"Joseph1 Blanchard died in the 10th month 1637." This terse statement in the vital records of Boston is the only definite fact in the life of Joseph Blanchard and constitutes, incidentally, the earliest reference in Colonial records to this well-known New England family. In the absence of any further information about him it is assumed that he died shortly after his arrival in the colonies. Recent investigations lead to the belief that he was born in Normandy, France, of Huguenot parentage, in the last decade of the sixteenth century, went to England as a child with several brothers, one of whom was Thomas Blanchard, the emigrant of 1639. He married Ann -----, whose death 24 June 1662 is recorded at Chelmsford and at Woburn [not recorded in the published Woburn vital records]. (H. Percy Blanchard "Genealogical Record ... of the McCurdys of Nova Scotia. "London, Covenant Publishing Company, 1930, p. 209.)
