FRANÇOIS CÔTÉ (1800-1858)

OCCUPATION: Farmer

            François Côté was the seventh child and fourth son of Jean-Charles Côté and Pélagie Croteau, born June 24 1800, in Saint-Nicolas, Lévis, Québec. He had an older brother named François-Xavier known as Xavier. François was the only child in the family not born in Saint-Antoine-de-Tilly, making him somewhat elusive. Was Pélagie visiting family, and the child arrived before expected, or was she having problems with the pregnancy and went to stay with family? Both families were from Saint-Antoine, so perhaps Jean-Charles was working there. There is nothing to explain the reason, so we can only surmise.

            He married Angèlique Bedard, a local girl from St-Antoine-de-Tilly, and the younger sister of his brother’s wife, Louise-Angèle Bedard. Both were minors when they married in Saint-Antoine de Tilly, February 14, 1820. François was twenty and Angèlique was only nineteen. Together, they had twelve children; Edouard-Firmin, François-Xavier, Marie-Desneiges, Marie-Elizabeth, Marie Anasthasie, Louis-Edmond, Marie-Lucie, Isaïe, Louis-Remis, Marie-Émilie, Marie-Philomène and Odile. 

                        I could glean information from the 1831 Census that there were five family members in Xavier’s family. They documented him between thirty and sixty and his wife between fifteen and forty-five. There were two children under five years of age and one over.The 1831 census is very hard to decipher, but I found another François Côté that may or may not be my connection.       

            By 1830, there was a serious economic depression and severe overpopulation, which created enormous hardship to the point of minor revolts and concerns about political upheaval.

            In the 1842 Census, I find a François Côté in Saint-Antoine de Tilly with a family comprising nine. According to some research, there were at least six children that were known, including Edouard, François-Joseph, Isäie , Émilie, Philomène, and Rémi. Odile in the 1852 census would make seven. 

            In the 1840s, a potato famine in Ireland created wave after wave of “coffin ships“ that is, ships having people and families on board sick with typhus, starving, or dead. Many Irish names in Québec can be traced to this origin.

            By 1852, I have a clear census to identify François and his family, which at the time are he and his wife Angelique and Isäie , Remi, Émilie, Philomène and Odile. François-Joseph and Edouard have left home by this date.

           François died February 13, 1858, at fifty-seven years of age, in Saint-Antoine-de-Tilly, Lotbinière, Québec.