52 Ancestors: #10, Jacques Robidas-Manseau, Sergent de compagnie de Crisafy

One advantage to a Roman Catholic French-Canadian lineage is the wealth of records kept by the Church of baptisms, marriages, and burials. Marriage records generally include the names of the parents of the bride and groom, and married women are almost invariably referred to by their maiden names. What more could a genealogist want? The only downside is that those "baptêmes, mariages, et sepultures" are recorded in French. Still, with the aid of Google Translate, it's fairly easy to decipher the "boilerplate" language of the records, and I've been able to trace my maternal grandmother's Rabideau line back to my immigrant 8th great-grandfather Robidas.

Jacques Robidas dit Manseau¹ was born in 1665² in Saint-Nicolas, diocese of Le Mans, Province of Maine, France.³ His parents were Gabriel Robida, a "maître-cordonnier" (master shoemaker), and Anne Crespin.⁴

Baptism of Jacques Robida, 1665

Jacques learned his father's trade, but came to Quebec some time before 1692 in the military, achieving the rank of sergeant in the "compagnie de Crisafy" and taking part in the war against the Iroquois.⁵ On 14 Jan 1692, Jacques married Louise de Guitre in Basilique Notre-Dame in Montréal.⁶

Marriage of Jacques Robidas dit le Manseau and Louise de Guitre, 1692

When the French finally made peace with the Indians, he left the military and became a colonist, settling, around 1699, at la Baie-Saint-Antoine (called la Baie-du-Febvre after the first seigneur, Jacques le Febvre) on the south shore of Lac Saint-Pierre.^{7, 8}

Carte cadastrake (cadastral map) of Baie-du-Febvre, 1708–1712

Jacques and Louise had ten children, six of who lived to adulthood. After Louise's death in 1732, he married again, on 7 Jan 1734 at the age of about 68, to Marie Madeleine Minville,⁹ and fathered another son before dying on 10 Aug 1741.¹⁰

Marriage of Jacques Robida and Marie Madeleine Minville, 1734

Burial of Jacques Robida dit Le Manseau, 1741

Children of Jacques Robidas and Louise de Guitre:

1. Gabriel, b. 1692
2. Francoise, b. 18 Dec 1694 (d. as infant)
3. Marie, b. 18 Dec 1694 (d. as infant)
4. Isabelle, b. 15 Apr 1696
5. Michel, b. 15 Apr 1696 (d. as infant)
6. Marie-Charlotte, b. 25 Mar 1698 (d. as infant)
7. Francoise, b. 2 Sep 1699
8. Jean-Baptiste, b. 1702
9. Madeleine, b. 1704
10. Louis, b. 21 Feb 1705

Child of Jacques Robidas and Marie Madeleine Minville:

11. Joseph, b. 16 Mar 1735

My descent from Jacques Robidas dit Manseau:

• Jacques Robidas-Manseau + Louise de Guitre
• Jean-Baptiste Robidas-Manseau + Josephte Pepin
• Jean-Baptiste Robidas + Therese Lefebvre-Senneville
• Jean-Baptiste Robidas + Marie Jeanne Lupien
• Jean-Baptiste Robidas + Divine Louise "Ludivine" Girardeau
• Louis Robidas + Marie Deshaies-Saint Cyr
• Louis Rabideau + Marie Célina Cloutier
• Peter Louis Rabideau + Eva May Woodward
• Glenna Marie Rabideau + William George Murphy (my maternal grandparents)

(Note: This post is in response to Amy Johnson Crow's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge at No Story Too Small.)

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SOURCES

1.  The "dit" name Manseau signified that the family was "of Mans." Occasionally it was expanded to "dit le Manseau" ("of Le Mans"). Often the "dit" was omitted and the surname hyphenated as Robidas-Manseau. Some descendants used the surname Robidas alone, while others used Manseau alone. Robidas seems to appear interchangeably with Robida. In later years some of the family spelled the name Rabida or Rabidas and eventually it evolved to Rabideau.
2. I don't have the faintest idea where I got that baptismal record. It does give the year as 1665, but I can't decipher the month and date.
3. Joseph-Elzéar Bellemare, Histoire de la Baie-Saint-Antoine, dit Baie-du-Febvre, 1683-1911 (Montréal: Imprimerie "La Patrie", 1911), p. 457; digital images, Our Roots/Nos Racines (http://www.ourroots.ca/toc.aspx?id=3984 : accessed 11 Dec 2013). The "compagnie de Crisafy" probably refers to either Antoine, Marquis de Crisafy, or his brother Thomas. Both brothers captained companies that were sent to New France in 1684 by Louis XIV.
4. Basilique Notre-Dame (Montreal, Quebec), Registre de Baptêmes, Mariages, Sépultures, 1681-1694, unpaginated (image 152), Jacques Robidas dit le Manseau and Louise de Guitre marriage (14 Jan 1692); database and digital images, “Quebec, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967,” Ancestry.com (http://search.ancestry.com/search : accessed 1 Jul 2012); citing Gabriel Drouin, comp., Drouin Collection (Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin). 
5. Bellemare, p. 457.
6. Basilique Notre-Dame (Montreal, Quebec), Registre de Baptêmes, Mariages, Sépultures, 1681-1694, unpaginated (image 152), Robidas-de Guitre marriage (14 Jan 1692).
7. Bellemare, p. 457.
8. Bellemare, unpaginated map, "Carte Cadastrale de M. de Catalogne 1708-1712". The map appears to be a folded sheet inserted before the title page. A cadastral map or "cadastre" is a map or survey showing land ownership, boundaries, property lines, etc.
9. St-François-du-Lac (Yamaska County, Quebec), Registre de Baptêmes, Mariages, Sépultures, Vol. 3, 1733-1748, unpaginated (image 10), Jacques Robidas and Marie Madeleine Minville marriage (7 Jan 1734); database and digital images, “Quebec, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967,” Ancestry.com (http://search.ancestry.com/search : accessed 1 Jul 2012); citing Gabriel Drouin, comp., Drouin Collection (Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin).
10. Paroisse de St. Antoine de la Baie du Febvre (Baieville, Quebec), Registre Vol. 1 1686-1773, unpaginated (image 150), Jacques Robida dit Le Manseau burial (10 Aug 1741); digital images, "Quebec, Catholic Parish Registers, 1621-1900," FamilySearch (https://familysearch.com : accessed 13 Jul 2012).