Translation / Interpretation Help - "né d'un jour"

Question

I'm looking at a Quebec parish register and the phrasing regarding when a baptised child was born ("né d'un jour") is new to me.  Literally, this seems to translate to "born one day", which is very ambiguous, so I was wondering if anyone else can provide some insight.

The records for Rosalie Roger and Raimond Goulet show this phrasing in the following record:

"Québec, registres paroissiaux catholiques, 1621-1979," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L993-N9CR-B?cc=1321742&wc=HCNY-PTL%3A24746501%2C24746502%2C20888801 : 16 July 2014), Saints-Gervais-et-Protais > Saints-Gervais-et-Protais > Baptêmes, mariages, sépultures 1780-1815 > image 474 of 621; Archives Nationales du Quebec (National Archives of Quebec), Montreal.

Answer 1

actually, it should read ''né du jour'', ie born the same day, the priest uses ''né d'hier'' when the child was born the previous day on other records on the page.

Comments

I might believe otherwise Danielle. Grammatically, «né d'un jour» means - born one day ago. 

I looked at a couple of pages before and after the images 474 and on image 476, entry #47, we can see a correction where the priest had originally writen «née d'un jour» (I believe) and corrected to read «née de ce jour» then specifying «born that day» making it clear that there is a difference between both expressions.

I might be wrong!

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except that when the child is born the preceding day he clearly says ''né d'hier''.  I think he had his expression wrong, writing d'un instead of du .

Answer 2

I don't recall seeing this before. I guess it's either a mistake (doubtful) or nobody had the exact day of birth. On both records, the father is listed as being absent, which could explain that.

Regarding Rosalie, are you sure her last name isn't Royer?

Comments

It probably is Royer now that I look again.  I was actually researching the Goulet family and just happened to notice the other record used the same phrasing without looking too closely at it otherwise.

Answer 3

I would have assumed it meant "one day old." "Nouveau-né" is a new-born. Was it customary to present a child for baptism and registry within a few days after birth?

Comments

I guess this would make sense. What puzzles me is that I have never seen this in Québec records. It’s usually « de ce jour », « la veille », « l’avant-veille » or, when further back, « le xx courant ».

And yes, infants usually got baptized immediately in Québec - you wouldn’t want to risk them going to the bad place!

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My first thought was also that it meant "one day ago", but then I saw in the record just before Rosalie, and in the same handwriting, "Né d'hier" (born yesterday), which suggests "d'un jour" means something else (but I wouldn't know what).

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BORN ONE DAY OR SAME DAY

Answer 4

I found the same phrase in most of the other entries on that page and it follows baptizate, so am pretty sure it means baptized at one day old.  That is how you give age in French "Je suis de ….. ans"

Comments

That's possible.

I'll have to correct you on the way age is given in French. People will usually state "J'ai ... ans" (I have ... years). I've never heard it said the way you described (and it's not syntactically correct either).

Answer 5

In my humble view, this is the prêtre's cryptic way of expressing 

• '... a été baptisée Rosalie née d'un jour du légitime mariage ...' to actually mean '... a été baptisée Rosalie nouvelle-née, âgée d'un jour, du légitime mariage ...', or,
• '... a été baptisé Jean né d'hier du légitime mariage ...' to actually mean '... a été baptisé Jean nouveau-né né hier, du légitime mariage ...'

Comments

The forms 'né d'un jour',  'née d'un jour',  'né d'hier', imply that the words 'né' & 'née' are used as nouns, not verb form, which in turn implies a contraction of 'nouveau-né' &  'nouvelle-née' into 'né' & 'née'.

Which leads one to believe 'né d'un jour', 'née d'un jour' & 'né d'hier' to effectively mean  'nouveau-né or nouvelle-née d'un jour' & 'nouveau-né d'hier'.