Allowing for the changes in French usage and spelling problems , I would suggest the translation problem is solved as follows: "fils de feu Noel Gigueu" means "son of the recently deceased Noel Gigueu" et "de font Germain Tabourdeux" means "and of the dead Germain Tabourdeux". This reading assumes that "de font" is the same as "defunt(e)" , allowing for a reasonable amount of 300 year old sloppiness in spelling. ( I missed out an accent there on the first e of defunte. The person who wrote the entry missed out the second e entirely.) A good online French historical dictionary selection is at: http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/ARTFL/projects/dicos/ Alternatively , Le Petit Robert is often useful for period French if you look at the fine print origins of the listed words , having guessed what the modern spelling might be. This means that Germain T. is Jean's late mother , and Marie T. is his bride ( her parents are Jacques T. and Claud de B. , both alive ) The second reference suggests that Jean Jegu is the same chap as Jean Gigueu - he is acting as godfather ( P) and his wife Marie Jegu ( nee Tabourdeux) is godmother (M) to Magdelain T. It might be a coincidence , but I'd bet good money on it being the happy couple from 1694. The pronounciation/spelling differences, for the period , are negligible. Warning: I've no experience of registers in French , but have read a certain amount of texts in (original) earlier French spellings. I'm always keen to learn , so does any else in Wall Hugging land have a more expert ( or intelligent) suggestion? HTH, Robert Hillier

Robert, oh joy, oh bliss.. How wrong could I have been? I had guessed that 'fils de feu' might mean son-in-law, but then the rest of it didn't make sense at all :) and I had also guessed that 'de font Germain' was the place where the TABOURDEUXs came from, which again didn't tie in with what I already know. It did not occur to me that Germain was a Christian Name. > suggest the translation problem is solved as follows: > "fils de feu Noel Gigueu" means "son of the > recently deceased Noel Gigueu" > > et "de font Germain Tabourdeux" means "and of the > dead Germain Tabourdeux". I am really pleased to think that Jegu, Jegut, Gigueu and Giueu are all derivatives of the same name. My husband speaks French, and we have a modern French Dictionary, but 'olde French' obviously contains a lot of words that are no longer used. My husband also pronounces things with a French accent. To him the sounds were not the same. I, on the other hand, do not speak French and I was born in the East End of London so I pronounce the French names probably much as the original Registrars did. > The second reference suggests that Jean Jegu is the same chap as Jean Gigueu > - he is acting as godfather ( P) and his wife Marie Jegu ( nee Tabourdeux) is > godmother (M) to Magdelain T. It might be a coincidence , but I'd bet good > money on it being the happy couple from 1694. The pronounciation/spelling > differences, for the period , are negligible. Many, many thanks, Robert Suzie