Thank you for letting me join here.
A group of decedents of Guillaume Nolin (Born 1785 died 1837; PRDH: 921590), myself included, are trying to figure out if the Drouin, and PRDH records, are correct for this couple.
There are no Quebec marriage records found, but PRDH says he was married to Genevieve Laurent (PRDH: 921591), and they had seven children. The problem is all the children’s birth, and some of the marriage, and burial records, list their mother as being called a variety of similar names, but not Genevieve Laurent.
On the baptism records, in order, they list as:
GENEVIEVE HARREN
JEANNE HARREN
JANE HARREN
GENEVIEVE HARAN
JANE HARREN
JEANNE PARAN
GENEVIEVE PARAN
The last child dies three years later in 1839, and on the death record she is called Genevieve Laurent.
The first time we see her called Genevieve Laurent is on the burial record of husband Guillaume in 1837.
I realize Genevieve, Jane, Jeanne, are all similar, but if you try to find a birth record for Genevieve Laurent in Quebec, nobody really matches. Another clue that she might be wrong is that all the children born in Quebec have only godparents that come from the Nolin family, and none the mother's side.
Just to make the mystery woman even more mysterious, is a handed down Nolin family story about how Guillaume Nolin met his wife. It says he met her while in Massachusetts, and her name was Jane Herring. They moved back to Quebec where they had their family, and she died living with one of their sons in Vermont. There is a single marriage record in Massachusetts of William Nolin marring Jane Herring in 1813, but that’s it.
So now we’re wondering how accurate is the PRDH in connecting #921590 and #921591 as these two people. If anyone seeing this has any ideas it would be appreciated as all us researching this are at a dead end.

Bonjour,

I do not see your problem here. Quebec records show a couple baptising children from 1825 in St-Athanase-de-Bleury. The husband, Guillaume Nolin, is identified from godfathers and godmothers in their children's baptisms as being the son of Pierre Nolin and Marie Josephe Chabot. The wife is called Genevieve or Jeanne or Jane Harren or Harran which becomes Laurent later on. This points to an English name becoming phonetically changed in a French context. With the in formation you provide on a marriage in Massachusetts corresponding to oral family history, everything matches. So what is the problem?

I think the problem is that she seems to change her name at her husband's death. I wish before that she was talked about anywhere else, but she isn't . There is also the fact that the only marriage record is the one in Massachusetts, and unfortunately, the town in that it occurred lost almost all their records in a fire I believe. Why would Guillaume have gone to MA at that time? From 1811 to 1819 there is a William Nolin living in Chelmsford, MA. There are several others in nearby towns, but the birth date's are too late. I also can't find William Nolin and Jane on any US Census, which would be true if they had gone back to Canada. Why did they return to Quebec? There's just too many questions that are making it had to confirm that she is the actual wife. The group of us researching this ancestor also have done DNA and all of us have many Herring's in our matches. I have about 30 of them that have no other people matching in my tree but have many from the Herring family from North Carolina. We also haven't been able to find any Jane Herring being born in the US that could match her. So you can see, there's still too many questions to put together their story.

Back and forth migration from Quebec to the north eastern United States was frequent from that period. Not enough land to handle the growing population, and jobs available in the US...