Jean Courtien

The identification

How the descent was established

For most of this research the join between the Jean Courteau baptised at Coulonge in 1710 and the Jean Courtien who married at Sarce in 1741 was an identification rather than a fact, and the weakest step in the line. It is now settled. Their father's burial names Jean as his son and Jean signed it. The case is set out here in full, because the site published it as unproven for a long time and the record of how it was closed is worth keeping.

Supporting evidence

1. His father's burial names him, and he signs it. At Aubigne on 27 September 1754 Rene Courtien was buried, aged about seventy-two, having died the day before. The act was written in the presence of "Rene, Charles, et Jean les Courtiens ses fils, et de Marie, et Francoise Courtien ses filles", and the only person at the graveside who could write signed it: jean courtien. This names Jean as a son of Rene and a brother of Rene and Charles, which was the one thing every other act had left to inference.
2. The age on that burial matches the man who married Marie Metaireau. About seventy-two in 1754 means born about 1682. The Rene Courteau who married Marie Metaireau at Coulonge on 4 May 1706 was given as about twenty-five, so born about 1681. He is the father named at Jean's baptism in 1710 and, still living, at Jean's marriage in 1741.
3. His brother's marriage names the same parents, and their father signs Courtien. At Aubigne on 3 June 1738 Rene Courteau married Anne Hurteloup, the act giving him as a son of Rene Courteau and the late Marie Metaireau, with his brothers Pierre and Charles present. Their father was there and signed the register R courtien while the priest wrote Courteau.
4. The Aubigne priest writes Courtien himself, in the body of his acts. At Aubigne in 1750 he wrote Rene Courtien twice, and a Jean Courtien signed the act as a witness. In the two marriages of 1746, in 1753 and in the burial of 1754 he writes Courtien throughout. What the family had always signed, the parish had come to write.
5. One man, written both ways, in the same act at Sarce. Ten days after his father's burial, at the burial of his mother-in-law at Sarce in October 1754, the priest wrote jean courteau de Sarce and Jean signed it himself, jean courtien. The burial of his daughter Marie in March 1755 does the same.
6. The cousins now fall into place. In 1758 the godfather of Jean's daughter Marie Magdelaine is a Rene Courteau, a young man, cousin paternel, of the parish of Aubigne, and in 1761 the godmother of his daughter Francoise is an Anne Courtien, cousine germaine. With Jean and the Aubigne Rene shown to be brothers, their children were first cousins, which is exactly what the two priests wrote.
7. The two spellings were already one name at Coulonge, a generation earlier. At Coulonge in 1711 a Joseph Courteau married Jeanne Martineau and signed the act joseph courtien. Whatever his relationship to Rene, the parish was writing one name and the family another thirty years before Jean reached Sarce.

Questions that remain open

What remains open is no longer about Jean. Rene the elder, the oldest of the family on record, cannot be carried back: his baptism would fall in the years 1682 to 1685, which are absent from the Coulonge film altogether, and neither his marriage to Marthe Hunot nor his burial has been found in the Coulonge or Aubigne registers searched so far. Two more Courtien households at Aubigne, Noel's and Francois's, look like the same generation as Rene the younger and may be his brothers', but nothing read so far shows it and they are not placed in this tree. The baptisms of Marie and Francoise, the two daughters named at Rene's graveside in 1754, have not been found either; they may lie in the Aubigne registers between 1720 and 1737. And the surname in the body of the 1741 marriage still does not resolve cleanly, though its margin reads jean courtien and it no longer carries any weight on its own.

Further lines of enquiry

1. Baptisms or marriages for Noel and Francois Courtien. At Coulonge between 1680 and 1700, or at Aubigne between 1690 and 1716. If either is a son of Rene the elder and Marthe Hunot, the three Aubigne households become one. This is the most valuable search left.
2. The Aubigne baptism index for 1719. It carries an Etienne and a Jacques whose surname reads as Court[in]. A Jacques Courtien is named in 1746 and 1753 as brother to Catherine and Anne, the children of Francois and Perrine Robin. The act has not been opened.
3. The Aubigne baptisms, 1720 to 1737. For Marie and Francoise, and for any further children of Rene and Marie Metaireau.
4. Rene the elder, in a neighbouring parish. Coulonge cannot supply his baptism, so if he is to be carried back at all it will be from somewhere else in the Sarthe.
5. Two acts not yet opened. A Marie Courtan who married a Herve at Aubigne in 1753, and a 1750 marriage of Rene Bardet and Jeanne Courtien.

Sources

Every act behind this page

1. Baptism, Coulonge, 8 February 1710

   Archives de la Sarthe, 1MI 1026 R2, image 126

   “Jean filz de Rene Courteau et de Marie Metaireau sa femme”

   The clerk wrote Courtean in the margin and Courteau in the text of the same entry.

2. Marriage, Sarce, February 1741

   Archives de la Sarthe, 1MI 1029 R2, image 319

   “jean courtien (margin); Jean Couti[ai] fils de Rene Couti[an] present et de deffunte Marie Meterreau (body)”

   Read in full. The MARGIN reads jean courtien plainly; the body does not, and the surname there is hard to resolve. It gives him as thirty or thereabouts, of the parish of Aubigne, with a certificate from that cure, and the bride as Madelenne Martineau, about twenty, daughter of Jacques Martineau and Madelenne Royer. The banns were read at Sarce and, on a likely but uncertain reading, at Coulonge.

3. Burial of his mother-in-law, Sarce, 7 October 1754

   Archives de la Sarthe, 1MI 1029 R2, image 32

   “magdelaine royer femme de deffunt jacques martineau ... ses gendres: jean courteau de Sarce”

   THE ACT THAT SHOWS ONE MAN UNDER BOTH NAMES. The priest writes Courteau; Jean signs the act himself, jean courtien. It also gives Madeleine's parents.

4. Burial of his daughter Marie, Sarce, 14 March 1755

   Archives de la Sarthe, 1MI 1029 R2, image 35

   “marie courteau fille de jean tailleur de pierre et de magdelaine martineau ... en presence de son pere soussigne”

   The same again: written Courteau, signed Courtien.

5. Marriage of his parents, Coulonge, 4 May 1706

   Archives de la Sarthe, 1MI 1026 R2, image 87

   “Rene Courteau, fils de Rene Courteau et de deffunte Marthe H[a/u]not, age de vingt cinq ans”

   Marie Metaireau nineteen, daughter of the late Jean Metaireau and Marie Regnard.

6. Marriage of his son Michel, Mayet, 30 May 1800

   Archives de la Sarthe, 5Mi 201_12, image 370, act 14

   “fils des defunts Jean Courtien et Madelaine Martineau”

   Both had died by 1800. His sons Jean and Charles witnessed, and his son-in-law Joseph Loiseau stood there on account of his wife Marie Courtien.

See this record in the full source list →

See the act itself: Baptism of Jean Courteau →

See the act itself: Marriage of Jean Courtien and Madeleine Martineau →

See the act itself: A marriage at Aubigne where the priest writes Courtien →

See the act itself: Burial of Rene Courtien, the act that settles the descent →

See them in the family tree →