Pierre Charron, my 7th Great Grand Father, son of Pierre Charron and Judith Martin, died on Christmas day in the year 1700.

He emigrated to Canada in 1662 (in 1661 according to some sources) and married Catherine Pillard on October 19, 1665 in Montreal. They had 12 children all of whom reached adulthood and eventually married. Obviously, this was an excellent means to ensure their posterity, which now numbers in the tens of thousands, established in Quebec as well as in Canada and the United States.

Indeed, their four sons, Pierre, Nicolas, François and Jean would perpetuate their name, except that at the outset, François adopted the Ducharme surname which was later transmitted to his entire posterity. To my knowledge, no descendant of François bears the original name of Charron. This is the reason why the descendants of Pierre Charron and Catherine Pillard are known either as Charron or Ducharme.

A final word about the particular environment of the French colony living along the St-Lawrence river when Pierre and Catherine were married. The population was still rather sparse and spread across three villages: Quebec founded in 1608, Trois-Rivers in 1634 and Montreal in 1642. According to historian, Benjamin Sulte, the 1667 census estimates the total population in New France as 3,918 persons. Montreal, where Pierre and Catherine reside, numbered no more than 760 persons, including more than 500 children and singles. Having arrived in Montreal in 1662, Pierre was one of its first 600 inhabitants.

Pierre Charron lived at St. Martin, Meaux, Champagne, France, where he was known to be a tanner at the Grand Market in 1661. At the time of his death, he was living at Longueuil, Quebec. You can read all about him in his part true/part fictional story in ‘No Lesser Persons: Ancestors Book 10’.

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