APPENDICES

Acadians Who Found Refuge in Louisiana, February 1764-early 1800s

SÉGOILLOT

[SAY-gwah-loh]

ACADIA

Émilien dit Sans-Chagrin, son of Dominique Ségoillot and Marie Boulet (Acadian genealogist Bona Arsenault says Étiennette Ducharme), born at St.-Pierre, Autun, Bourgogne, France, in c1714, served in the Louisbourg garrison as a senior sergeant of the troupes de la marine beginning in the early 1730s.  Probably after his retirement from the King's service, he married Élisabeth-Blanche, 17-year-old daughter of Acadians François LaVache and Anne-Marie Vincent, at Port-La-Joye, Île St.-Jean, in 1752.  In August of that year, a French official counted them at Grande-Anse on the south shore of the island.  They had no children.  Élisabeth-Blanche gave Émilien dit Sans-Chagrin a son, François-Dominique, born on the island in July 1753.  The old sergeant remarried to Marguerite, daughter of Jacques Naquin and Jeanne Melanson of Cobeguit, at Port-La-Joye in September 1755.  Marguerite gave him a daughter, Marie, born probably on the island in c1756.

[See also Book Four]

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

[For the family's travails during the Great Upheaval, see Book Six]

LOUISIANA

Marguerite-Josèphe Ségoillot, age 19, crossed to Louisiana alone aboard La Bergère, the second of the Seven Ships from France, which reached New Orleans in August 1785.  After a short respite in the city, she may have followed most of her fellow passengers to upper Bayou Lafourche, or she may have remained at New Orleans. 

CONCLUSION

Marguerite-Josèphe Ségoillot was the only member of her family to emigrate to Louisiana, and there is no evidence that she married there.  The Acadian branch of this family, then, perhaps including its blood, did not take root in the Bayou State.  

One wonders what happened to her after she reached the colony with hundreds of her fellow Acadians from France.  One possibility is a tragic one.  According to the most careful study of the Seven Ships expedition, that of historian Oscar Wenzerling, the first ship, Le Bon Papa, reached New Orleans from Paimboeuf, the port for Nantes, in late July 1785.  Wenzerling continues: "The voyage was a success in its freedom from storms, and from epidemics and sickness of any kind.  Only one death," that of an infant, he adds, "marred an otherwise perfect voyage."  Such was not the fate of the second ship, La Bergère, which left Paimboeuf in May only four days after Le Bon Papa departed but did not get to New Orleans until the middle of August.  Le Bon Papa had carried 156 passengers; La Bergère, a frigate and a larger ship, was burdened with 273.  La Bergère reached New Orleans "fortunately without any mishap," Wenzerling notes, but the voyage was not as "perfect" as the previous one.  Six elderly persons had died at sea, but seven babies had been born before the ship reached the city.  Sadly, nine more passengers from La Bergère died at New Orleans while they recuperated from the 93-day voyage.  The debarkation list for La Bergère, which has survived, does not include the name of "single girl" Marguerite-Josèphe Ségoillot; she appears only on the ship's embarkation list.  Was the 19-year-old daughter of the old sergeant from Île St.-Jean one of the passengers who died at New Orleans during the period of recuperation? 

The family's name also is spelled Seboillot, Segoilot, Segoliau.  [See also Book Ten]

Sources:  Arsenault, Généalogie, 2140, 2382-83; De La Roque, "Tour of Inspection," Canadian Archives 1905, 2A:115; Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 573-74, source of quotation; Hébert, D., Acadian Families in Exile 1785, 26-27, 29; <islandregister.com/1752.html>; <perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/5bateaux.htm>, Family No. 187; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 727-28; Winzerling, Acadian Odyssey, 131, 133-37, source of quotations.    

Settlement Abbreviations 
(present-day civil parishes that existed in 1861 are in parenthesis; hyperlinks on the abbreviations take you to brief histories of each settlement):

For a chronology of Acadian Arrivals in Louisiana, 1764-early 1800s, see Appendix.

The hyperlink attached to an individual's name is connected to a list of Acadian immigrants for a particular settlement and provides a different perspective on the refugee's place in family and community. 

NOTES

01.  Wall of Names, 32 (pl. 7R), calls her Margueritte SÉGOLIAU, & lists her singly; Arsenault, Généalogie, 2140, 2382-83, profiles of her father, call her Marguerite-Josèphe SÉGOILOT & Marguerite-Josèphe SEGOILLOT, give her father's name, including his dit on p. 2140, his birth year, first 1717 on p. 2140, & then 1713 on p. 2382, his parents' names & place of residence, his service at Louisbourg, details his 2 marriages, lists his children by both wives, says that Marguerite-Josèphe, a child of his second marriage, was born in 1766, & says that the family was at St.-Juliac[sic], St.-Malo, in 1764, at Borbren, Locmaria, Belle-Isle-en-Mer in 1766, that he died in 1769, that is wife died in December 1773, & that daughter Marguerite-Josèphe went to LA; <perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/5bateaux.htm>, Family No. 187, says that Émilien was from Dijon, was 45 when he reached St.-Malo in late Jan 1759, putting his birth year at c1714, that he was 27 years in the colonies, which I assume counts his time at Louisbourg as well as on Île St.-Jean, that Marguerite NAQUIN was 35 in Jan 1759, & that they traveled with son Francois-Dominique, age 5 1/2, & daughter Marie, age 21 months, who died at sea; Hébert, D., Acadian Families in Exile 1785, 26-27, calls her Margueritte SEGOILLOT, fille, age 19, on the embarkation list, says "apparently not listed" on the debarkation list, calls her Marguerite SEGOILLOT, single girl, age 19, on the complete listing, & says she was in the 66th "Family" aboard La Bergère with no one else; <acadian-cajun.com/ship2.htm>, calls her Marguerite SÉGOILLOT, single, age 19.  See also Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 499.

What happened to her in LA? 

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