Person talk:Marie Mercier (1)

Are we confusing two different Marie Merciers? [12 May 2014]

I'm confused as to whether the Marie Mercier (b. abt 1646) who married Antoine Babin is the same woman who supposedly later married Guillaume Lejuge. My reasons for doubting they're the same person are:

(1) The 1693 census lists Marie (age 50) and Guillaume (age 28). The age differential between Marie and Guillaume is itself suspect. A more likely interpretation is that the transcriber misread a handwritten "20" or "30" as "50". If Guillaume's Marie was actually 20 or 30 in 1693, she could not be the widow of Antoine Babin. (2) The 1693 census lists Marie and Guillaume as having 2 daughters (ages 4 and 2), in 1701 Guillaume and his unnamed wife only have one daughter (one died?), and in the 1703 census they have 2 girls and 2 boys. Again, if this is Antoine Babin's widow, she was still bearing children well into her mid-50s, which seems unlikely. (3) The 1686 census lists Antoine and Marie with eight children, four of whom are age 10 or younger. These children would be too young in 1693 to be living on their own (the oldest of them would be a 17-year-old boy), yet none of them are listed with Marie and Guillaume. Again, it seems highly improbable that she wouldn't have the younger children from her first marriage living with her.

I am basing all of this logic off of the census transcriptions available at acadian-home.org. Perhaps there is documentation that I haven't seen that firmly establishes that Guillaume's Marie and Antoine's Marie are the same person. Does anyone know? Thanks!--Laperle 07:29, 12 May 2014 (UTC)