Biography

Jacques BERNIER (ca 1636 - 1713) — Antoinette GRENIER (ca 1637 - 1713)

Pioneer Jacques Bernier ("Jean de Paris") passed away this day, July 20th, 1713, at Cap-St-Ignace, Québec. His wife Antoinette ("Toinette") Grenier had died just a few months earlier.

Jacques and Antoinette married in 1656 "at the home of the Governor," Jean de Lauson.

Seven of their eleven children married and had families, giving their parents at least 74 grandchildren. (Four of these marriages were with grandchildren of Robert Caron.)

Father Lebel write that the Berniers "were the first to settle at Cap-St-Ignace" and that their house served "as a chapel for traveling missionaries" before the first chapel was built there in 1683.

Descendants bearing the Bernier surname include Joseph-Elzéar Bernier, a mariner who led expeditions into the Canadian arctic, and Paul Bernier, Vatican diplomat and Bishop of Gaspé.
Other notable descendants include the late Jean-Claude Turcotte, Archbishop of Montréal, Céline Dion and Madonna.

[Sources: PRDH; "Jacques Bernier dit Jean de Paris" Our French-Canadian Ancestors (vol.23, pp.14-24), Gérard Lebel C.S.s.R (Thomas J. Laforest (tr.)), Palm Harbor, Florida, 1996; Les anciennes familles du Québec, Brasserie Labatt limitée, La Brasserie, Québec, Franklin ("Archie") Arbuckle (illustrator), p.15; Wikipedia]