François Laurent dit Lamothe and Madeleine Rochereau.

Origins in Poitou.

Jean Laurent of La Chapelle-Achard in Poitou, France was married three times. His first wife, Marie Péraude (or Perreau) bore his son François, our ancestor, on 20 July 1688. She died shortly after for he married Jacquette Louis on 24 January 1690. He married his third wife, Marguerite Masson, on 23 September 1704. She outlived him and remarried in 1730.

On to Québec.

François had a brother, Joachim, who remained in France while he made his way to Québec. The first we learn of him is at his marriage to Madeleine Rochereau on 7 January 1717. François Laurent dit Lamothe likely had arrived several years before and completed a contract of service. He was 29 and Madeleine was 27. They were married in Champlain, where the Champlain River meets the Saint-Laurent to the northeast of Trois-Rivières.

The couple had five children, the last being born when Madeleine was 40. Sadly it appears the only one who survived was their first-born, our ancestor Marie-Anne Laurent dit Lamothe, born 24 July 1719. Madeleine died sometime between the birth of son Laurent in May 1730 and 1734.

The family moved on to LaPrairie where François died on 2 June 1734. Their daughter Marie-Anne Laurent married five years later.