Beaupre (surname)

Beaupre (originally Beaupré) (/boʊˈpreɪ/ boh-PRAY) is a primarily Catholic family that lives mostly in northern New England and Michigan.

Members of the Beaupre family moved to Quebec, Canada to a town now known as Beaupre. The Basilica of Ste. Anne de Beaupré is located there. The name was probably the result of settlers taking names descriptive of their settlement locations.

Gradually the Beaupre family has moved down to New England, in the United States. This is considered by much of the family to be the 'home area' although parts of the family have also moved to (Biloxi, Mississippi), Minnesota, York, South Carolina and to both Wolfe Island, Ontario and Winnipeg, Canada; Chiemsee, Alaska; the Dakotas; Heerlen, Netherlands; and even Baghdad, Iraq, during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Others have moved down to Michigan from Quebec around the middle 19th century.

The Beaupre family has recently mixed with the German Kilian family, which has ancestors who lived in Germany, Poland and possibly even Russia.

Beauprés in England

A completely separate Beaupre (Beaupré) family existed in the Nancy area of France in the 17th century and later moved to Besançon. A member of the family moved to England in 1824 in the service of George Canning as chef and interpreter. While the family is no longer in France they remain in England with members in Wellington, Somerset, London and elsewhere. Information about this family was initially collated by the late Frederick Beaupré Higgs, and is currently held by Robert Beaupré .

Beaupré was a name with ecclesiastical connections in the early Middle Ages. A priory with the name existed in South Wales, and monks moving into the community took the name with them so that it appears (as a surname) on church lists of vicars from the 12th and 13th centuries, especially in Devon and Cornwall.

The name Bonhomme dis Beaupré was also in Norfolk during the 16th century. Here a hall and a school both retain Beaupre in their names.

Bonhomme dit Beaupré, France to Québec

This family's first documented ancestor was Nicolas Bonhomme, born about 1562 in St-Croix de Féca, Normandie, France. He married there with Marie Guyon. They had a son, also named Nicolas, in 1603. This son became the family's pioneer ancestor. As an adult, he emigrated to New France—later named Québec, Canada—where he married on 2 Sep 1640 at St-Laurent, Ile d'Orleans with a woman named Catherine Gouget, a Fille du Roi, from Bourg de Thury, Normandie, France.

The Filles du Roi (i.e. "King's Daughter") were women who were shipped from France to New France to marry pioneers and soldiers for the purpose of developing a French society, there.

Many of those across New England who still bear the surname Beaupré (pron. bow-PRAY, or without the accent mark, bow-PREE) are descendants of the pioneers, Nicolas Bonhomme dit Beaupré and Catherine Gouget.

The use of the French word "dit" (literally "said") in this context means "nickname" or "also known as".

Louisiana

This name has been passed down to generations, and is used in Saint Charles Parish, Louisiana, during crawfish season to describe how the crawfish season is going. However the full name is 'Bonhomme du Beaupre', which is French for 'Good Man of the Beautiful Prairie'. The name was shortened to simply 'Beaupre' after a few generations, most likely due to difficulties in writing or pronouncing such a long name.

Sources

The Visitations of Norfolk, 1563, 1589, and 1613, Harl. 1552.

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