Mothers of Acadia mtDNA Project. Names

Dear Cousins,

Here is the Mothers of Acadia mtDNA Project information that I thought would be helpful to share on my blog. This comes from the project site and is self-explanatory. I am the administrator so feel free to contact me if you are interested or have any questions.

Project Names:

Aimée, Jeanne, Anne-Marie spouse of Pinet and Raimbault, Arnault,Marie, Aubois, Marie (Christine), Aucoin, Jeanne & Michelle, Bajolet, Barbe, Basile, Perrine, Bastineau dit Peltier, Louise, Bayon, Rose, Bernon, Anne, Berteau (Bertrand), Cécile, Boileau, Marguerite, Bourg, Perrine, Breau, Renée, Brunet, Marie, Bugaret,Catherine, Cajun, Canol, Marie-Anne, Caplan, Catherine, Caplan, Madeleine, Caplan, Marguerite, Caplan, Marie-Louise, Catherine spouse of Jean Labarre and Étienne Rivet, Chaussegros, Marie, Chebrat, Jeanne, Corbineau, Françoise, D'Amours de Chauffours, Louise, Doucet, Marguerite spouse of Abraham Dugas, Dugard, Marie-Antoinette, Forest,Geneviève, Gaudet,Françoise, Gaudet,Marie, Gauthier, Martine, Gautrot, Anne, Guyon,Andrée, Hélie, Madeleine, Henry, Jeanne, Housseau, Marguerite, Jarouselle, Susanne, Jean dit Madelon, Isabelle-Madeleine, Jeanne, Andrée-Angélique, Kagigconiac, Jeanne, Lambert, Radegonde, Landry, Antoinette, Lavache, Anne, Lefranc, Geneviève, Lejeune, Catherine, Lejeune,Edmée, Lejeune,Jeanne, Marie spouse of François Gautrot, Marie spouse of Philippe Mius d'Azy, Marie-Thérèse spouse of Claude Petitpas, Martin, Marie-Madeleine, Mathilde, 1st spouse of Baron de Saint-Castin, Michel, Jacquette, Motin de Reux, Jeanne, Orly, Marie, Ouestnorouest dit Petitous, Anne, Patarabego, Anne, Piddiwamiskwa, Marie, Rau, Perrine, Rousselière, Jeanne, Saint-Étienne de La Tour, Jeanne de, Soubirou, Isabeau dite Judith, Toupin, Françoise, Unknown spouse of Philippe Mius d'Azy, Vigneau, Catherine

Project Background:

Please note that more information is available on the mtDNA Proven Origins page at the ACADIAN ANCESTRAL HOME

The Mothers of Acadia mtDNA Project is intended to test descendants of the pioneer Mothers of Acadia whether of French or of Native extraction. This project is dedicated to all of the founding Mothers of Acadia.

The objective of this project is to identify the origins of those Mothers of Acadia. Because of the Deportation and exile of 1755, many records were lost and/or destroyed at that time.

At this time in our history, mitochondrial DNA testing, or mtDNA testing, provides a vehicle to establish whether these pioneer women were of European or of Native origin. Because of missing records that would have identified the origins of these ancestral Mothers, there has been a great deal of controversy regarding their origins -- though noted genealogists attribute most of them as having come from France/Europe. These tests are helping to resolve some of these controversies.

mtDNA, is based solely on one's direct maternal line. Both women and men can be mtDNA tested. If you descend from one Mothers of Acadia listed above, please consider mtDNA testing.

To qualify for mtDNA testing, one's direct maternal line begins with you, then goes to your mother, and to her mother, to her mother, and so forth, ending when you have gone as far as possible in your maternal line.

It would be preferable to share your maternal line with the administrator of this project - before testing - so it can be verified. If your maternal line is not complete, we can help you with that also.

If you have questions about your maternal line prior to testing, or if you have already been tested but need any help at all, please send Lucie a message. It would be quite helpful to you and to the project that your maternal line be verified prior to testing.

Thank you for your collaboration!
_____________________________________________________________________

For more mtDNA results of participants who joined the mtDNA Proven Origins project begun two years ago, please go to the
ACADIAN ANCESTRAL HOME and click on mtDNA Proven Origins at the sidebar.

Mothers of Acadia mtDNA Project... an update

Dear Cousins,

It has been a while since I updated you on the Mothers of Acadia mtDNA Project.

To date there are 83 participants in the project. I am always amazed that just when we think there will be no other participants someone writes to me expressing interest in being tested.

If you are interested don't hesitate to contact me. The results are interesting to say the list.

We are still searching for individuals who descend from some of the Founding Mothers of Acadia for who we still have no test results. Do take a look at the list to see if you are a direct descendant from one of them. For someone who wants to be mtDNA tested, that person should figure out her or his direct maternal line. A direct maternal line means it starts with you to your mother, to her mother and so on as many generations back as you can go.

If you an Acadian descendants, Stephen White would gladly verify your lineage as we have been collaborating together on this project. So you would want to join the Mothers of Acadia mtDNA Project site when you are ready to order your test kit.

Now if you are French-Canadian, you would want to join the French Heritage DNA Project. Doug Miller is the administrator of that project and is very helpful.

The Acadian project was begun because of all the scuttlebutt that was going on with some wanting to believe that all of the first Mothers of Acadia - or the founding Mothers - had to be of Native descent because we had no records to prove otherwise.

Well so many records were destroyed at the time of Deportation by the British while others were buried in the ground by the Acadians who had been told they would be returning. So between those destroyed and those that rotted in the ground, the records that would have given us the origins of our first ancestors was lost forever.

Then along came mtDNA... ta da! When embarking on this project we did so with open minds. All we wanted was the truth and to put the fabrications to rest once and for all.

We really expected that some of the results would and could come back showing Native results. In the end, those women who were thought to have been of European/France origins are and those we already knew were Native have proven to be so. So far there have been no big surprises.

It is important to know that every additional test taken is a huge contribution to our heritage.

One can take what is called the HVR1 test or the HVR2 test. There is now the FGS test. The FGS is the newest and most refined test to date - it is a Full Sequence test.

When I contacted Eileen Krause of Family Tree DNA for a breakdown of what each test tells us as far as how far back people with the same results might be related to a particular ancestor, I received the following informaton:

Matches to just the HVR1 and HVR2 can be more distantly related.

A low resolution match (HVR1 only) has about a 50% chance of being related within the last 52 generations.

A high resolution match (both HVR1 and HVR2) has about a 50% chance of being related within the last 28 generations

An exact match on the FULL SEQUENCE (FGS TEST), based on what is currently known about the mutation rates of mtDNA, is likely related within 2 to 4 centuries. Please note that only limited studies have been performed on mutation rates of mtDNA, so the estimated range in which a common ancestor lived may decrease or increase as the results of more intensive mutation rate studies become available.

Of course the past 400 years is what we are looking at for Acadia. So FGS testing has become very important to us.

If you have any questions about mtDNA testing for our Mothers project, please do not hesitate to post a question or to write to me privately. It is an exciting time to be able to work with science to find our roots at this time in our history.

As an aside, I sent in my test kit last month. The results should arrive pretty soon. Of course, my direct maternal line is on my French-Canadian side and I have been able to research that line into France so I will be very surprised if my results are not European. But.. we don't now for sure until the results are in. Maybe I'll find that "Indian Princess" my grandmother and my mother always talked about yet (Smile>).


Love,

Your Cousin Lucie

Searching for my Acadian Roots

Mémère Lévesque

Dear Cousins,

Time flies and that old song keeps running through my mind "As time goes by.." and it certainly does.

There is plenty going on with our family just now. Our youngest daughter will be married in May. We have a bridal shower coming up and before we know it the big day will be here!

With all of that going on, it does not mean that I've not been busy about many things and those many things have much to do with Acadian & French-Canadian genealogy.

The other day I was thinking about how I first became interested in history and in particular, family history - our family's history.

One day when I was in sixth grade (I won't say how long ago that was... ha!) our teacher gave us an assignment that remained with me to this very day. She said "I want you to write an essay on your family. Go talk to your grandparents and asked them about your family, where they were from and so on."

Right after school I dutifully went to visit Mémère Lévesque. She was the only grandmother I could interview as my father's parents passed away when he was young so I never knew them.

Anyhow while talking with Mémère she told me that there was someone in the family who had married an "Indian Princess" - well that was of great interest to a wide eyed eleven year old. She gave me little tidbits here and there just enough to make me curious - a curiosity that would keep me collecting little pieces of information here and there over the years until as a young adult I realized that though I thought I had gathered enough information, I began to realize that there were gaps that needed to be filled. Mémère had not given me the information I really needed such as the names of her parents of and of Pépère's parents and all the pertinent information that goes with it all.

So for many years I've collected information but that information was entirely for my mother's side of the family. My mother's family was French-Canadian and my grandparents had come to Massachusetts as teenagers. Of course, as time passed and I found all of the family genealogy I realized that, as I had heard, everyone was related in one way or another.

But what of my father's family? I recalled only one conversation with my father in which he told me the names of his parents and how young he was when they died. My grandmother died at age 44 and though I've never found a death record for my grandfather, I believe he died around the age of 66 just a few years after she died. This was a second marriage for my grandfather and he was older. Between the two marriages seventeen children were born. It would be several years after my father passed away when I decided I needed to know more about his family.

I joined the American-Canadian Genealogical Society of Manchester, New Hampshire and my quest began. After three trips to the society I had pretty lost hope of finding anything there on my grandparents. That day I decided to come home but as I was about to leave I glanced over to one side of the library where odds and ends used to be placed on shelves. I strolled over there and looking through these papers and things saw a thin booklet with the title "New Bedford Births". Well when my grandparents migrated from New Brunswick, the went to New Bedford, Massachusetts. My father George and three of his siblings were born in New Bedford. I looked at that booklet for a few moments and thought "I'm foolish to think it could be this easy!" In spite of myself, I opened this typewritten booklet and there was an index in the back. I looked at the index and among the surnames were many entries for the name LeBlanc - there were no given names.

I picked a page number and could not believe my eyes when I saw my father's name, George Charles LeBlanc and especially the names of his parents, Damien S. LeBlanc and Odille Doiron, whom I'd never known. I must tell you a few tears were shed from shear joy and awe.

Now I had the names of my grandparents. I began to look for their marriage and did find both marriages for my grandfather first in the Blue Drouin as we call it. However, my grandfather's parents were not mentioned in either marriage record that I then found in the New Brunswick microfilmed records. Drat!

From census records that I could now access I searched for my grandfather's birth record based on the age given in the census. Well it was not meant to be that easy. There were two (!) Damien LeBlanc born in the same year.

I decided to write to Stephen White and sent him all of the information I had found as to the children from each marriage, etc. People at the society told me he was so busy that I'd never hear from him. I was so happy when only two weeks later I received a response from him. He was able to tell me where he was born and who his parents were but he had not found the record.

Having scoured the microfilmed records as I had, when I read his letter I knew immediately where to find his baptismal record and I was finally on my way to getting to know my Acadian roots.

From that point on I was able to find my LeBlanc line and my grandmother's Doiron line and I've been at it ever since!

At one point I had so much data that I thought it was a shame it could not be shared to help others. With the encouragement of our daughter who was in college at the time, I decided to give it a try. That was 12 years ago and with time I have been able to share much information though my website, the Acadian Ancestral Home.

Before I go, let me say that I never found an "Indian Princess" on my mother's side of the family. First of all, there is no such thing as an Indian "Princess" (and just about all Acadian and French-Canadians families have told their children there was one in their family); secondly none of the records to date have pointed to a Native woman in our Lévesque or Dumais and collaterate lineages.

On the otherhand, I did find one on my father's Acadian side of the family. Marie Christine Aubois who married Jean Roy dit Laliberté in the 1686s.

So there is a moral to my story: to anyone and to all have are still hoping to find that or those elusive ancestors, don't stop digging. Sometimes they turn up when you least expect them to as they did for me that Wednesday afternoon in Manchester, New Hampshire!

Love,

Cousin Lucie