Overview of the Blouins

This is part of a series from the family history book I wrote for my mother's birthday. To see all the posts, click on the "Mom Book" tag at the bottom of this post.

Blouin

Like the LeFebvre dit Boulangers, the Blouin family has deep roots in Québec. The first Blouin in New France was Émery "Médéric" Blouin, born April 23, 1640 in  St Pierre d'Etusson, Deux-Sèvres, Poitou-Charentes,France, which is in western France, near La Rochelle. He came to New France in 1665 and married Marie Carreau on November 30, 1669, in La-Visitation-de-Notre-Dame, Château-Richer, Canada. They farmed in Saint-Jean, Île-d'Orléans, and raised a family of 14 children. His descendants married into families whose roots were even deeper in New France, including descendants of  Hélène Desportes, who, in 1620 was the first European child born in Québec. The LeFebvre line is descended from Hélène through her first marriage to Guillaume Hébert.  The Blouins are descended from the children of her second marriage, to Noël Morin. 

One notable Blouin ancestor was Jean Nicolet de Belleborne, who came to Canada in 1618. He was a coureur des bois, one of the young men sent by Samuel de Champlain to live among local communities, learn their languages and customs, and, most importantly, negotiate trade alliances that helped France and prevented the British and Dutch from getting a piece of the fur trade. Jean Nicolet first lived among the Algonquin-speaking people of Allumette Island. In 1620, he was asked to live among the Odawa and Algonquin people of Lake Nipissing. He lived there for nine years with his wife, Jeanne, a Nipissing woman. The Blouin line married the descendants of their daughter, Madeleine Euphrosine Nicolet, who traveled widely with her father before he took her to Québec so she could have a French education. Jean Nicolet is best known as the first European to cross Lake Michigan. He reached Green Bay, Wisconsin, in 1634, believing he was on the way to China through the Northwest passage. He traveled all the way down the Wisconsin River, nearly reaching the upper Mississippi before he turned back.

The first Blouin to arrive in the United States was Ombeline Blouin. Born in Saint-Anselme, Quebec, in 1848, she married Louis LeFebvre dit Boulanger in 1870 and moved with him first to Maine and then to Minnesota. She lived the rest of her life on the upper Mississippi. Her grave is less than two miles from Nicollet Ave., a major thoroughfare in Minneapolis named for her distant ancestor.

References:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Besloin-1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Nicolet

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Blouin-149