Helpful background for understanding names and places that may appear in Charles's Québec records.
What is a "dit/dite" Name?
When the first settlers came to Québec from France, it was a custom to add a "dit" nickname to the surname. The English translation of "dit" is "said." Colonists of Nouvelle France used dit names as distinguishers. A settler might use one to differentiate a branch of the family from siblings, sometimes choosing a name connected with the place to which the family had relocated.
A dit name could also result from a casual adoption or from honoring the family that had raised someone. In other cases it identified the town or village in France from which the person originated. The custom ended around 1900, when people increasingly used only one name, either the dit nickname or the original surname.
Source: American-French Genealogical Society, Woonsocket, Rhode Island (www.afgs.org/ditnames/index1.html)
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Life & Records
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Biography
SAINT-ÉTIENNE DE LA TOUR, CHARLES DE, trader and soldier; b. between 1663 and 1668 at Cape Sable in Acadia; d. 1731 at Louisbourg.
He was one of five children of the famous Charles de Saint-Étienne* de La Tour and Jeanne Motin* d’Aulnay. Little is known of his early years. As a young man he was apparently a fur trader, with his headquarters at Cape Sable. He incurred severe losses when General Phips* took Acadia in 1690, and lodged a complaint with the Earl of Bellomont, governor of Massachusetts. Late in 1695 La Tour was cited in dispatches by Frontenac [Buade*] for bravery against the enemy. His trading activity continued for some years, as records show that in 1698, or shortly before, he had been fined for trading with the English.
In 1696 he was authorized by his brothers and sisters to plead their case for the re-establishment by the French crown of rights and possessions in Acadia inherited from their parents and long disputed by the Le Borgne family. He was largely
1715 - September 1 - Louis XV becomes King of France
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