Person:Thomas Cormier (1)

!BIRTH-PARENTS-CENSUS-MARRIAGE-CHILDREN-CENSUS-DEATH: Stephen A. White, DICTIONNAIRE GENEALOGIQUE DES FAMILLES ACADIENNES; 1636-1714; Moncton, New Brunswick, Centre d'Etudes Acadiennes, 1999, 2 vols.; pp. 400 & 401; own copy. #2: Thomas CORMIER, son of Robert CORMIER & Marie PÉRAUD, born around 1636. He married (according to A. Godbout) around 1669 to Marie-Madeleine GIROUARD, daughter of Francois & Jeanne AUCOIN; ten children are listed. He died before the 1693 census.

!BIRTH-RESIDENCES-MARRIAGE: Stephen A. White, ENGLISH SUPPLEMENT TO THE DICTIONNAIRE GENEALOGIQUE DES FAMILLES ACADIENNES; [vol. 3] of Part I; Moncton, New Brunswick, Centre d'Etudes Acadiennes, 2000; p. 89. With his father Robert CORMIER, who was a master ship carpenter at La Rochelle, France, Thomas, named with his parents, contracted to take the ship "Le Petit Saint-Pierre" to go to work for three years at Fort Saint-Pierre on Cape Breton Island, under the orders of the fort's commandant, Sr Louis TUFFET, for a salary of 120 livres per year. The contract is dated 8 Jan 1644 [when Thomas would have been around 8 years old]. Thomas CORMIER was one of the first settlers at Beaubassin in Acadia. On 20 Mar 1682 his name appears on LA VALLIERE's record of allotments to his tenants. In 1685, he gave a deposition in the prosecution of Jean CAMPAGNA, when he was listed as age 50, and his wife Madeleine GIROUARD was age 31.

!PARENTS-IMMIGRATION-MARRIAGE-RESIDENCES: Web page of Univ. of Moncton, Centre d'etudes acadiennes, by Stephen White, on the 37 Acadian families hosting the 1994 World Congress; orig. published by La Societe historique acadienne, CAHIERS; vol. 25, no. 2&3 (Apr-Sep 1994), at <http://www.umoncton.ca/etudeacadiennes/centre/white/sha.html>. Thomas CORMIER, son of Robert & Marie PE'RAUD, traveled with them aboard "Le Petit Saint-Pierre to isle Cap-Breton, his father contracting service on 8 Jan 1644. Around 1668, when he was about 32 years old, Thomas married Marie-Madeleine GIROUARD, daughter of Francois & Jeanne AUCOIN. First settled at Port-Royal, they were among the first colonists of Beaubassin.

!BIRTH-RESIDENCES-MARRIAGE-CHILDREN-DEATH: Bona Arsenault, HISTOIRE ET GENEALOGIE DES ACADIENS; 1625-1810; Ottawa, Editions Lemeac, 1978, 6 vols.; p. 494 (Port Royal); own copy. Born 1636, settled at Beaubassin [Acadia], of which he was one of the pioneers. Also p. 909 (Beaubassin), a footnote adds that he was a carpenter and farmer, one of the most prosperous colonists at Beaubassin. Thomas married around 1668 to Madeleine GIROUARD, daughter of Francois & Jeanne AUCOIN of Port Royal; ten children are listed, including twin daughters. Thomas died around 1690.

!BIRTH: Nicole T. Bujold, LES ORIGINES FRANCAISES DES PREMIERES FAMILLES ACADIENNES; 1600-1650; Poitiers, Imprimerie l'Union, 1979; p. 18; Salt Lake City Family History Library; subtitle LE SUD LOUDUNAIS. Thomas CORMIER is one of the first seven children born to French colonial settlers of Acadia [sic] in the first year of settlement, 1636. [He and parents did not come to New France until 1644.]

!OCCUPATION-RESIDENCES: On 8 Jan 1644, at age 8 [born 1636?], Thomas CORMIER, along with his father Robert, master ships' carpenter, and Marie PE'RAUDE his mother, all three originally from La Rochelle in Aunis, pledged before the notary TEULERON to come to work in the service of Sieur Louis TUFFET, Commandant of Fort St.-Pierre, on the Isle Cap Breton. (See historical volume 3 of Dictionnarie National des Canadiens Francais.) This was apparently not unusually young, according to the article, as many at this time were engaged as domestics or apprentices at an early age. [Find original document.] After staying several years at Fort St.-Pierre, the CORMIER's moved to Port Royal in Acadia. Thomas, who had learned from his father the carpenter's trade, became engaged to a girl of 14, Madeleine GIROUARD, in 1669. [See censuses of 1671 at Port Royal, and 1686 at Beaubassin.] He died before the 1693 census. His descendants lived at Beaubassin until the deportation of 1755.

!CHILDREN-CHRISTENING: His influential position in Beaubassin, Acadia is revealed by the sponsors at the baptism of his son Pierre on 25 Mar 1682: Pierre l'Allemand, pilot from La Rochelle, and Demoiselle Marie Joseph le Neuf de la Valliere.

!CENSUS: 1686, Beaubassin, Acadia, age 55 [sic]. With wife Magdelaine Girouard, 37 and nine children (Ma. They have 4 guns, 40 arpents worked land, 30 cattle, 10 sheep and 15 pigs [this would make him a relatively wealthy man].

!CENSUS: 1693, Grand Pré, Acadia, wife is a widow, with youngest child 5. [Did Robert die around 1688 or 1689?]

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4} Nova Scotia, Canada. Recensements d'Acadie (1671 - 1752)
   pg. 9.

   Recensement 1671, Port Royal, Acadie
   "Charpentié - THOMAS CORMIE aagé de 35 ans, sa femme Magdelaine Girouard aagée 17 ans, une fille aagée de 2 ans, Leurs bestiaux a Cornes sept pièces et sept brebis, Leurs terres en Labour six arpans."

   !CENSUS: 1671, Port Royal, Acadia, age 35 [born 1636], name spelled CORMIÉ, occupation Charpantié (Carpenter). Living with wife age 17 and a daughter 2. They have 7 head of cattle, 7 sheep, and 6 arpents of land. Karen Theriot Reader

2. ↑ Our First Families, by James Hannay, in The New Brunswick Magazine. (Saint John, New Brunswick: W. K. Reynolds)
   Volume 2; Page 48-49, January-June 1899.

   "One of the best known Acadian names in New Brunswick is Cormier. There are about 600 families of that name in the Maritime Provinces of whom nearly 500 live in New Brunswick. The name is very abundant in Westmorland where there are 200 families of Cormiers, while in Kent there are 190 and in Gloucester 75. The common ancestor of this large connection was Thomas Cormié whose name first appears in the census of 1671. His age is there given as thirty-five and he was married to Madeline Girouard, and had one child, a girl, who was also named Madeline. Cormié was a carpenter and was in comfortable circumstances, being the owner of seven head of horned cattle and seven sheep and having six arpents of land under cultivation. When the census of 1686 was taken he was no longer at Port Royal but had removed to Mines. He appears to have been one of the first settlers of that place, and probably went there in company with his two brothers in law, Germain Girouard and Jacques Belou, who married Marie Girouard. In 1686 Cormié had become the father of nine children four sons and five daughters, the eldest, Madeline, being then a young woman of eighteen. He had prospered in the meantime and cultivated forty acres of land. He was the owner of twenty horned cattle, ten sheep and fifteen swine. Chignecto and its vicinity always remained the home of the Cormier family, for there were none of that name at Port Royal in 1730 or at Mines in 1755. In 1752 there were thirteen families named Cormier gathered at Beausejour, all residents of settlements near it, eight being from Westcock and three from Nappan. It is evident that the Cormiers were not driven from Acadia to any large extent in 1755, for probably their thirteen families embraced most of the name then in Acadia, so that their multiplication in 136 years to 600 families is a pretty good proof that the deportation of the Acadians was a failure so far as they were concerned. Among the settlers on the St. John River in 1783, at the time of the arrival of the Loyalists, were eight families named Cormier, numbering in all fifty-one persons. These people were probably the descendants of some of those Acadians from the Annapolis River who, in the autumn of 1755, seized the ship in which they were being deported and took it into the harbor of St. John."

3. ↑ Occ.: "Acadian Genealogy Exchange", Vol. II, No. 11, 1973, p. 2,.
4.   D.O.B.: c1631, ("Acadian Genealogy Exchange", Vol. XX, No. 3, p. 91 (ref.:.
5. ↑ D./P.O.D.: "Acadian Genealogy Exchange", Vol. II, No. 1, 1973, p. 6, an.