I have decided that I need to write about Timothy Demonbreun before I can write about his son Jean Baptiste Demonbreun because 1) he’s an interesting character in my collection of ancestors, and 2) without explaining him, then the reason behind Jean Baptiste’s name change won’t make sense. I am breaking the story of Timothy Demonbreun into a series of shorter posts because there is a lot, and I do mean A LOT, of information for him.
My 5th great-grandfather Timothy Demonbreun was born Jacques-Timothé Boucher Sieur de Montbrun on March 23, 1747 (also his baptism date, according to the records of the Catholic church) in Boucherville, Quebec, Canada to parents Jean-Etienne Boucher Sieur de Montbrun and Delle Marie Madeliene Racicot.
Timothy’s baptism record from the Catholic church, now part of the Drouin Collection. Sorry, this is as good as it gets right now. And I don’t know French, so I can’t transcribe it. Not that I can read anything except the names, anyway.
Jean-Ettiene was the son of Pierre Boucher de Boucherville, the man for whom Boucherville is named. I’m not going to go into an entire history on Jean-Ettiene or Pierre right now since they deserve their own posts, but let’s just say that the Boucher family was French Canadian royalty thanks to King Louis XIV.
Jean-Ettiene and Delle had several other children: Marie-Charlotte, Jean-Baptiste, Marie-Béatille, Charles, Marie-Apolline, Pierre-Phillipe, Marie-Louise, Catherine, Charlotte, Marie-Louise (yes, a second one..the first was born in 1757 and the second in 1763) and Etienne-Timothé.
A little Demonbreun surname fact: you’ve probably already guessed that Demonbreun is just another form of de Montbrun. And it means “from the brown mountain” or “of the brown mountain”. There are many, many variations of the name Demonbreun: DeMumbrie (my line), Demumbry, Demumbra, Demumbreun, Demonbrum, etc, etc. But, just remember that all of those variations came from de Montbrun.
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