PINGUET DE VAUCOUR, JACQUES-NICOLAS, royal notary and seigneurial judge; b. 10 Aug. 1692 in Quebec, son of Jacques Pinguet de Vaucour, seigneurial judge, and Marie-Anne Morin; d. 7 April 1749 in Quebec.

Jacques-Nicolas Pinguet de Vaucour belonged to a family whose members have been more than once mistaken for one another. His career was uneventful. On 18 July 1726 Intendant Bégon granted him a commission as royal notary to practise in the area of the provost court of Quebec. Four years later, on 20 Jan. 1730, he succeeded his father, who had died the previous year, as judge for the seigneuries of Notre-Dame-des-Anges, Saint-Gabriel, and Sillery. He continued in these offices until 1748, when illness forced him to resign. He died in Quebec on 7 April 1749.

Pinguet belonged to the fourth generation of this family, which had settled in New France in 1634. His father, Jacques, who married twice, had 22 children, several of whom died in infancy. But enough survived to cause confusion when it comes to describing the career of each member of the family. When Jacques Pinguet’s 14th child was born, Jacques-Nicolas was old enough to be its father, and at the birth of the 22nd he was 36 years old. Since he was the eldest of the family, he had to watch over the interests of his brothers and sisters after his father’s death, and a too hasty reading of the documents has sometimes led to Jacques-Nicolas’s becoming the father of this progeny. Moreover, his Christian name was similar to his father’s, and often in documents the distinguishing element, Nicolas, was left off; much more frequently still, no Christian name is given. Confusion has also occurred with Jacques-Nicolas’s uncle, Charles Pinguet, and his brother, Joseph-Régis, who were sailors, and with another brother, Nicolas-Charles Pinguet de Bellevue, who was judge at Beauport.

Jacques-Nicolas and Nicolas-Charles were bachelors and lived in their father’s house on Rue Desjardins. Nicolas-Charles was thus able to act as notary for a time in place of his brother, who was kept at home by his infirmities. The provost court of Quebec objected to this in a verdict delivered on 2 April 1748. On 20 September of that year Jacques-Nicolas resigned as notary and was replaced by Simon Sanguinet. Nicolas-Charles was, however, able to practise officially as a notary when he obtained his commission on 22 March 1749, two weeks before Jacques-Nicolas’s death.

Michel Paquin