• "The story begins in about 1646 with Jean Baril..."
  • "...and continues today with YOU."

The BARILs of France and Canada

Spelling can be an issue

Research of various documents in France include a number of individual BARILs. In historical documents, the spelling of a name could vary widely depending on who the author of a document was, their level of education, their attention to details, especially penmanship, script style, and various pronunciations of the name, etc. Here is a document found in the "Archives départementales de la Seine-Martime" in France that cleary shows the name Baril as different from Barry or Berry or Barillet, to name a few. They have been highlighted in yellow. Not knowing how accurate a name in this document may be, makes it difficult sometimes to decide which leads to follow. We do our best.

Although we start our research with Jean Baril and depict him as our first ancestor from France, there are some researchers who speculate that his father was a Francois Baril who came to Canada in the early 1600s and died in Trois Rivieres in 1652. In the PRDH records there is a reference to François Baril being married to Catherine Ligneron, shown here. Their daughter is Jeanne, born in France around 1635 and is married to David Letourneau before May 26, 1655. There is NO proof that François and Catherine are definatively his parents.


In the PDRH records, we find the first in this list of possible parents for Jean comes from La Rochelle. The next three examples are of Barils who were married in Duhavre, France in 1634, 1643, and 1672.

  1. Baril, Francois | Catherine Lingeron |18 February, 1623
  2. Baril, Jean | Margueritte Retout | 18 Julliet, 1634
  3. Baril, Nicolah | Marie Provost | 12 Avril, 1643
  4. Baril, Nicolas | Cath Delacroix | 26 Fev, 1672

Potentially, the first three could have been our Jean Baril's parents given that we speculate he was born in 1646 (need to show where that information comes from here). Other names similar to Baril, such as Berry and Barif are also highlighted in the prior document to show possible transcription errors at the time of creation. We have no proof of any of these individuals being Jean's parents. However, there are hints that suggest the first is the best possibility.

The first on the list, Francois Baril was born in France in 1578 (Where did that date come from?). His Father was Jean Baril (1556-1610) and his mother Raouline Creste (1555-1616). They had a daughter Jeanne who resided in Trois Rivères at about the same time as our Jean. Here is a record of a Jeanne Baril's marriage to Rene Bin showing that her previous husband David Letourneau died. Be cautious of further speculation that she is Jean's sister as this has not yet been proven. Jeanne Baril in the above image shows her marriage to David Letourneau.

Given the discussion regarding names not being spelled correctly, two week before Jeanne's marriage in Cotes de Beaupré, a Marie Bary was also married at Nostre Dames in Québec to François Sauvin. If one is to speculate that Jeanne was Jean's sister, one could stretch that also to include the possibility that Marie Bary's parents, Julien Bary and Madeleine Boeslo could have been Jean's parents. In a document found on a French website, Marie Baril was a "Fille du Roi". It states Marie who was born in 1633 travelled to Canada on July 31, 1670 on the vessel "La Nouvelle France" and is "Fille de feu Julien (Procureur) et de Madeleine Boeslo de la paroisse St Etienne de la Ville de Reims, 51100, Marne, Champagne-Ardenne". Marie's burial document states "Décédée et inhumée le 20/10/1721 à Château-Richer à l'âge d'environ 80 ans". This might suggest there is no relation to our Jean. These are the kinds of rabbit holes that make the average genealogist quite crazy.

Jean Baril Comes to Canada

Researchers have attempted to solidify the exact birthdate and the names of Jean's parents for a long time. We have much information about Jean, however not all of it can be trusted, and there is no difinitive record or Jean's arrival to Canada. Many publications from over the last 400 years have pieced together Jean's story. Some of it is backed by facts and some in stories and some just speculation. This is an example of information found on Ancestry.ca that has come to be trusted as correct and true. But is it? As you can see, the author of that page shows a number of choices for Jean's possible birth year (1644, 1646, 1648, 1649), and there is no information regarding his arrival to Canada.

The following links show some facts and some opinions about Jean's history. As we dig through other's attempts to find the truth, we can come a bit closer as we weave through the various stories hoping to find the actual story.

The following key pieces of information are compiled from the above pages. Jean:

  • had 18 children - 14 or 15 sons and 3 or 4 daughters (some dispute whether child born 1707-01-10 was male or female)
  • is shown in a February-March 1666 census in New France a Jean Barillet is a domestique for the Jesuit priests in Les Trois Rivières.
    • NOTE: Jean Barillet is found (highlighted bold on the Trois Rivières page) in a transcribed 1666 Census. A transcription of the original census can be seen online at the Heritage Canadiana website.

    Jean Barillet is shown in this clipped image from the census as an 18 year old Domestique at Trois Rivières, working for the Jesuit Order.

    Marie Barillet is found on the vessel Le Prince Maurice as a "Fille du Roi" which departs from Dieppe in 1671 and stops in La Rochelle before arriving in Québec on July 30, 1671.

    Jean barreau dit xaitnonge is also shown in Trois Rivieres. In this clipped image, he is shown as a Domestique of 17 years old.

    This begs the question: Why might a genealogist assume this is our Jean Baril? See the original census here from 1666. Elaboration on this topic can be found on the census page. (Suzanne's musing: I am left quite skeptical about all the historians who have decided that Jean Barillet is our guy.)

  • signs a contract to purchace land from a future father-in-law, Pierre Guillet on November 20, 1667
  • was in a dispute with Nicolas Gastineau between February 26, 1670 and February 25, 1677 for a piece of land along the Saint Anne river. In the end they both renounced their right to it. A record can be found at the Canadian Archives which states that the Jean purchased property from Louis Dettreau on February 26, 1670.
  • was married on December 14 1673 to Marie Guillet [born in 1658].
    • Entry from Tangay Collection about Pierre Guillet

    View Large

    This document shows Marie Guillet dit Lageunesse born on October 27, 1658 and deceased on October 20, 1681 in Champlain.

    However, the 1666 census shows her as 6 years old, making the child 13 when she marries Jean and born in 1660.


  • Marie Guillet and Jean had three children
    1. F1 - Catherine [1674-05 -- m. 1676-07-12 Jacques Massicot -- bur.1752-10-13]
    2. M1 - Louis [1678-04-21 -- bur.1732-03-21] (Suzanne and Peter lineage is here)
    3. M2 - Jean [1680-06-08 (bap. 1680-08-08) -- 1729-12-10 bur.1729-12-11]
  • was widowed on October 20 1681. Marie was buried in Bastican on July 7 1683, (gawd, what did they do with her body for 21 months?)
  • was re-married to Élisabeth Gaignon (Gagnon) on May 25, 1684.

    As an exercise in frustration initially, in order to become familiar with entries in registries of various life events, we begin with an example of an entry in a church record published in the Drouin Collection of 1621-1968. Transcribing what is written is not a small task.

    Here is a transcription example that still needs work.

    There is an online course at https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/French_Handwriting that can really help the novice at reading old French and figure out what is said in these documents. A second valuable resource is this French Handwriting Course also at the Center for Family Research and Genealogy.

    They had 8 children
    1. M3 - Joseph [1685-09-22 -- after 1704]
    2. M4 - Mathurin [1688-01-11 -- after 1762]
    3. M5 - François [1690-04-03 -- 1759-06-15 bur.1759-06-16]
    4. F2 - Marie Anne [1693-05-15 -- 1708-12-05 bur.1708-12-06]
    5. M6 - Jacques [1695-08-28 bap.1695-05-16 -- 1759-12-22 bur.1759-12-23]
    6. M7 - Pierre [1697-12-23 -- abt.1746]
    7. M8 - Jean-Marie [1700-02-20 bap.1700-02-21 -- 1767-06-19 bur.1767-06-20]
    8. F3 - Anonyme féminin [1702-04-18]
  • was widowed again March 2, 1703
  • was married to Catherine Dessureau on April 22, 1704 in Bastican. They had 7 children
    1. M9 - Ignace [1705-03-14 -- 1733-09-28 bur.1733-09-29]
    2. F4 - Anonyme feminine/masculin depending on source [1707-01-10]
    3. M10 - Joseph Marie [1707-12-09 -- 1738-07-31 bur.1738-08-02]
    4. M11 - Alexis [1709-10-18 -- 1746-01-15 bur.1746-01-16]
    5. M12 - Ambroise [1712-03-09 bap.1712-03-24 -- 1735-07-04 bur.1735-07-05]
    6. M13 - Antoine [1713-12-15 -- 1727-12-25]
    7. M14 - Gervais [1716-06-26 bap.1716-06-27 -- 1796-11-03 bur.1796-11-04]
  • died on February 9, 1724

Trivia can at times shed some light on where the Baril family's place was in the building of Canada. This small tidbit of interesting information was discovered. Prior to 1800, there were 1226 Baril individuals who had been recorded in the various church registries in Canada (New France). Of the 28,566 family names in Canada during that period, the Baril family name ranked 288th in popularity. This information was discovered at PRDH genealogical research site.


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