Page:The-new-brunswick-magazine-v3-n3-sep-1899.djvu/22

The Acadian Martins are quite numerous in some parts of the Maritime Provinces there being 150 families of that name in the county of Madawaska alone. There are twenty-five families of the name in Kent, the same number in Northumberland and a few in Westmorland and Restigouche. Altogether there might be two hundred and fifty French families named Martin in the Maritime Provinces. The ancestor of all these Martins was Pierre Martin who was born in the year 1600 in France. He was living in Acadia when the census of 1671 was taken and the name of his wife was Catherine Vigneau. Father Molin credits this couple with five children, Pierre, aged 45, Marie and Matthew aged 35, Margaret 32 and André 30. The census taken has, however, omitted the name of Barnabé and he has given the ages of at least three of the children inaccurately. Moreover he has changed one of the daughters into a son for André ought to have been Andree. The names and ages of the Martins of the second generation ought to have been as follows: Pierre 40, Barnabé 35, Matthieu 35, Margaret 32, Marie 30, Andree 23. I have corrected some of these ages by the census of 1686 but in the case of Margaret Martin I have been unable to find any verification of Molin's figures. The census of 1671 represents her as the wife of Jean Bourc whose age is given as 25. I believe it very unlikely that an Acadian woman of that time should be seven years older than her husband. Marie Martin was the wife of Pierre