Widowhood in French St. Louis

Presented by Sharon Person and sponsored by the St. Louis Genealogical Society
The Coutume de Paris was the customary law that governed domestic life in the new village of St. Louis emerged in the 1760s. The rules of the Coutume allowed future spouses to draw up marriage contracts that would regulate certain terms of combining property into a community and of inheritance after the death of one of the spouses. Two widows from the first decade of St. Louis’s existence, one who remarried briefly, and one who did not remarry, illuminate the paths that widows might follow. The presentation draws from the manuscript records of the St. Louis French and Spanish Archives and the 1766 census of St. Louis as well as the Kaskaskia Manuscripts and sacramental records from several locations.
Adults. No registration required for in person attendance, see https://stlgs.org/events/meetings/monthly-meeting for virtual registration.