QUEBEC-RESEARCH-L Archives

Archiver > QUEBEC-RESEARCH > 2010-04 > 1270601066


From: Mona Andrée Rainville <>
Subject: Re: [Q-R] Samuel de Champlain's will found by Olga Jurgens
Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:54:18 -0400
References: <1F391EF49D1B4AF58A07CDF3B275B01B@SJ>
In-Reply-To: <1F391EF49D1B4AF58A07CDF3B275B01B@SJ>


Hello Shirley-Jean,

I'm not sure about an Olga, but...

Madeleine Jurgens (née Connat) was a historian employed as archivist at
the French National Archives in Paris. She very actively scoured the
"Minutier Central des notaires de Paris et du département de la Seine",
of which she was the curator (conservatrice), which is where were - and
are still - kept the extant notarial deeds passed in Paris and
surrounding area of that period.

She seemed to have possessed an uncanny ability to discover documents
which every one thought lost forever. Champlain's last will and
testament is but one of the many historically significant documents she
brought to light. She is credited, for example, with the discovery of
much of what we know about Moliere's life.

These archives had not been inventoried or indexed until she set out to
do so. So it is not surprising that their contents were not known and
had not been fully investigated. By the way, there are still many
documents waiting to be found out in the tons of writs stored in the
Minutier. However, many are in such bad shape that they cannot be
manipulated. It is to be hoped that they will be preserved somehow,
through numerical means or otherwise, so that ultimately they can all be
read and indexed.

Cheers,

Mona


S-J wrote:
> Hi everyone:
> Recently, when researching Abraham Martin (dit L'Ecossais), I found an
> interesting but mystifying aside.
> His daughter Marguerite is mentioned in Champlain's will.
> It seems Champlain signed his will in Nov 1635, 2 months before his death.
> Now this is where the real mystery comes in for me.
> Apparently this will was only discovered in August 1959 by Olga Jurgens, a
> historian and archivist, after 324 years !!! and was published in 1963.
> Of course, my first thought was where had it been all those years, second
> thought was where was it found, third was how was it found, etc etc,
> I searched rootsweb Q-R archives, and others, and googled a lot but can't
> find anything else about this discovery.
> I figure an extraordinary discovery like this MUST have been big news in
> 1959 and don't why I can't find answers to my questions.
> Can anyone out there help me solve this mystery?
> Shirley-Jean
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~For the list web page, goto:
> http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~unclefred/main.htm
> -------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message
>
>

This thread: