Jacques Cartier first saw the light in the year 1491.
The family has been traced back to a grandfather who
lived in the middle of the fifteenth century. This Jean
Cartier, or Quartier, who was born in St Malo in 1428,
took to wife in 1457 Guillemette Baudoin. Of the four
sons that she bore him, Jamet, the eldest, married Geseline
Jansart, and of their five children the second one,
Jacques, rose to greatness as the discoverer of Canada.
There is little to chronicle that is worth while of the
later descendants of the original stock. Jacques Cartier
himself was married in 1519 to Marie Katherine des
Granches. Her father was the Chevalier Honore des Granches,
high constable of St Malo. In all probability he stood
a few degrees higher in the social scale of the period
than such plain seafaring folk as the Cartier family.
From this, biographers have sought to prove that, early
in life, young Jacques Cartier must have made himself a
notable person among his townsmen. But the plain truth
is that we know nothing of the circumstances that preceded
the marriage, and have only the record of 15199 on the
civil register of St Malo: 'The nuptial benediction was
received by Jacques Cartier, master-pilot of the port of
Saincte-Malo, son of Jamet Cartier and of Geseline Jansart,
and Marie Katherine des Granches, daughter of Messire
Honore des Granches, chevalier of our lord the king, and
constable of the town and city of Saint-Malo.'

Cartier's marriage was childless, so that he left no
direct descendants. But the branches of the family
descended from the original Jean Cartier appear on the