESSIER called LAVIGNE, Jean-Baptiste (1745-1818)
◆ LEBEAU, Marie-Josephe (1753-1818)
- Mr. September 18, 1769, Longue-Pointe, Montreal (16 children)
◆ TESSIER called LAVIGNE, Jacques (1719-1758)
◆ MONET, Marie-Louise (1717-1755)
- Mr. February 25, 1740, Longueuil (St-Antoine-de-Padoue) (7 children)
◆ TESSIER called LAVIGNE, Jean-Baptiste (1672-1736)
◆ RENAUD, Elizabeth (1681-1747)
- Mr. November 4, 1698, Montreal (12 children)
◆ TESSIER called LAVIGNE, Urban (1624?-1689)
◆ ARCHAMBAULT, Marie (1636-1719)
- Mr. September 28, 1648, Quebec (The couple had 16 children)
THE QUEBEC DIASPORA
Like the Jews, the Chinese, the Italians, the Irish and the Afro-descendants, our history, almost half a millennium old, has shaped on this continent a diaspora of some 13 million people who have at least one great-grandfather. Quebec or Acadian parent.
This diaspora is completely ignored by Quebecers. It took Madonna’s touching coming out in 1987 (“You know, I am French Canadian too”) in the old Rocket Forum for us to realize, completely blissfully, that Louise Ciccone, whom we all believed to be ritale, was an American fort.
And the diaspora is not limited to the North American continent alone. Ricky Gervais is the son of a Franco-Ontarian soldier. Anna Paquin is the daughter of a Franco-Manitoban teacher. Richard Darbois, “the most beautiful voice in France”, is the son of Olivier Guimond.
Three levels
When we talk about the Quebec diaspora, we are actually talking about three levels. The first is that of Quebecers living abroad by choice of love, climate (our snowbirds for example) or tax.
The second is that of the Canadian Francophonie. A million people who still speak French from Whitehorse to Port-au-Port.
The third is that of the continental and global diaspora. Those who have been completely assimilated for several generations, but who have a Quebec origin. It will mainly be about them in this column. Quebecers, Acadians, Franco-Ontarians, Franco-Manitobans, Fransaskois, Franco-Albertans, Franco-Colombians, Franco-Yukonnais, Franco-Americans, Métis, Cajuns, Canucks, Pah-Pah, Brayons; this people, which numbers more than 20 million people on the continent that gave birth to it, does not have a unifying name capable of including everyone.
Quebec sector
As filiation is family and as it will be a question of genealogy in this chronicle, we will call him by the name of his families. The Tremblays of America have paved the way in this direction.
It is obviously not a question of Quebecizing people who are not Quebecers, who have never been. Just to recall, family tree in support, the very Quebec origin of a lot of celebrities who have kept somewhere in their family a Quebec industry.
By going back to their family tree, it is the whole imprint of our people in America that we rediscover. Their family history is our national history.
“Every Quebecer should know that a significant part of their history took place elsewhere on the continent, even in the middle of Kansas. -Dean Louder
– Jacques Noël, sociologist and genealogist