AutoKinship by Genetic Affairs Builds Family Trees from Your Matches at FamilyTreeDNA, and More

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Genetic Affairs released a new AutoKinship tool designed for FamilyTreeDNA’s autosomal Family Finder matches, which also incorporates information from other sources. I must have fallen asleep at the wheel, because AutoKinship has been available for more than six months now.

I’ve been testing this tool with my matches, and it’s an immense help to those of us trying to untangle complicated family relationships using DNA evidence. I don’t know about you, but I have a long list of brick well where I could use help!

How to Use This Guide

This article is long and there are many steps involved – but it’s well worth it at the end.

My suggestion for using this article effectively is to read it through, at least once, to see what you’re going to be doing, and why.

Then, after you get things set up at Genetic Affairs, and any files you want to include, come back and use this article as a step-by-step guide to navigate these new tools.

Here’s the bottom line. The Genetic Affairs tools use matches, along with shared and bucketed matches at FamilyTreeDNA, plus their archived trees, in addition to external GEDCOM files and other information that you can provide in order to create customized, focused clusters and potential family trees for your clustered matches.

These tools combine DNA matching with internal and external trees for the composite best of both types of information.

So grab your favorite drink and let’s get started.

FamilyTreeDNA

AutoKinship works in conjunction with FamilyTreeDNA’s tools, such as Shared Matching, the Matrix tool, and Family Matching, also known as bucketing, which assigns parental sides to your matches using linked matches.

Linked matches are your matches whose relationship to you is known. If you haven’t already, link them to their profile card on your tree by clicking on “Link on Family Tree.” This allows FamilyTreeDNA, by using triangulation, to “bucket” your matches either maternally or paternally – meaning if they are related to you on your maternal side, paternal side, or both.

In my cousin Patricia’s case, the little pink icon by her profile picture shows that she has been bucketed maternally. That occurred when I linked my mother’s DNA to my tree because Patricia matches us both, plus other linked maternal cousins, on the same segments. For bucketing to occur, you don’t have to do anything except link known relatives to their proper place in your tree. FamilyTreeDNA does the rest by assigning your matches either maternally or paternally if they match on common segments.

Upload DNA Files to FamilyTreeDNA from Other Vendors

If you have not taken the Family Finder test at FamilyTreeDNA or uploaded your DNA file from 23andMe (Dec 2010 to present), Ancestry (May 2012 to present), or MyHeritage (March 2019 to May 7, 2025) to FamilyTreeDNA, you should do so now to take advantage of their tools, plus AutoKinship at Genetic Affairs.

What is AutoKinship and Why is it Different?

AutoKinship takes traditional clustering and kicks it up several notches. Instead of just showing you which matches cluster together, it actually attempts to build family trees based on the shared DNA amounts between your matches.

AutoKinship looks at how much DNA your matches share with you, and with each other, and uses that information to predict their relationships. Then AutoKinship builds potential family trees showing how everyone might connect. Additionally, you get to provide input in the process.

The timing couldn’t be better, especially since FamilyTreeDNA recently launched their updated Matrix tool, showing how your matches are related to each other. I wrote about that, here.

Two Steps

There are two primary steps in the AutoKinship process that build on each other. However, within these steps, there are many stepping-stones, so I’ve documented each one.

We’re going to use these tools, one at a time, in order.

I suggest that you join the Genetic Affairs User Group on Facebook for additional support and information.

Using AutoKinship with FamilyTreeDNA

The AutoKinship functionality for FamilyTreeDNA provides an automated approach using both AutoCluster and AutoKinship, together, then AutoLineage, where you can refine the information in a number of ways.

🔹 Step 1: Automated AutoKinship via Genetic Affairs

The first step involves running the AutoKinship tool directly from the Genetic Affairs members’ site. This process is fully automated:

  • It starts with the FamilyTreeDNA AutoCluster option, which groups DNA matches into shared clusters based on their connections to each other.
  • AutoKinship is then automatically launched on each cluster, adding the DNA tester and generating relationship hypotheses among the group.
  • Several family tree models are produced, showing how the matches and the tester could be connected based on shared DNA and cluster structure.

This step is ideal for getting quick insights into how groups of matches may relate.

🔹 Step 2: Refined Clustering & Relationship Analysis Using AutoLineage

After the automated run, downloadable files for AutoLineage are generated. These files allow you to re-import the match, shared matches, and tree data into the AutoLineage web application for further analysis.

This second step offers greater control and customization:

  • You can redo the clustering, optionally tweaking parameters to fine-tune how matches are grouped.
  • You can redo the common ancestor analysis, optionally tweaking parameters to fine-tune the discovery of MRCAs
  • The AutoKinship tool within AutoLineage becomes available again, this time with additional functionality:
    • Define known relationships between matches, such as parent-child or cousin relationships
    • Define generational information, for instance, if you know certain matches are not on the same generational level
    • Integrate MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor) data from reconstructed trees, e.g., from the Find Common Ancestors module.

This enhanced phase is especially useful for integrating genealogical trees for targeted clusters.

By combining both steps, automated clustering with AutoKinship, and manual refinement with known or tree-derived relationships using AutoLineage – you can leverage your FamilyTreeDNA data for in-depth relationship exploration.

Let’s Take AutoKinship for a Spin

As always, I’ll walk you through this process step by step, using my own DNA results as an example.

Getting Started

First things first – you’ll need to be a member of Genetic Affairs, so sign up for their free membership, here. Genetic Affairs’ customers purchase “credits” to spend on various features and reports, but you receive 200 free to start.

The automated AutoKinship analysis available on the Genetic Affairs website can be run using credits from the free tier – perfect for exploring the tool without any commitment. This allows users to generate relationship trees for FamilyTreeDNA clusters right away.

To access the more advanced features in the AutoLineage desktop application—including refined clustering, manual relationship input, and integration of MRCA data from reconstructed trees – you’ll need an active subscription.

To get started, sign in to the Genetic Affairs member site, here.

Let’s walk through the process step by step.

We’ll begin by registering a FamilyTreeDNA profile at Genetic Affairs. Click on “Register a new website” to get started.

FamilyTreeDNA account passwords are not stored at Genetic Affairs.

After clicking “Register profile,” you’ll see a message asking you to double-check the credentials for the kit you’re about to use. This is also a good time to log in to your FamilyTreeDNA account directly to make sure there are no pending actions — such as enabling two-factor authentication or accepting updated terms of service.

Once you click “I understand, continue,” you’ll see a list of all registered FamilyTreeDNA profiles at Genetic Affairs.

Locate the kit you want to analyze and click the blue “Start analysis” button.
This opens a guided wizard that walks you through each step of the setup.

First, select AutoKinship and click “Next.”

You’ll then be asked to define several thresholds:

  • Minimum and maximum shared cM
  • Minimum size of the largest segment
  • Minimum cluster size

A quick word of caution here: selecting a very low minimum cM value may actually reduce the number of usable matches. That’s because the system must download shared match data until it either reaches that threshold, or a preset timer expires, which can limit how much data is downloaded. When in doubt, start conservatively. You can always rerun the analysis later and change the parameters. Unfortunately, there’s no way to simoly “get everything” in one run which is, of course, what everyone would do.

Click “Next” to continue.

This section determines which matches will be included in the analysis.
For your first run, I recommend using the top matches within the selected range. This provides a strong foundation and usually produces the clearest results.

Later, once you’re more familiar with the output, you may want to experiment by analyzing only the shared matches of a specific person or group. For now, keep it simple and click “Next.”

Here, you’ll enter your FamilyTreeDNA password (twice) so the system can retrieve the required data.

If you use two-factor authentication, you can enter the 2FA code here, as well. To do that, log in to your FamilyTreeDNA account, retrieve the code from your email, and paste it into the wizard.

Then click “Next.”

You’ll now see a summary of all the settings you’ve chosen. Take a moment to review everything. When you’re ready, click “Perform analysis” in the bottom right corner.

At this point, the Genetic Affairs servers take over and begin processing your data.

The Results Arrive

When your report is ready, you’ll receive an email with a download link. You can also access it through the notification panel in the top right corner of the Genetic Affairs site.

Downloading the report will result in a zipped file. Save it in a location on your computer where you can find it.

Critical Step

This step is critical and will save you a great deal of frustration: If you’re using a PC, you MUST extract or unzip the files before you can properly use them. I can’t tell you how many people skip this step and then wonder why they’re receiving error messages. Ask me how I know!

This is your zipped file.

If you try to open the HTML file while it’s still zipped, it might appear to work at first, but when you click on any links within the file, you’ll receive an error.

If this happens to you, close everything, right-click on that yellow zipped folder, select “extract all,” and then try again.

Now you’re set up, so on to the fun part – viewing the results.

Exploring Your Results

Once you have everything properly extracted and open the HTML file, you’ll watch your AutoCluster literally fly into place on your screen. I love this part. It’s like watching my family fly into place. I wish the actual genealogy research was this easy.

The new Genetic Affairs reports include significantly more information than previous versions.

You can change what’s displayed using the dropdown menu.

By default, you’ll see the shared cM amounts between your matches, but you can change this to show paternal or maternal information if you’ve identified those lineages by linking your matches.

In my case, my maternal line has fewer matches because my mother’s ancestry includes both recent Dutch and German immigrants, so the majority of my high cM matches are US-centric on my father’s side. My father’s ancestors have been in this country since colonial times, and a lot of testers in the US are looking back to the old country for their origins.

Therefore, in my first several clusters, I see squares with the symbol P, indicating they are paternal matches – designated as such through linked family matches, aka bucketing.

You can see the faint Ps inside the orange cells.

Here’s a close-up so you can see the “P” for paternal. If you haven’t linked your matches, you won’t have bucketed matches. Your Genetic Affairs results don’t require bucketing – it’s just a really beneficial feature.

You can change your AutoCluster settings in several ways. I tend to start with the defaults and then modify from there.

Genetic Affairs functions based on the amount of server time a particular tool takes, so it’s not possible to just “run everything,” or trust me, I would.

The Common Ancestor Magic

In your report, scroll down several sections, and you’ll find Common Ancestors – my favorite feature.

This section shows you the common ancestors that have been identified between your matches’ trees.

Looking at the Common Ancestors cluster report, you can click on three things for each cluster:

  • FamilyTreeDNA Trees of Cluster #
  • Common Ancestors of Cluster #
  • Common Locations of Cluster #

Let’s examine the reconstructed trees based on the common ancestor analysis. The first cluster shows some of my close DNA matches that are descendants of my Vannoy line.

You can see that there are six testers, in addition to me, who descend from Joel Vannoy.

Next, scroll down to the AutoKinship section of your report.

The AutoKinship Analysis

The real treasure lies in the AutoKinship analysis, which is presented in a small table on the main HTML page. When you click on the AutoKinship results for any cluster, you’ll see reconstructed trees based on the shared DNA amounts between matches, meaning between you and each of them, and between each other.

You can see that I have 10 reports available based on the cluster numbers indicated.

I clicked on Cluster 1, which shows some of my close DNA matches who are Vannoy line descendants. This includes testers both with and without trees.

Since the AutoKinship algorithm doesn’t have access to age information, it sometimes struggles with generational differences – but the relationship predictions are still remarkably useful.

Alternative trees are also provided, giving you multiple hypotheses to investigate.

Some matches may not be integrated because of incompatible relationships.

The Next Step with AutoLineage – Adding Genealogical Trees to the Mix

We’ve seen AutoTree and AutoKinship. The new upgraded AutoLineage adds genealogical tree information to genetic information by allowing the user to:

  • Import other trees
  • Integrate most recent common ancestors (MRCAs) in AutoKinship trees
  • Set known relationships
  • Provide generational information.

AutoLineage, Genetic Affairs’ online clustering and tree-building tool, has been around for several years but was recently upgraded to create trees based on shared DNA and incorporate genealogical evidence.

This is where the proverbial rubber meets the road.

Setting Up AutoLineage

Return to the home page at Genetic Affairs and select AutoLineage.

If you’re new to this tool, you’ll see a simplified workflow on the start page that walks you through the process.

First, create a profile representing the DNA test taker – in my case, that’s me.

After creating the profile, you’ll be redirected to the landing page of the profile. From there, you can register DNA tests linked to the profile. From the home page, you can see the different profiles.

You’ll register a new FamilyTreeDNA test specifically for each user whose kit you manage and who took a test.

FamilyTreeDNA is the only DNA testing company for which Genetic Affairs runs automated analyses on their site.

Additionally, you can:

Importing the Data

After registering a FamilyTreeDNA test, you are redirected to the overview of this DNA page, where matches are imported.

Click on “Import matches” and select the CSV file from Genetic Affairs. Here’s where that AutoKinship report we generated earlier comes in handy. The unzipped report contains match and shared match information that we can import directly into AutoLineage.

Navigate to the gephi folder in your report and select the nodes.csv file to import your matches.

After importing the matches, a short dialog shows how many matches were imported.

After closing the dialog box, the DNA matches pane is opened.

You’ll see your DNA matches that were downloaded.

Next, import the shared match information from the edges.csv file in the same gephi folder.

Once both data sets are imported, you’ll see that the ICW (In Common With) column has populated, showing how many shared matches are available for each DNA match.

Clustering in AutoLineage

Now, with the shared match data loaded, you can perform your own clustering analysis.

The wizard allows you to set parameters for which matches to include based on:

  • The amount of shared cMs
  • Weighted or unweighted clustering
  • How much DNA is shared between shared matches

You can also define the cluster characteristics, from sparse to very dense clusters.

Last, you can select the coloring scheme. After setting the parameters, click on “Start Clustering,” at bottom right.

After clustering is finished, the clustering chart is displayed. It looks fairly similar to the ones obtained automatically from Genetic Affairs, but with some differences.

The first thing I noticed is that the large orange cluster 1 in the automated clustering is now mostly represented by the purple cluster 4.

Let’s zoom in on this cluster. By looking more closely at the numbers contained in each cluster, you can already make an estimated guess about the richness in relationship information for cluster members. This cluster has lots of close relationships. Clusters whose matches only share a small amount of DNA with each other are not the best candidates for an AutoKinship analysis because they most likely share a distant common ancestor. Unless, of course, it’s a distant ancestor you’re searching for. (Hello brick wall.)

Adding and Importing Tree Information

Now that we have the new clusters, we could continue to directly run the tree reconstruction on these clusters using the shared DNA information, but let’s wait  since we want to include the tree information as well to guide this process.

To use common ancestors, we need to import the available trees that are linked to the DNA matches. Luckily, just like (shared) match information, the tree information is provided with the automated analysis as well. Let’s import the data.

First, navigate to the tree management page. As you can see, no trees have been created or imported. Let’s start the wizard by clicking on the “Import Trees” button.

An “Import tree” wizard pops up, providing different ways to import tree information. It’s also possible to import GEDCOM files or tree data from other resources, but for now, I’m only using the archived trees at FamilyTreeDNA.

Click on the last option and select the files.

Navigate to the matches folder and select the HTML files contained in the folder.

Each file represents a DNA match report, some of which have a tree associated with them.

After importing the trees, they are automatically associated with the concerned DNA matches (using the unique identifier present in each file name). The tree overview page shows which tree is linked to a profile or DNA test, and the amount of DNA shared with the linked DNA match.

If you have created trees for your matches based on your own research (like quick and dirty trees), now is the time to import these using the “Import Tree” wizard again. This is a wonderful feature, because it means you’re not entirely dependant on your match having uploaded a tree themselves.

If you don’t import trees from GEDCOMs, you don’t need the linking wizard.

Click on the “Import Tree” wizard and select the GEDCOM option.

Now that we have imported additional trees, we need to associate them with DNA matches.

You can use a wizard to link the unlinked trees to the DNA matches, or link them from each DNA match. The wizard will try to guestimate, based on the content of the tree file name, which DNA match could be associated with the tree. Change the search criteria if it does not provide the correct results.

TIP: Save the GEDCOM files with the name of the linked DNA match as well the shared cM, which speeds up the importing process

Don’t forget to import your own tree. I imported my GEDCOM file from my computer genealogy software and associated it with my profile so it’s included in the common ancestor identification. You can easily upload your GEDCOM from your computer software, or download your tree from either Ancestry or MyHeritage to upload here.

Visit the profile, and select the tree pane. The tree pane only shows a single individual and allows you to add ancestors to it manually. To associate that individual with an existing tree, click on “Link to Existing Tree”.

A wizard will be displayed, which shows all available trees on the left side. Sort by clicking on the “Created” column to display the most recent trees.

Next, you need to select the root person.

I selected my tree.

Next, the right side of the wizard fills with the people in the selected tree. Select the root person, which is me, and click on “Save” in the lower right corner.

Finding Common Ancestors

Now that we have associated a tree with the profile and imported trees for the FamilyTreeDNA matches, it’s time to locate some common ancestors. Fingers crossed!

Go back to the profile and select the profile overview. Scroll down to the “Find common ancestors” section and click on the “Find common ancestors” button.

The “common ancestors” wizard shows trees that are associated with this profile in the table on the left and provides information about the different steps on the right. You can change the settings to make the search more restrictive or more relaxed.

After running the common ancestor identification, a dialog shows the number of trees and tree persons that were used, and the number of common ancestors that were identified.

After the analysis runs, you’ll be able to view all reconstructed trees or filter them based on common ancestors, trees, or linked DNA matches.

Common ancestors, not surprisingly, often align closely with what the automated analysis discovered.

All six testers are now shown descending from our common ancestor, in the approximate location where they will fit in our common tree.

But we aren’t quite finished yet.

The Final AutoKinship Analysis

Finally, we’ve arrived. The earlier steps were necessary to pave the way.

We have the common ancestors and clusters, and it’s time to go back to the clusters to begin the reconstruction of trees using trees combined with DNA.

Click on the profile and go to the clustering results pane. Select the 1x view, which will show the clustering chart.

Now select the matches pane that shows the different matches that are contained in each cluster. Scroll down until you reach your cluster of interest, which is four for me.

After clicking on any cluster, you’ll be redirected to a cluster view with only the information for that particular cluster.

Let’s view purple cluster 4, which looks fairly dense, with only a couple of empty cells, indicating that these shared matches with white cells did not share (enough) DNA with each other to be included in the cluster. Now select the matches pane in the dashboard at the top of this cluster, which displays the matches linked to this specific cluster. As you can see, a button is now available that allows us to run the AutoKinship analysis. Click on the button.

Single cluster matches are displayed.

Now back to the wizard.

The wizard provides several important parameters:

  • Maximum number of generations between DNA matches
  • Number of trees to analyze in each iteration
  • Final number of trees to keep
  • Whether to include known relationships and/or MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor) relationships

In this example, MRCA relationships were found because we performed the common ancestor identification that resulted in common ancestors between the matches of this cluster.

If you know specific relationships between matches, you can set those manually. Sometimes you might not know the exact relationship, but if you can estimate that a match is one or more generations older or younger than yourself, you can set that too.

In addition to setting the relationship between the test taker (indicated in green in the table) and the DNA matches, it’s also possible to set the relationship between shared matches, if known.

The Hybrid Results

After the analysis has finished, an overview of the identified trees is presented.

The final result is a blended tree where DNA evidence fills in the blanks for matches who haven’t uploaded trees, or you haven’t provided a tree, and known genealogy supports the structure where it exists. This hybrid approach gives us the best of both worlds – the precision of documented genealogy combined with the discovery power of DNA analysis.

I particularly like this approach, because when I identify how a DNA match is related to me from any vendor, I enter their lineage in my desktop genealogy software. Therefore, using that GEDCOM file is the most complete source of my identified relatives.

Testers 1-6 were shown using the regular AutoTree, without the integrated tree, but an additional 11 matches were placed for consideration using all available tools.

I was using this as an experiment because I know how most people in this cluster are related, and those are all placed accurately. There is one person, located on the branch between 1 and 5, who I had no idea how they fit into this puzzle. Now, at least I know where to look.

I can’t imagine trying to do all of this manually.

Why This Matters

For those of us dealing with unknown parent or grandparent situations, poorly documented lines, non-existent trees, or just plain stubborn brick walls, this combination of tools is nothing short of amazing. You can now explore relationship hypotheses even when traditional documentation is scarce.

The reconstructed trees show how common ancestor information provides the template, while the AutoLineage tool fills gaps using shared DNA information. The updated AutoLineage is the genealogical assistant that never gets tired and can deal with relationship possibilities much more effectively than traditional hand-based methods.

In Summary

If you haven’t explored Genetic Affairs recently, give it a look. The integration between AutoKinship and AutoLineage represents a significant step forward in DNA analysis.

While AutoKinship offers valuable insights on its own, its full potential is truly unlocked when you export the data into AutoLineage. The combination creates a comprehensive analysis that was previously impossible.

For researchers dealing with complex family relationships or challenging genealogical puzzles, this hybrid approach that combines matches at FamilyTreeDNA with DNA evidence and genealogical trees could be the key to breaking through stubborn brick walls that nothing else has budged.

Last but not least, I suggest reading Dr. Patricia Coleman’s blog articles about these tools and her methodologies here and here. Patricia works extensively with these tools, and I often recommend her for private autosomal research consultations. Patricia’s 2026 RootsTech Session, DNA Case Study: Finding an 1877 Birth Father with Genetic Affairs, BanyanDNA, and No Birth Record, details her work solving a long-standing problem for my cousin in the Speaks family.

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Marie Josèphe LePrince (1715-after 1787), A Grandmother’s Choice to Preserve Acadian Culture – 52 Ancestors #468

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The surnames Prince, Le Prince, and LePrince are used interchangeably in Acadian records and genealogical sources, as are Marie Josèphe and Marie-Josèphe, with or without a hyphen.

Marie Josèphe LePrince was born to Jean LePrince and Jeanne Blanchard on November 3, 1715, in Port Royal and baptized the same day. In her baptism record, her surname is written as simply Prince.

Her maternal half-sister, Marie D’Aigre, about 11, was her godmother, and her mother’s brother, Guillaume Blanchard, born about 1690, who would have been about 24, the son of Marie Josèphe’s grandfather by the same name, was her godfather. The only other Guillaume Blanchard this could have been was Marie’s grandfather, born about 1650, who would have been 65 in 1715. Generally, though not always, a younger person was preferred as a godparent because they were more likely to be available to fulfill the godparental obligations should both parents perish.

Upheaval

Marie Josèphe was born in the midst of upheaval.

In 1713, following the 1710 English conquest of Port Royal, Acadia was ceded by the Treaty of Utrecht to the English. In subsequent years, the English, at first, wanted the French to leave, but reconsidered when they realized they would starve without the Acadian farmers to feed them.

Initially, the Acadians staunchly refused to leave, then they changed their minds and wanted to leave and escape the oppressive English, even going so far as trying to cut a road to walk from Port Royal to Les Mines. However, by 1717 they had tentatively decided to stay and ceased attempting to reach Les Mines by land.

In 1720, when Marie Josèphe was five years old, Port Royal was renamed Annapolis Royal, although I’d bet that the Acadians refused to EVER call it anything but Port Royal. An uneasy peace had been established, allowing the Acadians the freedom to practice Catholicism without interference. They could now leave, if they wished, but they couldn’t take anything with them.

The English and Acadians were constantly at odds with one another.

The primary sticking point in the English/Acadian relationship was, and remained, the requirement that the Acadians sign an unconditional loyalty oath to the British Crown. The Acadians refused, not wanting to ever find themselves in the position of having to fight their own French countrymen, or the Mi’kmaq, not to mention that they felt it was in their best interest to remain neutral.

From time to time, the English renewed the requirement that the Acadians sign an oath, and the Acadians would, once again, refuse. Marie Josèphe would have heard these discussions and incessant bickering about the Acadian relationship with the English – at church, at home, and anyplace Acadians gathered.

By 1725, when Marie Josèphe was 10 years old, a new English governor permitted the Acadians to take a more lenient oath, which alleviated many of their concerns. They agreed, the men signed, and everyone was greatly relieved. However, in 1729, the English decided that the 1725 oath was too lenient and declared it void.

I can hear the Acadian men screaming across the years. They would have felt betrayed and indignant.

Marie Josèphe’s father, Jean LePrince lived on the south side of the river, just above Bloody Creek, so named after a 1711 ambush. In 1729, Marie Josèphe’s husband-to-be, Jacques Forest, son of Rene Forest, who lived on the next farm over, according to this 1733 map, was 22 and probably a strapping, handsome young man.

Marie-Joseph was only 14, but I’d wager that she had already “noticed” Jacques. Many Acadian girls married about that age, but she wouldn’t marry for another five years.

In 1729, the men were required to sign a new, much stricter oath of allegiance, but they refused.

However, Governor Phillips, an earlier governor who returned in 1730, simply wanted this entire ordeal to be over. He had the Acadians sign a new oath. That oath itself was two pages in length, and the language on the first page sounded quite strict:

“I sincerely promise and swear, as a Christian, that I will be utterly faithful and will truly obey His Majesty King George the Second, whom I acknowledge as the sovereign Lord of Nova Scotia and Acadia. So help me God.”

The second page included the concessions that the Acadians wanted:

“… that the inhabitants, when they have sworn hereto, will not be obliged to take up arms against France or against the Savages, and the said Inhabitants have further promised that they will not take up arms against the King of England or against its government.”

The priest and a notary signed as witnesses to the signatures.

Governor Phillips only sent the first page back to England, along with their signatures on a third page. The second page that held the language that made the Acadians happy was never sent. No one on either side of the Atlantic knew the difference, save Phillips, and he certainly wasn’t talking.

All parties probably collectively heaved a sigh of relief. Everyone was happy – because no one but the Governor knew what really happened, how that second page had somehow been “lost.”

Peace in Acadia, at least for a time, had finally arrived, just in time for Marie-Josephe LePrince to marry and start her family.

By the time Jacques Forest had finally proposed to Marie Josèphe, and had asked her father for her hand in marriage, things seemed almost normal again in Acadia.

Salt-marsh dykes were patched, animals fed, crops sewn, and food prepared. One of two churches was attended every Sunday, plus whenever another pressing event, such as a wedding, funeral, or baptism summoned the faithful Acadians.

Funerals were held whenever the need arose, of course, generally the day following the death. Baptisms generally occurred as soon as possible, but marriages could be planned. Marriage celebrations, which often included music and flowers, were avoided during solemn, penitential seasons. Actual marriage vows could be administered anytime by the priest, but any accompanying celebration would have to take place another time. Typically, the entire marriage event was scheduled for a time outside those sacred dates.

Marriage

Perhaps Marie Josèphe LePrince and Jacques DeForest married in the dead of winter because there was less to be done then than during the other three seasons. People would have had more time for celebration. Since marriage was avoided during Advent, Lent, the festivals of Trinity, and other Holy or Feast Days, they wisely chose around those blackout dates and before the planting of spring crops.

The parish registers of St. Jean-Baptiste in Annapolis Royal record that on Friday January 25, 1734, the priest, De St. Poncy de La Vernède, married Jacques Forest, age 25, whose parents were René Forest and Françoise Dugas, to Marie Josèphe Le Prince who was 18. Her parents are given as Jean Le Prince and Jeanne Blanchard.

Witnesses were Claude Granger, Pierre Lanoue, Antoine Beliveau, René Forest, the groom’s father, and Pierre Granger.

The priest had to “dispense 3-3 consanguinity,” indicating that the bride and groom were related in the not too distant past. This article explains about Cannon law, but 3-3 consanguinity means they shared great-grandparents. Sure enough, looking at the pedigree chart for both the bride and groom, they do.

Not counting the bride and groom, their common ancestors are Etienne Hebert and Marie Gaudet, three steps up the tree for both people.

Home

The newlyweds probably lived someplace in or near the Rene Forest village, off of present-day Brickyard Road in Nova Scotia.

You can see on this 1733 map that Jacques’ father, Rene Forest is the neighbor of Marie Josèphe’s father, Jean Prince.

Mapannapolis shows the location using their GIS system.

Overlaid onto an aerial map today, the Forest Village was located along today’s rail trail, with the bend in Brickyard Road showing at right.

The LePrince land was located near Button Brook, across from today’s Bridgetown, about a mile from the Forest land, as the crow flies, or perhaps less.

Back then, the preferred mode of transportation for everyone was canoe.

Life Along the River

By the time Marie Josèphe was born, these families had been living here for four generations. It was the only home they knew. The far-off place called France was simply family lore that their great-grandparents had passed to their grandparents, who told their parents, who, eventually told them.

France seemed like another fairytale world from long ago – completely disconnected from Acadia – because it was.

Marie Josèphe Le Prince’s Children

The first several years of their marriage would have been spent blissfully living along the shore of the beautiful Annapolis River. For generations, Acadians had farmed the salt marshes. Marie Josèphe and Jacques took up the plow and scythe and did the same.

After their 1734 marriage, like typical Acadian couples, Marie Josèphe LePrince and Jacques DeForest settled down and began both farming and a family. They lived on this land, between their families.

Their first baby arrived about 14 months after their wedding.

Victor Forest was born on April 9, 1735. A supplemental baptismal was performed on July 25th of the same year, which means that for some reason, his parents could not have him baptized by the priest when he was born, so he would have been baptized by a neighbor or perhaps the midwife until a proper baptism could take place. Godparents were Jean LePrince, his maternal grandfather, and Francoise Dugas, his paternal grandmother. What a joyful day that must have been!

It was quite a distance, at least 10 miles, not including paddling the bends of the river, from the area where Marie Josèphe Le Prince and Jacques Forest lived to the Catholic church in Annapolis Royal. They probably worshipped at the Mass House, St. Laurent, right across the river, which was very close to where her mother, Jeanne Blanchard, was raised.

The same priest would have performed baptisms in both locations and recorded them together in one parish register. Sometimes the priest indicated that the location was St. Laurent, but often not.

  • Victor, born in 1735 is probably the same Victor Forest found after the Expulsion in Connecticut in 1763, married, with 3 children.
  • Marie Josèphe’s next child, Joseph Forest was born on February 8, 1737 in Annapolis Royal and a supplemental baptism was performed on June 9, 1737. Godparents were Honnoré Le Prince, Marie Josèphe’s brother, and Catherine Joseph Forest, Jacques’ sister. It would have been quite cold in February which is probably why they didn’t brave the river for an immediate baptism.

Some have suggested that this Joseph is the Benoist Forest recorded in Connecticut who petitioned to go to France in 1763.

  • Anne Forest was born and baptized on April 15, 1739, in Annapolis Royal. Godparents were Joseph Le Prince, Marie Josèphe’s brother, and Anne Forest, Jacques’ sister.
  • Pierre Forest was born and baptized on July 8, 1741, in Annapolis Royal. Godparents were Pierre Le Prince, Marie Josèphe’s brother, and Elisabeth Godet, sometimes called Isabelle, Marie Josèphe’s second cousin, and Jacques’ third cousin.

These families had lived on both sides of this river for generations, and Godparents who were typically family members or very close friends were one way of assuring that someone was designated, and agreed in front of God and everyone present, to parent orphan children should the unthinkable occur.

  • Marie Josèphe Forest was born and baptized on March 15, 1743, in Annapolis Royal. Godparents were Jean Forest, brother of Jacques and also the husband of the other godparent, Anne Richard, daughter of Marie Josèphe’s aunt.
  • Félicité Forest was born on November 13, 1745, and baptized two days later on November 15, 1745. Godparents were Pierre Bastarache, who lived just upriver, and Felicité Bourgeois.
  • Marguerite Forest (Laforet) was born and baptized on January 16, 1748, in Annapolis Royal. Marguerite is the only one of Marie Josèphe’s children we conclusively know anything about after the 1755 Expulsion – aside from the fact that this Acadian family was exiled to Connecticut.

Marguerite Forest married Francois LaFay (Lafaille) someplace in New England on November 10, 1767, before a justice of the peace due to the lack of a priest. Their marriage was revalidated on June 23, 1792, at Sainte-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie in Quebec. She died in L’Acadie, Quebec, on February 16, 1819, at age 71.

  • Charles Tranquille Forest was born on February 14, 1750, and baptized the same day in Annapolis Royal. Godparents were Joseph Hebert and Marie Beliveau. He may have been the Charles Fores, “about 20 years of age” who died on August 7, 1770 and was buried at Sainte-Geneviève church in Montreal. The witnesses were Joseph Lefebre and Joseph Hetier.
  • Michel Forest was born and baptized on June 9, 1753, in Annapolis Royal. Godparents were Isidore Beliveau and Anne Forest.

Marie Josèphe and Jacques had baptized nine children over a period of 18 years. None of their children had yet married, so we really don’t know if these children survived to adulthood, although we find no burials in the parish records.

Their lives were about to change in a way that they could only have imagined in their worst nightmares.

Given that Marie Josèphe’s last known child was born in June of 1753, and she was only 38, it’s probable that she had at least one if not two or maybe even three or four more children.

The 1755 Expulsion Order

It was in the heat of the summer, July 28, 1755, that the horrific Expulsion order was signed by Governor Charles Lawrence of Nova Scotia, and with the drying of the ink, their fates were sealed.

The order was first read to the horrified Acadian men who had been summoned and gathered in the church at Grand Pré on September 5th, 1755.

The Acadian men were held hostage in the church for around five weeks while the women were rounded up separately, ordered to gather their children, and prepare for departure as soon as the transport ships arrived. More than half of the people herded onto the ships were children.

From the museum at Grand Pré.

The reading was followed by the agonizing deportation itself.

According to John Winslow’s journal, the women were in great distress, carrying their children while others pushed their decrepit parents in their carts towards the ships with all their goods.

Everything, absolutely everything, was stripped away from the Acadians and forfeited to the English.

By December, the same process was being carried out against the Acadians in Port Royal where Marie Josèphe and her family lived.

Walk the Wharf

The Acadians were rounded up like so many cattle, and herded onto English transport ships waiting in the river in Annapolis Royal, formerly Port Royal, at the foot of the fort.

The English wanted the Acadians’ land for much more pliable and cooperative New England settlers – and they extracted it from the Acadians in a horrific, genocidal, clean sweep.

The families were forced to leave their homes and livestock behind. They could hear their pets and livestock, calling to be fed and milked – but there was nothing they could do to save them. They couldn’t even save themselves.

They carried what they could as they walked to the end of the wharf, overseen by English soldiers, but the ships were overcrowded, and they were forced to leave everything they carried beside the wharf.

Forced below deck in cramped quarters, with no provisions for bathroom facilities, many died. Some ships sank during a winter crossing that one could argue was meant to thin the population. The last thing the Acadians saw were their homes and farms burning, and in many cases, their family members being forced to board different ships. Not only did many never find each other again, we have never found them in records since, either.

Poor Marie Josèphe, with however many of her nine children were living, and very probably heavily pregnant. We can only hope that she managed to keep all nine of her children with her, and they weren’t separated onto different ships.

On December 8th, early in the morning, they sailed away from Port Royal, forever, amid incredibly crowded and abhorrent conditions.

God help Marie Josèphe if she delivered a baby on that horrific transport ship, below deck, in the freezing cold, surrounded by filthy frigid seawater and death amid the slurry of human excrement.

I can’t even go there. If she did deliver a child under those circumstances, the baby assuredly perished.

We have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not Marie Josèphe had any children after 1755, or if they survived.

The ship that Marie Josèphe and Jacques were on landed someplace in Connecticut. Let’s hope that they were on the ship, Elizabeth, with her 280 unwilling passengers that arrived on January 21, 1756. Three people had died, so 277 paupers were now totally dependent on the charity of others for their mere existence.

If they weren’t on the ship, Elizabeth, then they may have been among the unfortunate people aboard the ship, Edward, with 278 passengers. The Edward was blown off course by a violent storm. She finally landed at Antigua with gravely ill passengers. Several had already died at sea, and more perished in Antigua. The ship eventually continued on to Connecticut, arriving on May 22, 1756, with only about 180 people. Roughly 100 had been claimed by malaria and other maladies.

Upon arrival, the refugees were forced to burn all of their remaining possessions on the beach before being allowed ashore, in case of contamination. The officials didn’t know what kind of diseases had killed so many, and they certainly didn’t want them sharing whatever they had with people in Connecticut.

There may have been a third ship, Two Sisters, that also departed Annapolis Royal on December 8th, along with the other two, with 280 people aboard, but there is no further record, although one record suggests another ship arrived on January 22nd and another possibly on the 30th.

Yet another vessel reportedly left with between 250 and 280 unwilling passengers, but never arrived. It could have sunk, or may have been replaced by the Elizabeth, but we will never know. Records are very sparse, confusing, and inconclusive.

There is no Port Royal roster of Acadians either before the Expulsion, when boarding ships, or after landing, but some families have been tentatively reconstructed from later records.

The last thing the Acadians saw of Port Royal was smoke as the English burned their homes, barns, and farms so there was no question in their minds that there was nothing left to return “home” to. The English hoped this would prevent the Acadians from trying.

Exile in Connecticut

Fortunately, Jacques and Marie Josèphe, along with their family, wound up in Connecticut. This luck of the draw fell in their favor for a change.

According to Acadie:

“In general, the approximately 1,000 Acadians deported to Connecticut were treated with respect. A law concerning their distribution throughout the settlement was adopted by the colonial Legislature in advance of their arrival, which allowed the citizens to prepare themselves for cohabitation. In some cases, Connecticut citizens made unoccupied homes available to Acadian families. Others funded the trip of Acadians wishing to resettle in Quebec via the Albany, Hudson, and Richelieu rivers through lakes George and Champlain.”

Little is known about the exile of the Forest family in Connecticut after the 1755 Expulsion, although we can piece a little together. The commentary above regarding Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River may be important.

We do know that both Jacques and Marie Josèphe survived, because Jacques eventually signed a petition requesting relocation to France. Under the Treaty of Paris of 1763, Acadian exiles had 19 months to leave British North America for any French colony.

The Acadians quickly signed petitions requesting transportation to Nova Scotia, Quebec, France, or the French West Indies.

Jacques, with 10 family members, petitioned for removal to France.

Also on the list were Victor Forest and Benoist (possibly Joseph) Forest with their families. The petition for transportation to France was denied for all 666 Acadians who signed the petition. Some migrated to Saint Domingue, some to Louisiana, New Brunswick, or Quebec, and others remained in Connecticut.

Reconstructing the Family Using the Petition

The only glimpse we have of Jacques Forest and family in Connecticut is the petition after the 1763 Treaty of Paris. Some have reported that the petition date was actually in 1767, but that doesn’t make sense because it’s outside the 19-month window.

In 1763, Marie Josèphe’s known children would have been:

  • Victor – age 28
  • Joseph – age 26
  • Anne – age 24
  • Pierre – age 22
  • Marie Josèphe – age 20
  • Felicite – age 18
  • Marguerite – age 15
  • Charles – age 13
  • Michel – age 10

Here’s what we do know:

  • Jacques Fourest indicated that his family consisted of 10 people, which one must presume included both he and Marie Josèphe plus 8 children. He was petitioning for passage to France.
  • Adjacent his request is Mathieu Forest with 6 people. Mathieu is probably the son of Rene Forest, so is Jacques’ brother.
  • Marie Josèphe and Jacques’ presumed son, Victor, asks for passage for 5, which would include himself, his wife, and 3 children.
  • Listed beside Victor is Benoist, with 5 persons. Benoist could be Joseph, as there was no baptism for a Benoist or anything similar.
  • Two further down the list is Jean-Pierre Fouret, with 7 persons, who would be another brother of Jacques Forest.

Thus, this leaves us with Jacques Forest and Marie Josèphe LePrince, excluding Victor and Benoist, assuming they are their children. We know of a total of 9 births through 1753, which leaves (at least) 7 children at home, assuming everyone lived and no more were born after arrival in Connecticut. By the way, neither of those assumptions are safe. Therefore, one of three things has occurred:

  • Benoist is not their child, so Joseph, now age 30, is still at home, has died, lives elsewhere, or did not petition for removal to France.
  • Benoist is their child, and they had another child in either 1755 or after, who survived.
  • They are raising someone else’s child or children.

Assuming the Jacque who petitioned for removal with a family of 10 is our Jacque, that tells us that 7 or 8 of their children are still living at home. Other than Victor, their children in 1767 would have been 30, 28, 26, 24, 22, 19, and 14. Of course, we can’t account for any children born after they arrived in Connecticut.

For all nine of their children to survive that hellish winter crossing in the worst possible conditions seems nearly impossible. Yet, on the ship, Elizabeth, only three people are reported to have died. Perhaps they were fortunate, and not only did all of their children survive that passage, they survived everything else too.

The fact that they have that many surviving children suggests strongly that they were NOT on the Edward that was blown off course to Antigua, where more than one third of the passengers perished.

That’s at least some small relief. What they did have to endure was bad enough.

We know almost nothing about what happened to the Forest family after 1763, except for daughter Marguerite, who married Françoise Lafaille (Lafay) and ultimately settled in L’Acadie, Province of Quebec, and possibly Charles Forest, who may have died in the same province in 1770 at age 20.

We don’t know when or where Jacques Forest or deForest died, but it was likely in Connecticut. By 1767, he would have been about 60 years old, and given the one tidbit we know about Marguerite, the family likely remained there for at least the rest of Jacques and Marie Josèphe’s lives.

I can’t help but wonder how many of my unknown autosomal DNA matches that I absolutely cannot place, but cluster with distant Acadian cousins, are due to the displaced family members who “disappeared” in Connecticut and elsewhere.

Marie Josèphe’s Daughter, Marguerite DeForest

Marguerite DeForest, born in 1748, was exiled along with her family to Connecticut. She married Francois Lafay in the colonies in 1767 and had her first 10 children wherever it was that they lived.

Her eldest daughter, Marie Lafay (LaFaille), was born about 1767, so would have known her grandparents, or at least her grandmother, Marie Josèphe, well.

After moving north to L’Acadie, Quebec, along the Richelieu River, about 1788, Marie later told Protestant Missionaries that her elderly grandmother, who would have been Marie Josèphe LePrince, became upset in about 1787 because her grandchildren were losing both their Catholic religion and their culture. Marie had been educated in Protestant schools, given that Catholicism could not be practiced in the colonies.

Therefore, the rest of Marie Josèphe’s children would have been educated in Protestant schools as well. Marie indicated that she was leaning towards the Protestant religion, herself, which would have been her grandmother’s nightmare come true. Especially given how much the Acadians had sacrificed to maintain their freedom to worship as Catholics.

Marie said that her grandmother made the decision to “send the family back to Canada,” which is how they wound up in L’Acadie, south of the St. Lawrence River, across from Montreal.

Marie Josèphe would have been 77 years old in 1787. What we don’t know is whether Marie Josèphe stayed behind in New England or accompanied all or part of her family who relocated.

Either way, by the 1790 census in Connecticut, Marie Josèphe (LePrince) Forest, DeForest, or any similar spelling or recognizable name is not to be found. If she was still living, she was probably residing with someone else, but we have no idea who or where. It’s also possible that she was living in Massachusetts or another location in New England.

Marie Josèphe’s granddaughter, Marie LaFay, was given a Bible by Pliny Moore who was associated first with Sheffield and Spencertown, Massachusetts, then with Vermont and Champlain, New York, which is just down the Richelieu River and across the border from the location in L’Acadie, Quebec where the LaFay family settled.

Pliny Moore, about 8 years older than Marie, may well have been her heartthrob. He was an American military Lieutenant, a Baptist, and then a Congregational Church leader. Marie LaFay cherished that Bible for the rest of her life, even after it was taken away from her and she was forbidden to read it. As an adult, Marie eventually converted away from the Catholic Church.

This connection to Pliny, along with “a fearful disappointment”, described by Marie, was likely the motivating factor for Marie Josèphe to become upset in 1787 because her children were “losing their religion and culture.” That’s when Marie Josèphe decided that her family needed to remove themselves from under the influence of a location where Catholicism could not be freely practiced. Her granddaughter, after all, was at risk, which probably meant the rest of her grandchildren were too.

Marie confessed years later that she had encouraged her father to make the 1788 trip to Canada following that “fearful disappointment.”

I strongly suspect that Marie had marital aspirations towards Pliny, an affection that was not returned in the same way. Pliny married someone else in January 1787, in Vermont.

It’s worth noting here that in 1816,  Marie somehow obtained Bibles for all of her children from Pliny, who was then living in Champlain, New York on Lake Champlain, near the mouth of the Richelieu River, about 60 miles away.

Marie Josèphe’s Final Years

From granddaughter Marie’s information, we know that Marie Josèphe LePrince was living in 1787 and wanted her children to move to Canada. We know that Marie encouraged her father, Francois Lafay (Lafaille), to visit Canada and select a site there. We know that Marie’s family, including both parents and their 10 children relocated to Canada in 1788.

In July 1788, Marie Josèphe’ daughter, Marguerite DeForest and her husband had three of their children baptized into the Catholic Church, and in September, the family rented a farm, clearly settling in permanently.

On January 6th of 1789, Marie and two of her sisters were baptized into the Catholic Church at Ste. Marguerite de Blairfindie at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, on the Richelieu River, which empties into Lake Champlain.

If Marie Josèphe was lucky, she was present for those baptisms, closing the loop on restoring their Acadian heritage. She never returned home to her beloved Acadia along the river in Nova Scotia, but the new L’Acadie, built by many of the same families, was the next best thing.

All of this information, combined, probably places Marie Josèphe’s death after 1787 and before 1790, although nothing is certain.

Of course, there would be no death records in the States, but if Marie Josèphe went to Quebec with her daughter’s family and died there in 1788 or after, it’s likely that her death and burial would have been recorded in the parish register. Of course, parish registers aren’t necessarily complete, and she may have remained wherever she was living – which I suspect was someplace near enough to Lake Champlain that Marie had the opportunity to meet Pliny.

Marie Josèphe was probably incredibly relieved that her daughter and grandchildren had made it back to a French, Catholic, Acadian environment. Perhaps that relieved her mind enough that she was free to “go on” and meet her maker.

All things considered, it’s amazing that Marie Josèphe overcame so many obstacles to live so long. Given what she faced, before the days of modern medicine, it’s remarkable that she lived to be at least 72.

In the closing days of her life, Marie Josèphe LePrince was able to salvage at least something of her Acadian heritage by returning her daughter, along with her grandchildren, back to an Acadian resettlement region of Canada.

In L’Acadie, Marie Josèphe’s beloved Acadian culture, including their Catholic faith, endured and did not perish!

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A Forest of Fathers: FamilyTreeDNA’s Y-DNA Tree Tops 100,000 Branches

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Congratulations to FamilyTreeDNA and all of their customers who contributed to this absolutely monumental milestone. The Y-DNA tree has now reached 100,000 branches.

Chart courtest of FamilyTreeDNA

I knew they were getting close because the official January numbers were 99,777.

Congratulations to the entire team, but especially to Michael Sager, Senior Phylogeneticist, who has been the chief architect of the tree “forever.” This is definitely his baby.

Here’s Michael in 2020 at RootsTech discussing the Y-DNA tree construction methodology.

The Y-DNA tree is built using the results of 698,000 individual Y-DNA testers, plus thousands of both academic and ancient results.

These 100,000 tree branches are built from 857,000 variants, known as SNP mutations. Think of those as a huge 857,000-piece puzzle that Michael Sager has spent the past decade assembling into the Y-DNA tree of mankind, reaching all the way back to Y-DNA Adam.

In the tree today, haplogroup A-PR2021, named for variant or SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) PR2921, is Y-DNA Adam, who lived in Africa about 234,000 years ago.

Click on any image to enlarge

FamilyTreeDNA has made their entire Y-DNA tree public and free, and that’s in addition to the baker’s dozen reports available through Discover for each haplogroup.

Let’s take a look!

The Public Y-DNA Tree by Country

You can view the public Y-DNA tree, here, and can select to view the tree by:

  • Variants (mutations) that define each haplogroup
  • Country
  • Surname

For example, here is the oldest, or top portion of the tree, using “by Country,” the first of three options.

Notice two things at far right:

  • There may be a “+” when there are too many countries to display
  • The 3 dots

Clicking on the three dots provides you with the option for a “Country Report” or “Surname Report” for that specific haplogroup.

The Country Report shows the number of haplogroup members from each country. Remember that countries are self-reported by the testers. The country should be the location where the tester’s earliest known paternal ancestor (EKA) was living or from.

You can see how many people are members of this specific branch, and in the next column, how many people are members of this branch plus all “son” or downstream branches. One column excludes new haplogroup letters (when a different base haplogroup is formed), and the other includes all downstream haplogroups, even if the beginning branch letter changes. The final “Distribution” column shows the percentage of people in that haplogroup who originated from each country.

In this case, 43% are from the US, which probably means that they are brick-walled here, given that the only people originally “from” the United States were Native Americans who fall into specific subclades of haplogroups C and Q.

If you’d like more information about A-V148, or any other haplogroup, you can go to Discover and enter a haplogroup name. I always check the Ancient Connections because archaeological remains anchor haplogroups in a particular place at a particular time. We’ll cover more about Discover in a minute.

The Public Y-DNA Tree by Variant

This haplotree view “by Variant” shows the variants, or SNP mutations, that identify each haplogroup.

You can see that Haplogroup A-PR2921, the granddaddy of the tree, is based on only one mutation, PR2921, which is also the haplogroup name. This means two things:

  • Every haplogroup beneath this branch on the tree also has the mutation, PR2921, which is how we know it’s the “original” founding mutation
  • This haplogroup cannot be split further, because there are no additional variants

For example, look at the branch, A-L1090, the first “child haplogroup” of A-PR2921. A-L1090 has the 26 mutations displayed, plus more, for a total of 695.

This means that as more men test, there are literally more than 695 opportunities for various men to match on a unique subset of those mutations, plus new mutations never discovered before, forming new haplogroups.

Some lines have died out over time, and others may be quite rare. This is the perfect example of why it’s important for every male to take the Big Y test, aside from genealogy.

Looking on down the tree to the next haplogroup “generation,” we can see that haplogroup A-V148 has 21 descendant haplogroups, but its sibling subclade, A-V168 has 99,967 – essentially the rest of the tree.

The Public Y-DNA Tree by Surname

Viewing the tree “by Surname” can be very useful. Surnames are shown beside their haplogroup if there are two or more individuals:

  • With the same spelling of the surname who are assigned to this haplogroup
  • Who are members of a public DNA Group Project
  • Who have given permission for their information to be displayed publicly within the project

You can see that haplogroup A-V148 has one surname showing – Goddard.

Haplogroup A-M31 shows four: Bass, Johnson, Evans and Cruise.

Clicking on the three dots shows the Surname Report.

This report reveals that there are seven men with the Goddard surname and no other surnames are currently lissted for this haplogroup.

You might be a member of this haplogroup even if your surname isn’t Goddard. Surnames were only adopted in the past few hundred years, and many have changed during that time for a wide variety of reasons, including spelling variations. Not everyone who is in the matching database has joined a project, so they may show up on your match list, but not be visible here.

Since we know that several Goddard men are in some project, how do we figure out which project or projects they have joined?

Discover’s Suggested Projects

Go to Discover and enter the haplogroup. Click the big orange “Search” button, which will display the Haplogroup Story page for that haplogroup.  .

From the Discover menu at left, select “Suggested Projects”.

For haplogroup A-V148, 10 projects are listed based on which projects members of this haplogroup have joined or on project administrator settings. Those projects alone may provide ancestral hints. Many people, if not most, join multiple projects, such as haplogroup projects, surname projects, and geographic or ethnic projects.

You can click through to any of the projects listed for any haplogroup to take a look. I use my browser search function to search for specific surnames on project pages.

You may find that someone who descends from your ancestor has tested and is waiting for you to match them – plus other genealogical hints as well.

Is Your Surname in the Database?

How can you tell whether your surname is in the database? That’s a great question!

In the public tree, there’s a “Search by Surname” feature. I searched for Estes, and discovered that Estes appears on 8 different branches of haplogroup R. Next, I need to click on haplogroup R, which is directly beneath the search box.

This doesn’t mean there are only 8 men who have tested, but that they are found on 8 different tree branches.

Remember that men who obtain a Family Finder haplogroup are also included on the free Public Tree, so I’ll probably find some Estes men on higher branches of the tree than they would appear if they had taken a Big Y-700 DNA test. Hopefully, they will upgrade, which will help them and all Estes descendants by piecing together our Estes lineages.

Sure enough, using my browser search to search for “Estes”, I discovered the name included with 500 other surnames in haplogroup R-L21, in R-DF49, in R-1690, and then the goldmine – four haplogroups that have ONLY the surname Estes listed.

These are our Estes twigs on the haplotree’s branches, and define four lines that begin with Silvester Estes born in 1522 in Kent, England. These haplogroups are how we proved where our line originated, and how we place testers who are uncertain about their genealogy on their correct tree branches today.

Don’t forget about both the surname and country reports available to the right when searching by surname in the Public Tree. You can also navigate to Discover to learn more about any of these haplogroups in which your surname appears.

Iff you’re an Estes male, you may or may not land in one of these haplogroups. You might even be a member of a different lineage altogether. The only way you’ll know is to take the Big Y-700 test, or minimally, the introductory 37 and 111 marker tests to view your matches. These entry-level tests provide a predicted haplogroup based on STR markers, but you’ll only be placed in your proper place in the tree with the definitive Big Y-700 test. I wrote about the difference between STRs and SNPs here.

Obviously, Y-DNA is only applicable to biologically male testers who have a Y chromosome, and you’ll only see surnames on the tree if multiple people with that exact surname have tested and joined projects, but there’s one more place to look if you want to see how many people with your surname have tested at FamilyTreeDNA.

Group Projects Search

In the footer of every FamilyTreeDNA page, under Community, you’ll find “Group Projects.” No, I don’t know why they buried this tool here, because I find it very useful, and you’ll never find it if you don’t know where to look. But now you do!

Enter the surname you are seeking and click “Search.”

You’ll see at the bottom of the search results page that 391 people whose surname is spelled exactly “Estes” have taken a DNA test at FamilyTreeDNA.

Clearly, some will be males, and others female, and they may have:

  • Taken the autosomal Family Finder test
  • Uploaded an autosomal test from another vendor
  • Taken the mitochondrial DNA direct matrilineal test (your mother’s mother’s mother’s direct line through all females)
  • Taken a Y-DNA test (males only) for the direct patrilineal (surname) line

Lots of people in the database will be descended from Estes ancestors, but won’t carry the surname. This search is an invaluable resource for genealogists seeking their ancestors’ surnames and lineages. Check it out by entering the surnames of your four grandparents and see what’s there!

I use this search tool, combined with projects to find actual testers who represent my ancestral lines and their haplogroups. Then I search the public tree and use Discover to learn about my ancestors. Which brings me back to why this milestone is so important.

Congratulations on a HUGE Milestone for Mankind

The trip to 100,000 haplotree branches was a long and sometimes challenging road. What an amazing accomplishment! Today, the tree is growing at warp speed, but it began with “horses and buggies” in 2003.

  • In 2003, the YCC Consortium published a paper defining the structure of the Y-DNA tree which, then, consisted of 153 branches based only on 243 SNPs. That’s all that had been discovered in academia at the time. But citizen science was coming into its own and many more haplogroup discoveries would soon follow, thanks to our testing pioneers.
  • In 2006, ISOGG committed to developing and maintaining a public, manually curated haplotree based on SNPs discovered at different labs. The ISOGG tree was published annually, with the final version released in July 2020.
  • In 2006, there were about 250 branches on the Y-DNA tree and SNP discoveries were rare events. Today, with the Big Y-700, new SNP discoveries occur at the rate of several hundred per week, thanks to the testing public.
  • In 2010, the YCC consortium released its final tree that included only 440 branches.
  • In 2013, FamilyTreeDNA introduced the Big Y test, which used the newer NGS (next generation sequencing) scanning technique instead of targeting specific locations on the Y-chromosome. The Big Y-700 test scans millions of locations in the gold standard region of the Y chromosome. It reads known Y-DNA SNP locations for haplogroup placement, but also identifies mutations not previously discovered that are often lineage-specific. That’s the key to identifying new haplogroups. Haplogroups are literally named after their SNP.
  • 2018 was a banner year. There were 17,966 branches on the tree.
  • By 2018, the haplotree was benefiting from what was termed a “SNP tsunami,” which rapidly expanded the tree. In June, 2018, FamilyTreeDNA named their 100,000th SNP. That too was a huge milestone, which I wrote about, here. Not every SNP discovered becomes its own haplogroup, of course, but they all must be placed appropriately on the tree.
  • In September of 2018, FamilyTreeDNA introduced their Public Tree.
  • That avalanche of SNP discovery meant that the volunteer-maintained ISOGG tree was struggling mightily to keep up with the onslaught, publishing one final tree in 2020. The landscape had changed. A yearly, independent tree that compiled information from multiple sources was no longer necessary. Haplogroup and SNP discoveries were being made almost exclusively at FamilyTreeDNA, who publishes and maintains their Y-DNA tree organically as SNPs are discovered and added to the tree.
  • In December 2021, the FamilyTreeDNA Y-DNA haplotree reached 50,000 branches. I wrote about that milestone, here.
  • In just over four years, that has doubled at a rate of about about 1000 new branches per month. That’s mind-boggling!
  • On February 5, 2026, the haplotree reached 100,000 branches! I checked earlier today (Feb. 6th) and there are already 39 more haplogroups. No moss growing under their feet. They’ve reached for the treetops and gone beyond!

Reaching 100,000 branches on the Y-DNA tree is an absolutely amazing achievement, both scientifically and genealogically. Perhaps best of all, reconstructing the lineage and paths of our ancestors is the only way we can reach indefinitely back in time. Beyond surnames and far beyond what autosomal DNA can touch.

Based on that, we can add genetic anthropology to the fields that have benefited immensely from the achievements of the tree. Conversely, genetic anthropology has contributed to the construction of the tree with the sequencing of ancient DNA results, allowing thousands of ancient samples to be incorporated.

Every contemporary haplogroup descends from Y-DNA Adam. Given that Adam lived at least 234,000 years ago, that represents about 9,360 direct-line ancestors (at 25 years per generation) for each one of us. At 20 years per generation, we have 11,700. Wouldn’t Y-line Adam be utterly dumbstruck to learn that he has 8 billion descendants, of which slightly more than half are males who still carry his defining haplogroup mutation, A-PR2021!

Thanks to the FamilyTreeDNA public Y-DNA tree and searches, plus the amazing Discover tools, we can now peel back the curtain of time on both recent and distant ancestors by walking our haplogroups back one at a time until we meet our earliest ancestor of all – Adam

Want to Meet Adam? Here’s How You Can Participate

You can participate in building the Y-DNA tree of humankind and meet Adam by taking a Big Y-700 DNA test, which you can order here. If you’re a female, you can sponsor a Y-DNA test for a male relative, such as a father, uncle, or brother who represents one of your surname lines. But don’t stop with your own paternal line – reach out and make those same discoveries for all of your ancestral lines! Your ancestors are waiting to meet you!!

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Getting Ready for RootsTech 2026

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RootsTech, March 5-7, 2026, will be here before you know it. Behind the scenes, people are scurrying around like crazy!

Let’s take a peek!

You’d Think January Would Be Quiet…

January seems like it would be a quiet, “down” time, after the holidays, but for many of us, it’s not. It would seem like the holidays would be a time to relax and catch up, but I always get further behind and face a ton of emails in January. (I’m still very behind with those.)

No small part of my January issue is self-imposed, though not all of it.

Let me explain.

  • I’ve always strived for one industry or technical blog article each week. Something about a tool, a product, a how-to article, industry news, something useful and educational. I can’t write an article without using and understanding the tools, so these articles take a substantial amount of time to prepare.
  • I also strive for one “52 Ancestors” article each week, typically published on the weekend. While these articles reconstruct the lives of my ancestors, they include a great deal of genealogy research, instructional content, and a substantial amount of history that affected the lives of anyone who lived in that location or during that time. While the topic is my ancestor, these articles are useful far beyond my own genealogy.

As an aside, many people read these articles as a short-story series. Working on each article draws me close to each ancestor individually. I literally walk through their life beside them – joys, sorrows, deaths, where they lived, what was happening around them – birth to burial.

  • Of course, then there’s “everything else.” Other articles, interviews, my contractual work, collaborating with others, and of course, some smidgen of personal time.

January is Different

But the reason January is different, on steroids, is threefold:

  • It’s the month that speakers begin planning and preparing for sessions they will be giving during the rest of the year.
  • For US business owners, it’s when we begin gathering the information for business taxes, which are due March 15th, a week after RootsTech, which means that we have to get the information to our preparer long before RootsTech. I’m not exaggerating to say this is one of my LEAST favorite activities ever.
  • However, the third challenge is RootsTech itself.

RootsTech 2026

RootsTech, held March 5-7 this year in Salt Lake City, is the granddaddy of all genealogy conferences. I’m fortunate to be able to attend and present – and I’m grateful for that opportunity. But there’s a huge amount of prep, and while some of it happens in December, most of it falls in January.

I’m often asked about what it takes to create a presentation, or put more bluntly, “Why does it take so long? All you have to do is throw together a few Powerpoints.” So, here’s the backstory.

I can’t speak for other presenters, but every 45-minute presentation that I create takes about a week.

If you’re stunned, every one of my slides includes images and often graphics that I create. The slide content needs to be balanced, readable, and not distracting form the point I’m trying to make. It needs to flow smoothly from the prior slide, and to the next one.

It goes without saying that I have to verify everything, sometimes with a vendor, sometimes making sure features still work the way I think they do, or did, the logic is accurate, and that any math maths.

Many screenshots used for articles and presentations need to be blurred, and I need to be sure I don’t accidentally compromise someone’s privacy.

It seems there are 1000 little things. Ok, so maybe only 100!

Syllabus: Oh, you want a syllabus too? Well, that’s another document which often has to be formatted in a specific way, and must be between x and y pages long. Some requirements for different conferences are very specific, down to the font.

The presentation must “fit” into its allocated time, say, generally 45 or 50 minutes, without me talking at 150 MPH with the audience feeling rushed, and provide enough information to be both useful and entertaining. This means that presenters must practice, refine, practice. You get the drift.

Additionally, when working in a tech field, like DNA, vendors change things, often, and you need to review your presentation just before the conference to be sure the screenshots and information are still current. Speakers watch every announcement between presentation creation and the conference with an eye to changes. I swear, it never fails that the night before, I’m always trying to update my presentation because a vendor updated their website. One time it was literally at the podium. That was way too close for comfort.

RootsTech must manage and coordinate hundreds of presenters, their presentations and syllabi, lots of technology, and massive logistics. In order to do so:

  • Pre-recorded sessions are due to RootsTech at the end of December.
  • For other speakers, copies of their PowerPoint presentations and syllabi are due by January 25th so RootsTech can review, check for any issues, and make any last-minute changes. (Hint – you may not see another blog article for the next 10 days.)

All things considered, RootsTech does a great job, but last-minute schedule changes do occur, so be sure to check your planned schedule closer to and daily during RootsTech.

My 2026 RootsTech Sessions

Pre-Recorded Session:

  • X-DNA Basics for Genealogists, a recorded session that will be available in the FamilyTreeDNA virtual booth, which means that everyone will be able to watch. The great news is that the vendor booths and their contents will be visible in the Expo Hall, both in person and virtually, entirely free. You don’t need to register to attend RootsTech to view the vendor booths, but there’s no reason not to, because online registration is free.

Live-Streamed Session:

  • I’ll be presenting Mapping Maternal Connections: Where Science Meets Genealogy on the Updated mtDNA Tree of Humankind for FamilyTreeDNA as a member of the R&D team that developed the new Mitotree. This will be a fun session that explains why mitochondrial DNA matters, covers the latest update, and how the new Mitotree, along with Discover, provides genealogists with new tools to break through brick walls.

The date and time for this session have not yet been confirmed, so check the schedule moving forward.

You must register for RootsTech Online to access live-streamed sessions remotely. They are added to the RootsTech on-demand library for later viewing.

In-Person Sessions

I’m fortunate to have two in-person sessions this year. Neither are being live-streamed or recorded, so I hope to see you in person.

  • Mitochondrial DNA to Z: My Results Are Back, Now What? Everyone is excited when their DNA test results are back, but what do you do next? How do you use them most effectively? What do those numbers means and why are they important? If these questions sound familiar, this is just the class for you. We will take results, step-by-step through all of the reports and tools and help you interpret what they mean and how to use them for genealogy using a case study.

This session is currently scheduled on March 5th, at 4:30 PM, Mountain Time. Please see the Schedule Warning section below.

  • Y-DNA to Z: My Results Are Back, Now What? Would you like to understand how to use your Y-DNA results for genealogy? What do those numbers mean and why are they important? This is just the class for you. We will take Y-DNA results, including the Big Y-700, step-by-step through all of the reports and tools and help you interpret what they mean and how to use them for genealogy. We’ll close with “next steps”, so you have a plan to understand your own Y-DNA message, PLUS how to create a genetic tree to reveal the messages from your other ancestors too. Females don’t have a Y chromosome, but we have fathers, brothers and male family members to test.

This session is currently scheduled on March 6th, at 3 PM, Mountain Time. Please see the Schedule Warning below.

Schedule Warning!!

When viewing sessions on the RootsTech website, the date and time displayed on your computer is the date and time that the event occurs USING YOUR LOCAL TIME!! The RootsTech website uses the time on your computer and adjusts the RootsTech session time displayed to your local time.

That’s fine if you’re attending online, but it’s NOT fine if you’re trying to plan an in-person schedule around travel time and other commitments.

For example, here’s the time displayed for my Y-DNA session. You can see that it says 5 PM, which is GMT-5, and that’s the time where I live, not in Salt Lake City which, during RootsTech, is GMT-7.

This session is NOT available virtually, so anyone who wants to attend will need to do so in person in Salt Lake City. However, the local time, in Salt Lake City, that this session will be taking place is 3 PM, not 5 PM.

In prior years, when I’ve scheduled these sessions in my phone, I wound up having to go back and change the time of every session after arriving in SLC – so that just adds to the confusion. Check your phone after arriving to be sure your sessions are shown in their correct time slot.

One more possible glitch this year is that Salt Lake City time changes at 2 AM on the day following RootsTech. Be sure to factor this time difference into your schedule if you’re planning to fly on Sunday, March 8, the day after RootsTech.

Bottom line – when planning your RootsTech events, be sure to calculate the local time and not your system time, unless you’ll be attending virtually. Also, be sure to check your schedule often in case either schedule or room changes have been made.

Register

Be sure to register for RootsTech. Online is free, and in-person only costs $129 for a 3-day pass, which is a great value for everything that’s offered.

When you register for RootsTech, you’ll be able to use their complimentary conference schedule planning feature which is infinitely helpful. If you’re planning to attend any session, adding it to your RootsTech calendar helps RootsTech with room size planning – getting the right speakers in the right rooms to properly accommodate the audience size.

If you have more questions, here’s the RootsTech FAQ.

Personal Note

On a personal note, RootsTech isn’t just a conference, it’s a clan gathering, a homecoming for genealogists where we meet and mingle with other genealogists. Where we find cousins, both new and old. It’s a place to bask in the genealogy glow with our peeps and discuss historical events, new technology, old maps and common ancestors. It’s a reunion, a place of excited greetings and infinite hugs.

Me with Mags Gaulden in 2018

I know this sounds sappy, but it’s absolutely true. It’s the only place many of us see each other. We have a great deal of fun and cherish every minute!

Come make some priceless memories.

I hope to see you there!

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Jean Blanchard (c1611 – 1686/90), First Footfall to Final Farewell – 52 Ancestors #467

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Before I share Jean Blanchard’s life story, I’m going to confess right up front that while all of my ancestors’ stories move me, this one was particularly heartwrenching. Incredibly emotional. Just get the box of tissues and a cuppa tea and settle in. We’re going on a journey together, and we’re visiting Jean.

I was as shocked at what I discovered as you’re going to be.

Meet Jean

Jean Blanchard was among the founding Acadians in Port Royal.

He was born about 1611 and probably arrived in Acadia around 1639 or 1640, but possibly a few years earlier or later. By 1642, he had married Radegonde Lambert, who was born in the 1620s in France. They settled down in Port Royal to raise their family, with their first child born about 1643.

Jean Blanchard has been a difficult ancestor to write about because there is so much misinformation about him floating around in well-meaning but unsourced files and trees. I’m not repeating any of that, except to say that I’ll vote with the late Stephen A. White, renowned Acadian genealogist and researcher, who assigns no parents to Jean, despite decades of rumors and conflated information that states otherwise. For discussion, please see Jean Blanchard’s WikiTree profile, here.

Cousin Mark’s research later in this article provides additional information, never before reported.

The French Depositions

One source of information about the Blanchard family are the Belle-Ile-en-Mer depositions given by Acadian refugees who were attempting to resettle in France a dozen traumatic years after the 1755 Expulsion – long after Jean’s death.

From Stephen A. White, translated to English with slight edits for punctuation and clarity:

Jean Blanchard came from France with his wife, according to Jean LeBlanc, husband of his great-granddaughter Françoise Blanchard (Doc. inéd., Vol. III, p. 43).

The deposition of Françoise’s nephews, Joseph Trahan and Simon-Pierre Trahan, is to the same effect (ibid., p. 123). Both depositions mistakenly give Guillaume as the ancestor’s given name. Jean LeBlanc’s deposition makes an additional error regarding the name of Jean Blanchard’s wife, calling her Huguette Poirier.

The censuses of 1671 and 1686, meanwhile, clearly show that she [Jean Blanchard’s wife] was named Radegonde Lambert (see DGFA-1, pp. 143-144).

The source of these errors is probably a simple confusion arising from the fact that Jean LeBlanc’s wife’s grandfather, Martin Blanchard, had a brother, Guillaume Blanchard, who was married to a woman named Huguette, as this writer explained in an article published in 1984 (SHA, Vol. XV, pp. 116-117).

This Huguette was not named Poirier, however, but Gougeon, although her mother, Jeanne Chebrat, had married a man named Jean Poirier before she wed Huguette’s father, Antoine Gougeon, and all her male-line descendants in Acadia were Poiriers.

Unfortunately, we do not know just what questions Jean LeBlanc asked in trying to establish the Blanchard lineage, but he might certainly have had the impression that Huguette was a Poirier from the fact that so many of her relatives were Poiriers, including her grandnephew Joseph, who was also on Belle-Île in 1767 (see Doc. inéd., Vol. III, pp. 13-15).

Keep in mind that the 1767 depositions were given more than 150 years after Jean Blanchard was born, and about 75 or 80 years after his death.

While Jean Blanchard is reported to have come from France with his wife, Radegonde Lambert, we know of other instances in depositions where that statement means that both people individually came from France, not necessarily married to each other, or even arriving at the same time. We know from Jean Blanchard’s Y-DNA and Radegonde’s mitochondrial DNA, that, unquestionably, neither of them were Native American.

Jean LeBlanc, who gave one of the depositions, was the husband of Jean Blanchard’s great-granddaughter, Françoise Blanchard, who was born in 1707 in Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia. Her father, René Blanchard, Martin Blanchard’s son, was born in 1677, so he would have known Jean Blanchard, and would have been between 10 and 17 when Jean died.

However, René Blanchard may not have known his grandfather well, because we know that Jean’s son, Martin Blanchard, lived in Port Royal, and Jean Blanchard had relocated 15 miles or so upriver to BelleIsle before René was born about 1677. That’s 15 miles before roads or automobiles – 15 miles by canoe.

Françoise Blanchard’s two nephews, sons of her sister, Marie Blanchard, also provided depositions and are another generation removed from Jean.

This means that the information provided in those depositions needed to be handed down correctly, and remembered accurately for either three or four generations, respectively.

There were no written records that survived the 1755 Expulsion with the Acadians, so all of their information was based on memories and oral history alone.

Can you name your great-grandparents without a memory aid? Could someone who was not a genealogist?

When I started working on genealogy, I only knew the names of my mother’s grandparents. Fortunately, my mother knew the full names of my father’s parents and of her own grandparents. Beyond that was a mystery. Several of my great-great-grandparents remained elusive for decades, and then the information I initially found wasn’t accurate.

Fortunately, for Acadian researchers, new information occasionally surfaces and continues to be discovered.

We have many resources available today, such as transcribed French parish registers, so let’s take a look at Cousin Mark’s laborious work attempting to locate Jean Blanchard’s birth record which would provide us with the names of his parents.

The Blanchard Surname in France

From Cousin Mark:

Unfortunately for origin research, Blanchard is a fairly common surname in France.

Steven Cormier points this out on his Acadians in Grey website in discussing the hundreds of Blanchards that settled Louisiana, both Acadian and non-Acadian French.

Geneviève Massignon includes Blanchard as one of the common surnames found in the parish records of the seigneury of Menou d’Aulnay. Several Blanchards are listed in the Jousserand censitaire, as you show in the Jean Gaudet article. I see named a Maurice Blanchard (heirs), Pasquier Blanchard and a François Blanchard.

So, let’s start with them in the Loudunais.

I accessed Filae.com, the only database I know of for the early records that have been reviewed by the various genealogical societies in France. As you know, there are no indexes at the departmental archives themselves. I selected 1560 through 1660 and locations within 200km of Loudun. For comparison, La Rochelle is 134km from Loudun, and Nantes is 126km, as the crow flies.

There was only one Maurice Blanchard shown, who was born in 1658, so no luck there.

There was also only one Pasquier, as a father in 1639, in a village just south of Orleans, so fairly distant from Loudun.

As expected, François had many more entries, 287 in fact. So, focusing at 20km from Loudun, which includes Martaizé and La Chaussée, the latter at 14km, I found eleven entries, seven from the same couple, one of which was a double entry as the child was also named François. Between 1589 and 1604, he and Sara Chesneau baptized six children, one named Jean in 1604, all at the Protestant Temple in Loudun. Yes indeed, there was a Protestant Temple in Loudun and I’ve previously gone through the records for it. 1604 seems a little too early for our Jean Blanchard who is recorded as having been born in 1611 in two Acadian censuses, but who knows?

I also reviewed any other records for a Jean Blanchard, first within 20km and then within 200km. In addition to the above Jean, there was another Jean who is shown as father to three baptized children, the mother named Françoise Neveu. The children are René in 1634, Pierre in 1637, and Jeanne in January 1642. All three were baptized at Loudun’s Saint-Pierre-du-Marché. Given the date of the last baptism, it is possible, but unlikely, that our Jean was the father. In addition, there is a Jehan Blanchard listed as the father in 1630 at Les Trois-Moutiers, close to Loudun, to a child named Mathurin Blanchard, whose mother was named Toinette Lacompte.

Looking at a 200km range, there were 984 entries, which includes the five within 20km. Yes, a lot of Jean Blanchards!  So I narrowed the date range to 1600 through 1650. That reduced it to 666. And then just baptisms between 1600 and 1620. Now down to 119, but these included baptisms where a Jean Blanchard is named as father, which Filae doesn’t separate out. A few were double entries, and I counted 34 birth/baptisms, including the one from 1604 Loudun.

There was only one from 1611, April 18th, in fact, interestingly, from Ivoy-le-Pré, in the Cher department, north of Bourges, smack dab in the middle of France. The father was an Estienne Blanchard, and the mother a Magdeleine Chrestien. There were three from 1610, one of which was from the Deux-Sèvres department next door to Vienne, one from 1612, and one from 1613. While one of the 1610 baptisms was from La Peyratte, Deux-Sèvres, on the road from Loudun to La Rochelle, the others were not close to the Loudunais.

Next, I looked at marriages between 1620 and 1650, again first at 20km and then 200km. There was no Jean Blanchard married near Loudun during this time period. Within 200km there were 42 marriages for a Jean Blanchard, 12 after 1644. Of course, none was with a Lambert. But interestingly, one was with a Nicole Pellerin in 1638 in the Loiret department.

While Filae.com contains entries for early parish records, they are limited before 1700, and for that period, most all from genealogical societies that have taken the time and effort to search through original archival material. As we know, many such records are lost, and many that are found are illegible. We are entirely reliant on these societies, which means we don’t know how complete the searches were. When I searched through parish records page by page for the Loudun and elsewhere, I found several that were not noted by these societies. In addition, all the Paris records went up in flames during one of their several revolutions. So, I must assume that there are a large percentage of parish records, surely a majority, that are missing from the Filae database.

Jean Blanchard was assuredly baptized in France, somewhere, but we can only speculate regarding any one of the several records now available.

Also remaining speculative is whether he married in France or Acadia and whether it was a second marriage to Radegonde. I regret not having found more suggestive records than the above. Sigh.

I’m extremely grateful to Mark for his incredibly thorough research and sifting through thousands of documents on our behalf.

Jean Blanchard is one of the ancestors that Mark and I share.

Now, let’s visit Acadia, where Jean spent most of his life.

The Acadian Civil War

Most people have never heard of the Acadian Civil War, but it was very real to the settlers who participated in and suffered through it.

If there is blame to be placed, it lies with the French officials who, apparently ignorant of geography in distant Acadia, meted out portions of this new land to different men, followed predictably by misunderstandings about who controlled what.

With this statement, I’m giving everyone the benefit of the doubt – because regardless of the motivation, the results were the same.

Isaac de Razilly, Lieutenant-General of Acadia, at right, died unexpectedly in 1635 in La Hève, today’s LaHave, which was at that time a tiny outpost on the southern coast of Nova Scotia that served as the seat of Acadia.

Sign in the lovely museum at LaHave.

In 1632, Razilly brought “300 hommes d’elite” to La Hève. This group included six Capuchins, lots of men who were to engage in fur trading, and possibly some noblemen.

No roster has ever been discovered, but it’s clearly possible that Jean Blanchard was among them and would have viewed this harbor from the La Hève beach. Even if Jean didn’t live in La Hève, it still remained an outpost for decades, so it’s not unlikely that Jean would have visited during fishing or trading expeditions at one point or another.

There may or may not have been a dozen colonist families that arrived with Razilly. If so, they would have lived in the habitations on the spit of land, shown above to the right of the beach, not far from the fort which succumbed to coastal erosion decades ago.

Razilly formed a good relationship with Charles La Tour, another Frenchman who controlled other parts of the Acadian coastline.

After Isaac de Razilly’s unexpected death, his brother back in France inherited his assets and retained Charles Menou d’Aulnay, Isaac’s right-hand-man, to act on his behalf in Acadia. Eventually, d’Aulnay bought out the Razilly family interest in Acadia.

In April 1636, d’Aulnay’s ship, St. Jehan, transported several settlers to La Hève, and it wasn’t long thereafter that d’Aulnay moved the seat of Acadia to Port Royal, on the other side of Nova Scotia.

On this 1609 map drawn by Champlain, what would one day become, Port Royal, the seat of Acadia, is noted by the map legend “H,” at center right, which says it is a place of cultivation where wheat is grown. Clearly d’Aulnay knew it was fertile, being farmed and somewhat protected from the direct Atlantic.

Charles de La Tour, a Protestant, was granted territory by King Louis XIV, and d’Aulnay, a Catholic, was granted a different portion of Acadia; but their territories overlapped, fueling escalating animosity between the two men.

After d’Aulnay’s move to Port Royal, the two warring Acadian factions were separated only by a few miles of easily-crossed water.

La Tour had fortified his headquarters, Fort Saint Marie, also known as Fort La Tour, at the mouth of the St. John River in 1631 and clearly felt that d’Aulnay, a latecomer to Port Royal, was an interloper.

La Tour sought support from the English in Massachusetts, which he readily received because he allowed them to fish and harvest lumber along the shores of the Bay of Fundy at no charge, whereas d’Aulnay insisted on payment.

La Tour told the New Englanders that d’Aulnay was planning to attack his fort, which may or may not have been true. John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, appealed to wealthy merchants and coughed up a sizeable loan for La Tour to fortify his fort and add men, probably in the form of mercenaries, to aid in his defense.

We don’t know if there was truth in La Tour’s allegations or not, but we do know that it wasn’t d’Aulnay that launched the first attack.

The 1640 Attack

In 1640, La Tour left Saint John, sailed across the Bay of Fundy, and then attacked d’Aulnay at Port Royal. D’Aulnay prevailed despite his captain being killed. La Tour gave up the fight, and d’Aulnay proceeded to follow him back to St. John and blockade his fort. Clearly, there’s more about this scenario that hasn’t been handed down through history, and I’d surely love to know the details.

During this timeframe, d’Aulnay was busily recruiting settlers, soldiers, and laborers, but we don’t know for sure whether Jean Blanchard was yet in Acadia by 1640 – although there are hints.

Based on the birth of Jean’s first known child in 1643, he was probably in Acadia and married no later than 1642.

Stephen White believed, based on Jean’s land assignment along the waterfront with the earliest settlers in Port Royal, including Michel Boudrot, who signed as syndic in 1639, that Jean Blanchard was already present when Port Royal became the capital under d’Aulnay.

In 1640, Blanchard, then 29, was in his prime. He would also have been part of a 1642 blockade of St. John by d’Aulnay, followed by the 1643 Battle of Port Royal.

Life was certainly “interesting” in early Port Royal.

Fear and Trepidation

In 1643, Jean Blanchard was about 32, and his wife was expecting or had just given birth to a child. Their first, or at least the first one that lived to the 1671 census.

Jean may have been wondering what he had gotten himself into. He lived on the Port Royal waterfront where he could literally watch ships, friend or foe, sail up the river, right in front of his house.

Standing on his land by the river, this was his view as he looked towards the distant mouth of the river that served as an entrance from and exit to the sea.

Every single day, Jean would have squinted through the mist and fog or maybe sleet and snow, looking across the river to see who was approaching.

Is that a ship?

What flag are they flying?

Friend or enemy?

Do I need to sound the alarm?

Where’s my family?

The 1643 Battle of Port Royal

There is some discrepancy about which of the following events occurred in 1642 and which in 1643, but all of these events occurred during those two years.

La Tour was absent from his fort across the bay more than he was present – often traveling to Boston for months at a time to trade and visit with his English merchant friends.

La Tour was in New England during the first half of 1643, and d’Aulnay took advantage of the opportunity to blockade La Tour’s fort for five months. La Tour, of course, got wind of this and returned on July 14th with four ships and 270 men to recover his fort, which he did. He then attacked d’Aulnay at Port Royal, but somehow couldn’t actually catch him. Port Royal was in a better defensive position.

La Tour succeeded in freeing his fort, only to be unsuccessful in capturing d’Aulnay, but nonetheless, he remained furious.

Next, LaTour chased d’Aulnay to Penobscot Bay near present-day Castine, Maine, where d’Aulnay was forced to run two of his ships aground.

In the resulting skirmish, d’Aulnay lost another smaller ship, and three men from each side died. Satisfied with the damage he had inflicted, La Tour proceeded on to Boston to trade. D’Aulnay was left licking his wounds, burying the dead, and fuming as he returned to Port Royal.

Later in 1643, La Tour, on his way back from Boston, attacked Port Royal again, killing three men and injuring 7, while La Tour only lost one man.

This 1686 map, although drawn more than 40 years later, shows the main street in town, along with the water mill and fort.

La Tour burned the mill at Port Royal, which was probably very near Blanchard’s home. Bent on destruction and revenge, his men rampaged through the town, killed livestock, seized furs, gunpowder, and other supplies, but La Tour did not directly attack the fort, which was only defended by 20 soldiers. We don’t know why he hesitated, but perhaps because it was a French fort that actually belonged to the King.

I expected that there would be a lot more than 20 soldiers guarding the fort, and La Tour probably did too. This provides some indication of the lack of a defensive force at Port Royal. The French had not resupplied the Acadians there for some time, but La Tour was clandestinely being supported by New England.

Perseverance

This entire situation seems very unfair and quite uneven, the balance tipping in favor of La Tour. The fact that the Port Royal Acadians persevered is a testament to their resilience and determination.

Some years later, this trait would be characterized as “stubbornness,” but whatever. It served our ancestors well, and we would not be here had they not been determined in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity.

I’m grateful for their perseverance, by whatever name.

What transpired next, though, was ugly.

Easter Sunday 1645

In 1645, Jean Blanchard was approximately 34. The preceding several years had probably been a highly anxious period in his life, although he likely would never have admitted it. He had a young family, his wife was pregnant with their second child, and he would have watched the river like a hawk for signs of approaching ships he didn’t know.

Word had come that La Tour was in Boston, and d’Aulnay decided the time was ripe.

On April 13th, Easter Sunday, d’Aulnay gathered every man, which would have consisted of all soldiers and every Acadian man who could carry a gun – reportedly about 200 in total, and boarded ships at Port Royal.

Jean would have waved goodbye to his wife, not knowing if he would return. His eyes were probably watering from salt spray. Yes, that was it – salt spray.

D’Aulnay crossed the Bay and attacked La Tour’s fort, once again, in his absence.

Greatly outnumbered, La Tour’s wife, Francoise-Marie Jacquelin, only 23 or 24 years old, commanded the soldiers and defended the fort for five days. Ultimately, she had to negotiate surrender terms, which included granting quarter to all soldiers in the garrison if they surrendered, which they did. The terms were agreed upon and accepted by both parties.

In spite of the agreement, in which d’Aulnay agreed that the soldiers would not be harmed, he immediately broke the treaty and proceeded to hang all 47 of La Tour’s soldiers, except one who served as the executioner. He forced Françoise-Marie to watch, while standing on the scaffold, with a noose around her neck. She died three weeks later as a hostage.

The death of La Tour’s brave young wife and the execution of his soldiers signaled the end of warfare between La Tour and d’Aulnay. La Tour sought refuge and lived in exile in Quebec for several years.

For the next five years, d’Aulnay administered all of Acadia and recruited new settlers from France. Port Royal grew, and Acadians lived in peace.

Karma Visits

Jean Blanchard was 39 or 40, when, in 1650, d’Aulnay drowned in an accident. One might say karma paid him a visit.

This turn of events may have been very upsetting to Jean, given that he had been recruited by d’Aulnay or d’Aulnay on behalf of Razilly, fought side by side with d’Aulnay multiple times, and had clearly participated in the 1645 capture of La Tour’s fort and execution of his soldiers with d’Aulnay.

D’Aulnay’s demise meant that the governorship was now available, which prompted La Tour to return from Quebec. That alone must have made Jean’s blood run cold, along with the other Acadian men in Port Royal. Was there going to be another war? Worse yet, were they going to be ruled by the man whose wife and entire garrison they had killed?

What happened next is simply jaw-dropping.

Wedding Bells

As incredible as this sounds – in 1653 d’Aulnay’s widow, Jean Motin, married Charles LaTour in an effort to end the division and unite Acadia. It worked, at least for a while.

The next challenge for Acadia did not come from another French contingent. It arrived in the form of English ships, and a united Acadia stood a much better chance than a divided Acadia.

The English Strike

In 1654, Jean was 43. We don’t know how many children were living at that time, but Radegonde would have given birth to about six children by 1654. Five survived beyond 1671.

The waterfront in Port Royal, where Jean lived, was just about the most dangerous place he could have lived in 1654.

However, he had probably already obtained land at BelleIsle from La Borgne prior to 1654 in order to expand his agricultural production – not to mention it was much safer upriver. Jean still owned the land at Port Royal, so he could have farmed both or farmed the one in Port Royal while he dyked and drained the saltmarsh at BelleIsle.

On July 14, 1654, the English sailed up the river and unexpectedly attacked Port Royal.

English Colonel, Robert Sedgwick, commissioned by Oliver Cromwell, was prepared to attack New Netherlands when a peace agreement was reached. “All dressed up with no place to go,” Sedgwick decided to attack Acadia instead.

Sedgwick first reached La Tour’s fort at Saint John on July 13th and took that, capturing La Tour in the process. He then sailed across the bay, where Port Royal’s governor, Emmanuel Le Borgne, was known to be quite friendly with the English and had been accused by La Tour of conspiring with them.

Port Royal was entirely unprepared for an attack, especially of this magnitude.

Sedgewick had 533 New England militia members, plus 200 professional soldiers sent by Oliver Cromwell. About 130 soldiers at Port Royal attempted to defend the fort, but the English killed five and forced the rest to retreat into the fort. The English probably had more soldiers than the entire population of Port Royal and the surrounding area, including women and children.

The resulting siege lasted until August 8th, when Le Borgne surrendered with conditions very generous to the English, and to himself – perhaps “too generous”. By this time, 113 Acadians were being held captive by the English, along with 23 cannons, 500 weapons, 50 barrels of gunpowder, and Le Borgne’s own ship, the Chateaufort, which was loaded to capacity with alcohol.

In the surrender conditions, Le Borgne was allowed to keep his ship, plus the alcohol, which was quite valuable, and return to France. His sons were allowed to remain at Port Royal “as hostages” to watch over his property in Port Royal and elsewhere in Acadia, which he was also allowed to retain. Many Acadians accused him of treason and blamed him for the capture of Port Royal and the ensuing savagery.

Sedgewick’s men were unleashed and tore through Port Royal, defacing the church, smashing windows, floors, and paneling before burning the church and then killing the settlers’ livestock just because they could.

Sedgewick and Le Borgne’s handiwork would not be undone for another 16 years when Acadia was returned to French control through the Treaty of Ryswick. However, the actual transition didn’t occur until 1670. One of the first things the French did was to order a census. Thank goodness for us they did!

The 1671 Census

The 1671 Acadian census is the earliest actual individual record of Jean Blanchard, who is noted in that document as Jehan.

Jehan Blanchard was a 60-year-old laborer, aka farmer, so he was born about 1611. His wife, Radegonde Lambert, is 42, so born about 1629. Radegonde’s age is one reason why many believe they married in Port Royal, about 1642 when she would have been 13. In 1671, they have six children, and three are married.

  • Martin Blanchard, age 24, is married to Françoise LeBlanc, daughter of their neighbor, Daniel LeBlanc, at BelleIsle. They have no children, so they have probably recently married.
  • Madelaine Blanchard is 28, married to Michel Richard, and they have seven children.
  • Anne Blanchard, 26, listed only as the widow of Francois Gudcin (Guerin), is living next to her parents and has five children between the ages of 12 and 2.

Jean Blanchard and Radegonde Lambert’s three unmarried children are Guillaume, 21, Bernard, 18, and Marie, 15. The family has 12 cattle and 9 sheep and farms 5 arpents of land.

It’s very unusual that they have no children under the age of 15. Radegonde would be expected to have children every 18-24 months, so they should have had at least seven more children. Their absence speaks of at least seven small coffins buried in the churchyard and a great deal of grief.

By 1671 when this census was taken, based on his surrounding neighbors, Jean and family are almost certainly living upriver. However, Jean’s son, Martin, is living beside Jehan LaBatte, listed as a farmer, but who was also the military engineer. We know that LaBatte lived in the town of Port Royal along the waterfront.

This, combined with LaBatte’s 1702 map and information discovered from 1705 documents, leads me to believe that Martin Blanchard is living on the original land allocated to Jean Blanchard beside the fort in Port Royal.

Where is that land?

Jean Blanchard’s Land in Port Royal

In 1702, Labatte drew this plan of Fort Royal (today’s Fort Anne) at Port Royal as it would look when complete. He also noted the ancient fort perimeter inside the new fort, along with landmarks, according to the notation in the legend at upper left.

The pink squares outside the fort are the buildings that LaBatte expects to remain AFTER the fort is built. He doesn’t say this, but it appears that the outline-only squares near the fort’s walls are existing buildings that will need to be removed.

Jean, a laborer, initially lived beside the fort in the heart of Port Royal, near and beside other Acadian founding families. The location of his property indicates that he was among the earliest pioneers.

Had Jean not been in Port Royal when it was first established, he could not have received one of the prime pieces of waterfront, fort-side, real estate. Unfortunately, none of those early records survive but later information presented by Nicole Barrieau in her 1994 thesis reconstructs the earliest waterfront owners.

When the new fort was being constructed in 1705, several lots were expropriated to accommodate the expansion of the fort’s footprint, including one owned by Jean Blanchard, which was located between Simon Pelletret and Guillaume Trahan, founding families of Acadia.

These families were among the earliest arrivals, establishing themselves in Port Royal when Charles d’Aulnay relocated the seat of Acadia from La Hève to Port Royal between 1636 and 1639. Jean Blanchard’s neighbor, Guillaume Trahan, arrived in Acadia in 1636, and Michel Boudrot signed a document in Port Royal in 1639, so it stands to reason that the men who received these fort-side premier real estate lots were the earliest arrivals and settlers in Port Royal.

For purposes of clarification, there is a Louis Blanchard among the 1636 St. Jehan passengers, a vintner from La Rochelle. He is not married, and there is no indication that Louis and Jean Blanchard are the same person. Furthermore, there are no known vintners in Port Royal, and Blanchard is a very common surname. If one Blanchard arrived, it’s certainly conceivable that others from the same family followed, or perhaps others with the same surname but of no relationship.

We also know that most of the 1636 men either died or returned to France at some point, because their surnames are never found again in Acadia.

The Port Royal Waterfront

Using Nicole’s map, aerial photos, and my own photos taken while walking these lands in 2024, it appears that Jean Blanchard’s land is probably the land where the Queen’s Wharf stood more than a century later, in 1755.

Imagine my shock when I made this discovery. It was a “steal your breath,” unbelievable, moment.

Let’s take a walk with Jean as our guide.

This is the location where, on or about December 8th, 1755, the Acadians were rounded up by the English, marched to the waterfront beside the fort where they were divided and forced onto ships, forever dispossessed of their lands.

How fateful is it that this is Jean’s land – this parcel that he once owned – that singularly represents both the beginning and end of Acadia?

I have cold chills.

Standing on Jean’s property, where the Queen’s Wharf connects the water with the land and the past with the present, I looked out over the area where his salt marsh fields once stood. The timeless view he would have seen directly in front of his home.

His family would have had a front row seat to every ship’s arrival, and every battle as well.

This wharf was the last place that Port Royal Acadians stood together, touching the rich earth of their homeland, as they were forced to board ships on a bitter winter day, leaving anything they carried stacked on the wharf to blow in the winds. Then forced to watch their homes and property burn, so they knew beyond a doubt there was nothing to return to.

English sailors and settlers who were awarded their lands and took their place months later described those abandoned belongings, still waiting dockside, representing the ghostly remains of lives lost and destroyed.

Jean’s descendants, along with hundreds of others, were scattered to the winds on overcrowded ships that were intentionally sent in different directions, landing in distant colonies. Many, passengers died due to the miserable, squalid, freezing conditions. Some ships were blown off course in horrific storms, winding up in the Caribbean, and some simply sank. Many people were never heard from again. To this day, we have no idea what became of them.

Jean owned this very ground – the place that became the tragically sacred site marking the literal end of French Acadia, where his descendants were forced to walk at gunpoint.

This is where Acadia in Port Royal both began and ended.

It’s where we return to bear witness.

Tracing Jean’s Land

The white statue in the distance is visible in the aerial photo above and serves as a visual anchor to identify Jean’s land.

In this photo, standing on his land, part way out on the wharf near the river’s edge, I’m looking straight back into what was originally the town of Port Royal where Jean’s home would have stood – before the fort’s stone and earthen ramparts and glacis were expanded in 1705 to encompass his original land and bury it beneath the fortifications.

Standing on his land by the river, even today, you can see remnants of the saltmarsh Jean would have drained to grow wheat and pasture his cattle.

The beautiful Rivière Dauphin flows to the sea just beyond. No wonder the Acadians were willing to fight to their death to keep and protect this land. No wonder they resisted any and all coercive measures to force them to leave. Until they were literally kidnapped and held as hostages, overpowered and taken away against their will.

Their hot tears watered this wharf as the world they knew ended.

When Jean lived on this land and dyked it for farming, the little freshwater stream, still visible as it meanders its way to the river, would have nourished his family.

The 3-chimney garrison, visible to the right of and behind the white statue, would have stood in the old fort, adjacent his home. It’s here that the soldiers retreated in 1654 when being attacked by the English.

The original garrison was eventually replaced by this one with three chimneys.

The original bricks and a few timbers of the original structure remain and were incorporated into the later garrison, which is now the Fort Anne museum.

Cousin Mark and me, enjoying a glorious day in front of the remains of the original garrison, visiting our ancestors. Trust me, there’s nothing on earth like bonding with much-loved cousins on your ancestors’ lands, rich with history – our history.

This might be a good place to note that when Mark and I were standing there, we didn’t yet know the location of Jean’s land, or that he even owned land in Port Royal. We knew that Jean Blanchard had lived upriver. It was later on during that trip that Mark texted me the 1705 map while he was attending a reunion, and we didn’t have time while we were in Annapolis Royal to overlay those lots on today’s fort.

How I wish we had! I’d have taken a lot more photos, and probably shed buckets more tears.

Looking towards town from near the garrison, the bridge over the culvert beside the rampart with the white monument would have been the south end of Jean Blanchard’s land. This is very likely where his house would have been built. The fields and grazing area were always closest to the river, and the homestead was built on the highest ground.

Standing beside the white monument, overlooking the river and hills on the other side, much as Jean would have done.

In the 1686 census, Jean was living upriver, but his son Martin was farming this land in Port Royal. By 1705, when the land was expropriated, Martin had already moved on to the next frontier.

Fifty years after Jean obtained this land, a new fort had been built, its bastions, ramparts, and glacis covering Jean’s original land, except for the wharf that would become the location representing the collective grief of all Acadians.

The joy of new beginnings as Jean stepped ashore, and the agony of betrayal and removal. All in one sacred place.

Today, the remains of Queen’s Wharf have been preserved and stabilized by Parks Canada, but there are no signs indicating where it is, or that this small spit of land is the expulsion wharf, infused with agony and heartache. I discovered it quite by accident, wandering around, and a Park Ranger confirmed its genesis.

No wonder I was so drawn here.

When I laid these yellow roses on the Queen’s Wharf to honor my Acadian ancestors, collectively, I had no idea I was actually laying them directly on my ancestor’s land.

I placed roses for the more than 2000 Acadians whose feet trod here in sorrow, many never to see their families again, at least not until death. I placed them for the ache in my heart that I can still feel some 270 years later.

I swear, Jean summoned me here to hear his voice as he revealed the chapters in his life. In the lives of Acadians in Port Royal. To show me the wharf on his original land, his hand touching mine, where everything changed in the blink of an eye. I felt his presence. I just didn’t know it was him at the time.

Otherwise, the chances of the stars aligning, bringing me here, to this exact place, to place those roses, are astronomical…

The 1678 Census

In the 1678 census, Jean and Radegonde appear to be living in the same location, given that Antoine Hebert, their neighbor in 1671 still lives four houses away.

The primary difference is that their son, Guillaume, who was not married in 1671, is now married to Hugette Gougeon and they, along with their three children, live with Jean and Radegonde. Jean Blanchard is still listed as the head of household, so this appears to be a case of the young couple setting up housekeeping with Guillaume’s parents to help farm. All of Jean’s children have married or died, so the only children living in Jean and Radegonde’s household are grandchildren.

As grandparents, they probably enjoyed the laughter and joy that babies and grandchildren bring.

At 67, after a life of hard manual labor, not to mention several battles, Jean Blanchard probably wasn’t feeling any too spry.

The 1686 Census

In the 1686 census, Jean Blanchard, age 75, and Radegonde Lambert, 65, live next door to their son Guillaume and his family. No land or livestock is assigned to Jean, but Guillaume has 4 guns, 16 cattle, 20 sheep, and lives on 5 arpents of land, the exact amount farmed by Jean Blanchard in 1671.

We don’t know when Jean moved upriver from Port Royal, but based on the neighbors who are known to live just north of the BelleIsle Marsh, Jean has very clearly been living there since at least 1671, and probably substantially earlier, possibly before 1654. No land was appropriated to the Acadians by the English from 1654 to 1670, and we know that several Acadian families had already moved upriver by 1654.

Moving Upriver

We now know that Jean started life in Acadia along the river, beside the fort, in Port Royal, but subsequently moved upriver. When, and why?

In 1653, Nicolas Denys, an English captive held at Port Royal said that there were about 270 residents living in the Port Royal area, and that they were mostly families brought by de Razilly. That would include d’Aulnay who was Isaac Razilly’s right-hand-man in Acadia. D’Aulnay served as Governor after Razilly’s 1635 death, which is when he decided to relocate the seat of Acadia, along with the settlers, from rocky La Hève that faced the open Atlantic, to fertile Port Royal, sheltered and protected by the Dauphin River and surrounding hills.

If indeed Jean Blanchard did arrive with Razilly, who died in 1636, he would have married Radegonde Lambert in Acadia, not in France, given that she was only about seven years old in 1636.

Denys recorded in his journal that the Acadians had “multiplied much at Port Royal.” He also added that many had abandoned their houses in the town of Port Royal and settled along the river on farms, specifically around the BelleIsle Marsh.

Ocean-going vessels could not navigate the river above Port Royal and knew better than to foolishly brave the river’s boar tide and rocks beyond Hogg Island.

Based on what happened in 1654, that decision to relocate upriver was probably an incredibly fortuitous decision for those who had already made the move.

Brenda Dunn, in her book, A History of Port Royal / Annapolis Royal 1605-1800, explains the move of families away from the fort after it was captured by the British in 1654:

“During the years of British rule, most of the Port-Royal population moved upriver away from the town. Using the agricultural practices initiated under D’Aulnay, the Acadians dyked and cultivated extensive salt marshes along the river and raised livestock. Through necessity, residents had reached an accommodation with New England traders who had become their sole source for the goods that they could not produce themselves… New England traders exchanged their goods for Acadian produce and furs… There were seventy to eighty families in the Port Royal area in 1665.”

I don’t know how Brenda calculated the number of families in 1665, as there was no census. There seemed to be about 45 families in 1653, assuming two parents and four children per family based on the 1671 census. In 1671, there were 392 people in 68 households, corresponding to an average of 6 people per household, so Brenda’s estimate might have been high.

Regardless, there really weren’t very many people living in and near Port Royal. Within a generation or two, they were all related.

Cobequid

A new fort had been planned in Port Royal since about 1697 when Port Royal once again reverted to the French after being captured by the English again in 1690.

The Acadians were already looking to other areas to expand their settlements.

Cobequid Village is today’s Truro, NS, at far right on this 1755 English map used to identify Acadian settlements prior to the Expulsion.

November 1, 1699 extract from a letter from Mathieu de Goutin concerning the founding of Chipoudy: “Guillaume Blanchard and other settlers from Port-Royal came here two days ago to take up grants …”

December 27, 1699: Chartering of a ship by Guillaume Blanchard to his associates Jean Labat and Christophe Cahouet, at a rate of thirty livres per month.

In the 1700 census, it appears that Jean Blanchard’s son, Martin Blanchard, is still living on Jean’s Port Royal land, based on the neighbors, and that Guillaume is still living at BelleIsle on Jean’s land there.

By 1701, according to the census, Martin Blanchard was one of only three families who had relocated to Cobequid, today’s Truro, shown above. In Martin’s case, he was probably motivated because the drawings for the new fort showed that it was unquestionably going to take his Port Royal land, and many of the Acadians were putting down roots on the new Acadian frontiers. Opportunity was calling!

Cobequid was similar to Port Royal, in that there were substantial marshlands to be dyked and drained along the arm of the Bay of Fundy that experienced twice daily bore tides. Acadians were experts at managing this environment.

The potential in Cobequid for salt marsh farming was endless, and stretched as far as the eye could see.

In 1701 or 1702, work on the fort in Port Royal began again, using the new design that caused Jean Blanchard’s original land to be expropriated. Apparently, anticipating that this was going to occur, Martin Blanchard had already moved on to the next frontier at Cobequid, although both Martin and Guillaume were clearly scouting the area.

October 2, 1702 extract from a report by Mathieu de Goutin concerning the founding of Les Mines requested that Guillaume Blanchard be granted a half league on either side of the Petitcoudiac River: “the said Blanchard has a sailing vessel, and grown sons, sons-in-law and nephews, who will put the Pecoudiak the land along the Petitcoudiac River to use and will settle there many people, and in three years the colony will draw support from them…”

Three years is how long it took for salt marsh land to be usable for farming after the salt was washed out after dyking and draining.

In the 1703 Cobequid census, we find Martin Blanchard, his wife and 5 children, plus 18 additional households. Four couples appear to be newly married, and two are single men, perhaps seeking their fortune.

By 1705, when Jean Blanchard’s Port Royal land was expropriated, Martin was already settled and farming in Cobequid where he died about 1717. As early as 1699, he knew he was losing his home, and he didn’t have a backup plan, so he became one of the founding families at Cobequid where land was plentiful.

Based on the various censuses, Guillaume Blanchard never made the move to Cobequid, or elsewhere – but he didn’t actually need to move, because he lived on and farmed his father’s land in BelleIsle.

Martin, on the other hand, needed to move, so we find him in Cobequid by 1701.

BelleIsle

We know that Jean Blanchard moved near or perhaps even beside the Daniel LeBlanc family on the east side of the BelleIsle marshes. In fact, the road where he likely lived is named Marshlands.

Jean was probably granted land on both sides of this road.

Looking towards the marsh and the river beyond the marsh.

Looking towards the hills to the north from today’s main road.

Jean’s son, Martin Blanchard, married Daniel LeBlanc’s daughter around 1670 or 1671, not long before the census given that they didn’t yet have children.

The LeBlanc family has placed a memorial marker, map, and stone near this location.

The stone doesn’t mark the exact location of Daniel’s home, but the neighborhood, which was also the neighborhood where Jean Blanchard lived.

According to the various censuses, the LeBlanc, Gaudet and Blanchard families lived in very close proximity, here.

The grassy semi-swampy area between the main road and Marshlands Road is the likely location of many of the LeBlanc and Blanchard homesteads.

It was here, in the warm sunshine, with the mountains in the distance, that Jean lived out the golden years of his life.

Jean Blanchard began his life in France where he lived until he was a young adult. He  may have lived at La Hève for a few years, but no more than 5 or 6 at most. He lived beside the fort in Port Royal for at least a dozen years, and perhaps as many as 30. Then, he lived upriver at BelleIsle for between 20 and 40 years.

Jean Blanchard Departs This World

We don’t know exactly when Jean Blanchard died, but we do know that both he and Radegonde passed away between the 1686 and the 1693 census.

Jean had probably already crossed over to the other side by the time that the English captured Port Royal again in May of 1690. Both Guillaume and Martin Blanchard signed the required loyalty oath, but Jean’s signature is conspicuously absent, suggesting that he had already passed. He would have been about 79 years old.

It’s possible that when the soldiers rounded up the Acadian men that they skipped Jean because he was old and frail and couldn’t travel to the Catholic Church in Port Royal where the Acadian men were sequestered and forced to sign the oath. Regardless, Jean was definitely gone by the 1693 census, as was his wife.

For a man who sailed across the ocean, spent the first few years fighting in the Acadian Civil War, followed by the 1654 fall of Acadia to the English, carved a homestead and farm from nothing, either two or three times –  Jean lived an incredibly long life, somewhere between 75 and 82 years.

Jean’s Burial

While most researchers assume that Jean Blanchard and Radegonde Lambert are buried at Port Royal, in the cemetery behind the garrison, I don’t think so.

Mass House 1757 map

When Acadia fell to the English in 1654, and the Catholic church was burned, there was no reason for the Acadians from 15 miles or so upriver to continue to travel to Port Royal if they didn’t have to. Not only was traveling that distance inconvenient, it was unsafe in the winter, and when people died, they needed to be buried regardless of the weather. The Acadians established a “Mass House”, later named St. Laurent, in their neighborhood at BelleIsle.

Mass House 1733 map

On early maps, this little church is shown right beside the LeBlanc Village, which would have been located very close to where Jean Blanchard and Radegonde Lambert lived, less than a mile away, if that far.

When Jean died, he would have been living with or beside his son, Guillaume, who lived near the Mass House. Jean would have been buried in the little churchyard the next day, after mass was said. If a priest wasn’t available, they did the best they could.

The LeBlanc and Blanchard families lived in the area at left, and the Mass House was located in the area at right.

Unfortunately, we don’t know the exact location of the Mass House, nor its adjacent cemetery, but we do know the general area. The photo above shows the location shown on the 1733-1753 map.

This is the approximate location shown on the 1757 map.

We will likely never know where Jean is buried, but his spirit remains in Acadia, the land that he founded.

Beginning to End

This panoramic photo, standing on Jean’s land, overlooking the Queen’s Wharf, signifies both the beginning and the end of the Acadian chapter at Port Royal.

Although the Acadians were brutally dispossessed of their land and heritage, their spirit did not die.

It lives on in every single one of their descendants today. Beginning to end. Just like Jean Blanchard.

Courtesy Jennifer and Charlie Thibodeau

At Fort Anne, in December 2024, on the 269th anniversary of their forced departure, a monument was placed on the rampart beside Queen’s Wharf, perhaps on Jean’s land, and dedicated to the memory of our Acadian ancestors.

Courtesy Jennifer and Charlie Thibodeau

If you listen closely, you can still hear them – their footfalls in the snow, the echoes of their anguish as they were forced to board the ships, being forever separated from their families and loved-ones, and their whispered prayers for deliverance.

Jean’s grandchildren and their children, forced from the very shore where he built his home and his life. The exact place where he stood, gingerly placing his foot on Acadian soil and gazing hopefully into the distant future, before Port Royal was anything more than a field.

This hallowed land where Jean’s life in Acadia had begun, more than a century earlier.

_____________________________________________________________

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Y-DNA Results at 20 Years: Answers, Lessons, Methods, and Workarounds

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Our goal as genealogists is always to learn what we don’t know and reveal anything we should know.

I’m going to share the evolution of four tests, purchased exactly twenty years ago. I haven’t cherry-picked these, so you’re getting the raw story. Successes, challenges and regrets, plus a few hacks to help you out when you’ve hit a roadblock.

I’m also sharing how I work around some issues – like tests that haven’t been (and can’t be) upgraded to Big Y tests.

DNA testing has come a long way from an infant science two decades ago, when we were tentatively establishing a new industry – one that today has evolved into a staple for serious genealogists.

On New Year’s Eve, 2005, exactly 20 years ago, I was doing the same thing I was doing at midnight in 2025 – genealogy.

That was long before the days of social media and chat groups, so some of us geeky types were discussing our genealogy research on the now-obsoleted RootsWeb e-mail list.

I Was Planning for 2006 Travel

I realized that I was going to be traveling during 2006 and would be asking several men to take a Y-DNA test, so I should purchase several kits while they were still on sale.

Then I got a bit giddy when I realized that I could actually celebrate the New Year by making those purchases right at midnight.

And I did too – I hit it right on the dot.

I mean, for a genealogist, what better way to celebrate? Right?

What I didn’t know is that, quite by accident, I managed to score kit 50,000. That seemed like such a milestone!

And now, I can’t believe it’s been 20 years. How is that even possible?

After I went to bed in the wee hours of January 1, 2026, I decided I needed to check in on the kits I purchased on that fateful New Year’s Eve, 2005, and see how they are doing. What were my goals, aspirations and expectations? Did we accomplish them then? Have we now?

What has happened in the past twenty years?

Let’s take a look, beginning with kit 50,000.

Kit 50,000 – Mr. Miller

Mr. Miller is my mother’s second cousin, so the perfect person to represent our Miller line.

Goals and Questions:

  • Do we descend from Johann Michael Miller born in 1692 in Germany? At that time, we did not know his birth location, and only knew that the line was German. Later research would add two additional generations and place his grandfather, Heinsman Mueller in Schwarzenmatt, Switzerland before 1655.
  • Does the Elder Jacob Miller (born about 1710 in Germany), a Brethren minister, match the Johann Michael Miller line? They were both Brethren, clearly knew each other, and were found in some of the same locations. The answer is conclusively no; the lineages are not the same based on both STR and Big Y-700 tests.

2005 – 12-marker test – $99

  • Initial 2006 haplogroup – R-M269 – about 6,500 years old
  • 2025 haplogroup – R-BY56132 – about 350 years old, obtained via DNA match to another Miller tester

That a HUGE difference!

2006 matches – no Y-DNA matches.

Remember, this was early, with less than 50,000 results in the database, compared to just under 700,000 SNP-confirmed testers today, not to mention probably double many more STR-only testers.

Haplogroups for STR testers are predicted based on marker values and are not SNP tested or confirmed. The Big Y tests, SNP tests and SNP packs which are no longer available, and haplogroups assigned through Family Finder are SNP confirmed.

2025 matches – 2 (yes two) 12-marker matches, both Millers. At 25 markers, he has 7 matches, all Millers.

I created the Miller-Brethren Project in September 2006 for any Miller line that was of the Brethren faith, hoping to differentiate between families with the same names in the same place.

2009 – upgraded to 67 markers – $148

In 2009, I upgraded Mr. Miller to 67 markers and recruited two other Miller males from our believed line. They all matched at 25 markers and above, confirming the lineage to our ancestor, Johann Michael Miller/Mueller. Whew! That one was close, because there was a great deal of consternation and confusion about these lineages.

2011 – added Family Finder – $289

Mr. Miller’s haplogroup today, confirmed by Family Finder, is still same as his predicted R-M269 from his STR results. Unfortunately, the kit has never been upgraded to the Big Y test, and I desperately want our personal lineage haplogroup. However, all is not lost because he matches several males from the same lineage who have been assigned to haplogroup R-BY56132 through the Big Y-700 test.

Every haplogroup is publicly viewable in Discover, but testers can see additional information and features when they click through to Discover from their own account – including the Match Time Tree, Globetrekker, and more Ancient and Notable DNA Connections.

Discover provides an informative Haplogroup Story, an overview before viewing the dozen reports available in the left sidebar about that haplogroup’s history and lineage. You can take a look, here.

From Discover, we learn that the Miller haplogroup was born (or branches off from) its parent haplogroup about the year 1650 CE, so when the Millers were still living in either Switzerland or Germany. If we match males from either of those locations, they would probably match us upstream at R-BY115568. Their genealogy would certainly help our genealogy!

Ancient Connections, which are ancient DNA matches, extend beyond surnames, revealing connections to both the Yamnaya and Moros cultures and shared ancestry with Bronze Age Balkan burials.

Viewing the Ancient Connections tab, we learn that remains related to or upstream of our haplogroup were excavated in Albania, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, the North Banat and Mokrin in Serbia, and Macedonia. The closest genetic connections are shown first.

New Goal: Would love to test and match with Mueller men from Steindwenden, Germany, Schwarzenmatt, Switzerland, or anyplace near either location.

Kit 49,999 – Mr. Estes

Goals and Questions:

  • Do we connect with the Abraham Estes (c1647-1720) lineage?
  • Was there more than one early colonial Estes line?
  • If so, were they related?
  • Did our line come from Kent, England?

2005 – 25-marker test – $150

2006 matches –  54 12-marker matches

2025 matches – 326 12-marker matches

2006 matches – 4 25-marker matches – one to a known cousin, two more to other Estes males

2025 matches – 30 25-marker matches, including several Estes men

Crucial – this tester matched an Eastes male who lived in Kent and whose ancestors never left. This confirmed our oral history and early research suggesting that Abraham Estes’s origins were in Kent.

  • Original 2006 haplogroup – R-M269 – about 6.500 years old
  • Current Haplogroup – R-L151 – about 5,000 years old, SNP confirmed from the Family Finder test
  • Match Haplogroup – R-ZS3700 – about 250 years old obtained from STR match to multiple Big Y testers who shares same ancestor

In 2012, we added the Family Finder test for $199, which answered questions about whether multiple half-siblings were actually descended from a close relative of the tester. Family Finder also allowed people descended from this line, but who don’t carry the Estes Y-DNA to confirm their relationship to the Estes family.

This tester has not upgraded to the Big Y-700, but does match at the STR level with those who have taken that test.

Today, the Eastes male from Kent who subsequently upgraded to the Big Y-700 forms the base of the Estes family genetic tree, and others in the American lines form descendant branches based on the Big Y-700 test!

This includes some men whose genealogy we can’t yet connect vis the paper trail, such as kit 491887, shown in lavender below, but we know where he connects genetically. We were able to place him due to his Big Y-700 test results.

Thanks to the man from Kent whose results appear in the pink column, we know that both the Massachusetts and the Virginia immigrants descend from the Estes line in Kent, based on haplogroup R-BY490.

The Massachusetts line carries only R-BY482, so R-BY490 occurred in the generation between Robert b 1555 and Sylvester b 1600. Because the descendant of Sylvester’s brother Robert, born in 1603, does NOT carry the BY490 SNP, so we know exactly where and when it was introduced.

In Abraham’s lineage, two additional branches have been discovered. R-ZS3700, and within that haplogroup, R-BY154784.

All of this structure was built beginning with kit 9,993, followed by 49,999 (for my line), which is not shown in the chart above because there is no Big Y test, but whose STRs do match with kit 9,993, our very first Estes male to test.

Discover shows that R-ZS3700, the defining haplogroup of the Moses Estes lineage, kit 9,993, was born about 1750, which is within the genetic range of about 1600 to about 1820. Moses Estes, the man in whom this SNP originated, was actually born in 1711. The genetic tree closely matches the genealogy tree.

Ancient Connections reveals that we share distant ancestors from about 4400 years ago with Iron Age burials in Scotland, Cambridgeshire, Denmark, Dorset, Cornwall, Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire, Yorkshire, and Iceland. In other words, the Estes lineage has been in England for a very, very long time.

One of the upstream parent haplogroups, R-S252, dating from about 4500 years ago, was found in an Anglo-Saxon burial at Cliff’s End Farm, a mortuary and ritual Bronze Age site in Kent, England.

Cliffsend is only about 10 miles from Deal, where many Estes family records are found, and about 5 miles from Sandwich where Abraham Estes, the immigrant, was a weaver, next to the village of Worth, where he was married in 1672.

Kit 49,998 – Mr. Moore

Goals and Questions:

  • I was desperate to test a male from my Moore family in Halifax County, VA, and was very fortunate to locate Mr. Moore when I visited in person. I had to work on his genealogy, but once I was able to connect him, he was excited to test.
  • Could we connect our line with other Virginia lines, or eliminate them from consideration?

2005 -12 marker test – $99

2006 matches – 37 12-marker matches, two of whom were Moore men. One was a man I believed to be from my James Moore and William Moore line, and one we suspected, but really didn’t know. Many records from that time period are missing, and people were moving to the next frontier, with no connection to where they came from.

Mr. Moore’s matches, combined with his genealogy, confirmed what we thought we knew, but we still needed more.

  • Original 2006 haplogroup – J-M172 – about 28,000 years old
  • Current Haplogroup – J-M241 – about 8,600 years old, obtained from Family Finder
  • Match Haplogroup – J-Z631 – about 2,950 years old, obtained from matches to other Moore men who took the Family Finder test
  • Big Y Match Haplogroup – J-BY136349 – about 1,300 years old, obtained from a 111-marker Moore match to a non-Moore man who has taken a Big Y test

In 2012, we added Family Finder for $199, which provided invaluable matches to known Moore lineage family members, including Mr. Estes, kit 49,999. That makes perfect sense, since they are 4C1R.

2025 matches – 276 12-marker matches, of which five are Moore men, none of whom have taken the Big Y-DNA test.

One Moore match, who has not responded to emails, shows his paternal Moore ancestor as having been born in Scotland.

Three of Mr. Moore’s matches whose haplogroups were determined by Family Finder are J-Z631, which is closer to the present time than Mr. Moore’s haplogroup.

Why might that be?

Different autosomal DNA testing chips were used by different vendors at different times. Mr. Moore and the three other Moore men all took a Family Finder test at FamilyTreeDNA, but at different times when different chips were in use. That’s probably why the haplogroup assignment is different. The other reason could be that one of the SNP locations was missed in the autosomal DNA test. The haplogroup designation from the Family Finder test is a recent freebie, so was never actually intended to be a feature.

That’s all fine and dandy, but I STILL need a Moore Big Y tester to reveal more information about my line.

Workarounds for No Big Y Testers

Without a Big Y-700 Moore tester, is there something else we can try to obtain at least a somewhat more refined haplogroup?

Perhaps.

Without at least one Big Y-700 test, the next two things can do are:

  • Hope that someone has included at least some genealogy for you to follow.
  • One of the 111 marker matches will help by sharing if they have any Moore matches at that level. Remember, this kit, 49,998, only has 12 marker matches.

In this case, there is one match with a tree, but I hit the same genealogical brick wall that they did.

They, and now I am stuck with John Moore, born between 1851 and 1860, possibly in Sullivan County, TN. He was married to Mary, Polly, Mollie (take your pick based on the census and death certificates) Whitaker, who died between 1900 and 1910. John Moore died on September 25, 1936, in Sullivan County, TN, with several children and a brother named Bob Moore who lived in nearby Bristol listed in a brief obituary. I’m doing the “quick and dirty” tree thing, here, hoping to perhaps track his Moore back further than I have my own so we can connect – but so far – no cigar. I’m not finished yet, but this one is challenging. I’m always hopeful that I’ll find some hint about where James Moore (c1718-c1798) came from before Prince Edward and Amelia County, VA.

Eliminating Other Moore Lines

I certainly don’t have as much information as I want about my own Moore line, but I do have something. How can I use this to eliminate other potential Moore lines?

Checking the Moore Surname Project, I use the browser search and located the group of my James Moore testers.

These six men are candidates for Big Y upgrades.

I can also use the browser search to locate other groups of Moore men that have tested and I know we’re not related to.

For example, here’s another group of Moore men that we aren’t related but – but here’s the catch. This is the “other” James Moore that appears in Halifax County, and whose land is located right across the road from my James Moore. I kid you not. I could have SWORN these two Moore lines were the same, but they are not. This line track back to Thomas Moore born in 1720 and who married Mary Farrar. Using genealogy and projects, combined with what we do know, we can eliminate many possibilties.

Ok, let’s set genealogy aside for a minute.

Working With Alternative Haplogroups

What else can we do if we cannot upgrade either our tester or convince other Moore men to upgrade to the Big Y-700?

If a tester has higher level STR matches, meaning 67 or 111, and they match anyone with a Big Y-700 test, they will likely be in the same area of the genetic tree, but probably not the same branch, and possibly not within hundreds to the low thousands of years. This approach is an extremely poor substitute for the Big Y test and should never be used unless there is absolutely no other alternative. Think of it as sitting proxy at home, watching the Jumbotron on your TV, versus sitting behind home plate in the ballpark. It will do if you have no other choice.

That said, let’s see what we have. Our Moore Family Finder SNP is J-Z631, which is about 2,950 years old.

Our J-Z631 haplogroup story shows that the majority are found in Germany, followed by England, and the Ancient Connections are associated with the Roman era in the Balkans and Sicily. Burials from that era were found in Rome, Montenegro, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Croatia, and Trapani, Italy.

Next, let’s look at one of the Moore men’s 111 matches, who has been assigned the Big Y-700 haplogroup of J-BY136349.

This is quite interesting, because this haplogroup has few testers, but the Ancient Connections are found in some of the same locations.

Next question – how are these two haplogroups related? Let’s see, using Discover’s Compare feature.

Wow, I didn’t expect to discover that J-BY136349 (111 marker match to a non-Moore man) is a descendant of J-Z631 (Moore haplogroup from Family Finder) and is about 2,200 years closer to the present time. Our Moore men, if we can ever find a Big Y-700 tester, will likely be someplace near J-BY136349.

Goals:

  • To upgrade at least one of Mr. Moore’s matches to the Big Y-700, and for some new Moore male to match so we can figure out which Virginia line, and which European line our Moore family descends from.
  • To break through the John Moore brick wall in Sullivan County, TN to see if we can track that lineage further back in time – informing us of our Moore line.

Kit 49,994 – Mr. Speaks

Goals and Questions:

  • To find and test any Speak/Speaks tester for our line.
  • Were the two Thomas Speaks in Maryland in the 1700s related?
  • Were various Speaks lines, by various spellings, throughout the country, related?
  • Where did we “come from?”

Twenty years ago, we had no Speaks males to test until Joyce, one of our long-time genealogy experts, located one man. She visited him and explained why his DNA was important. I provided a scholarship, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Not long after, another Speaks man tested, but did not match our original tester. Everyone was shocked. No one expected that result, and it only confused matters even more.

We needed tie-breakers, meaning other men from both of the known sons of immigrant, Thomas Speake (1633-1681).

At this point, we had far more questions than answers.

The Speaks Family Association had a whole list of questions, in part due to a lack of early records in Maryland, combined with burned southern states in later generations. That list was growing, not shrinking.

How many Speaks lines were there anyway? Had we stumbled across a descendants from the “other” Thomas Speaks in Maryland? I can’t answer that question now, and the answer is no, we had not accidentally found the other Thomas. That Thomas’s will and estate shows he had no sons other than a son Thomas who is not our Thomas, based on the fact that he died before his father. That also means there are no males from his line to test. You can read more, here, if you’re interested.

Did men with the surname Speak, Speaks and similar spellings all descend from the same Maryland line? Apparently not, or maybe not, based on those early results.

Could we determine through which men various testers descend?

At that time, we didn’t even dream that we’d be able to obtain Y-DNA from various men in the Lancashire villages where we thought our line might have originated. That was still years in the future. Our big breakthrough came after a Speaks man from New Zealand tested, and knew the name of the Lancashire village, Gisburn, where his grandfather was born. Working with local historical societies in England, we made that trip happen in 2014 and learned even more about differing Speaks lines.

In other words, in 2005, we were starting from scratch with pockets of men in various locations across the US who shared the same or similar surnames.

2005 – 25-marker – $150

  • Initial haplogroup – I-M170 – about 28,000 years old
  • Current 2025 haplogroup – I-FTA13986 – about 250 years old, obtained from a Big Y test

2014 – 111-marker upgrade – $184

2024 – Family Finder and the Big Y

2006 matches – Mr. Speaks had no 12 or 25-marker matches, which was discouraging. In fact, Mr. Speaks wouldn’t have any matches until the Family Association began actively recruiting testers a few years later. As it turns out, the Speaks family line has a rather unique DNA signature.

Today, Mr. Speak has 61 12-marker matches, and 54 25-marker matches, but it’s his Big Y results that confirm his placement in the tree as a descendant of John Speake the Innkeeper, son of Thomas Speake the immigrant.

Initially, we did the best we could, placing people in the tree based on STR results, but STRs did not provide the granularity we needed to define lines conclusively. STR mutations tend to back-mutate and aren’t always reliable.

Fast forward to January 2026.

The Speaks DNA project now has 48 Y-DNA testers, of which 32 fall into the Lancashire Speaks line we were seeking.

The Speak Family Association funded several Big Y-700 tests and upgrades for critical men in known lines.

Additionally, we’ve finally placed the elusive Aaron Lucky Speaks line, found in North Carolina, without any connecting documents back to Maryland. DNA connected him!

We’ve also eliminated several lines that were possibly connected to the Lancashire/Maryland line, thanks to DNA testing.

The Speak Family DNA Project Time Tree shows the Big Y testers with their self-identified earliest known ancestors (EKA) placed on branches of the genetic Time Tree.

Shifting to Discover, we see that Lancashire SNP, I-BY14004, which defines our Speak line, is associated with Medieval Britain, the early Slavs, and a historical Romanian culture.

Checking Ancient Connections, our ancestors are associated with burials from Yorkshire, Croatia, Romania, Denmark, Italy, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, and more, dating from about 4500 years ago.

Today, if a Speak/Speaks male takes a Big Y-700 test, we can assign his location in the tree very closely, and can tell him definitively which lines he does not descend from.

The Speaks project also welcomes all Speaks descendants, from any line, who have taken or uploaded autosomal DNA tests.

Regrets

Yes, I have regrets – learned in the school of hard knocks.

  1. My largest regret is that I didn’t test all of “my” kits at the highest level possible initially.
  2. My second regret is that I didn’t reach out to matches much earlier (when they still might answer) to inquire about genealogy and offer scholarships for upgrades. My testers need someone from that same line to match at the Big Y level. In some cases, I need that person to upgrade because my tester cannot. The longer you wait, the less likely you’ll receive a response.

Many tests, especially early tests, cannot be upgraded for various reasons:

  • Deceased tester
  • Lost the ability to contact the tester – obsolete or bounced email
  • Tester does not want to upgrade or does not reply to emails
  • Last vial available was already used and tester cannot provide another
  • Last vial was tested and failed

Solutions

  • Buy the most advanced test immediately. I literally have a kit available at all times.
  • Upgrade to the newest relevant tests as soon as they are introduced. In this case, that would be the Big Y-700 today and the Family Finder when it was introduced.
  • If the tester is deceased and you can contact the family, after offering condolences, ask for brothers, sons, or nephews who would be willing to retest.
  • Offer DNA testing scholarships either personally, through family associations, or through surname projects.
  • Request extra vials be sent to the tester so they can be returned and stored for future use.

There’s one more thing you need to do too.

Permissions

Testers can grant various forms of permission to other people, which allows their tests to be upgraded later. One man even sent me an affidavit stating I could do so after he died. Today, that’s not necessary because FamilyTreeDNA provides a Beneficiary service.

Permissions can be granted under the tester’s Account Settings.

  • Ask the tester to designate a Beneficiary which can be a Group Project Administrator. That means any person who is a group project administrator of a project the tester belongs to, after they are deceased.
  • Ask the tester to assign a Kit Manager who literally manages their kit on their behalf.

Under Project Preferences, project members can grant Advanced Access to individual project administrators by name. Advanced Access provides the ability for that specific administrator to act on behalf of the tester, including ordering upgrades and additional tests, so long as the administrator pays for them, which they often do with project funds.

Looking Back

I have absolutely no regrets about purchasing any of the tests I’ve bought over the years.

I look at it this way – if someone told me that a book about my ancestral line was in a library, and it held the undisputed truth about that one line – I’d spend far more than what I’ve spent on any one DNA test to obtain it. There’s simply no other way to conclusively unravel direct paternal vines, both within a genealogical timeframe, and before.

I want to know everything. Not just since the advent of surnames, but where my ancestors came from before that, and before that, and before that. I want to read about the culture and history of the land where my ancestors lived. What did they survive to travel to the next frontier? And where was that next frontier, and when?

Their own Y-DNA, passed down to their direct male descendants holds those secrets, just waiting to be revealed.

What’s Next?

  • Check your own and any Y-DNA tests that you sponsor or manage to see how they’re doing and what’s new.
  • Check surname projects at FamilyTreeDNA, here, to see if your ancestral surnames are represented any other information, similar to my Moore line.
  • Check your ancestor at WikiTree to see if anyone has entered a haplogroup for that ancestor, which tells you that someone has tested. The haplogroup may not be current, but it gives you a connection and someplace to start.
  • Check your autosomal matches at FamilyTreeDNA and any other vendor to see if you match surnames of interest. If the match is male, reach out and see if they descend from your line, and if they haven’t taken a Y-DNA test, would they be willing. If your match is female, reach out to see if it’s your line, and if so, if they know of males who have tested or would be willing.
  • If you’re a male and have not yet tested your Y-DNA, by all means, order that test now, by clicking here! Then make sure to join your surname project!

Is there something new and wonderful waiting for you?

_____________________________________________________________

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Thank you so much.

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2025 Genetic Genealogy Retrospective: Wow – What a Year!

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2025 has been quite a year in genetic genealogy. Genetic genealogy, per se, really isn’t a separate “thing” anymore. DNA testing is now an integral part of genealogy, with the potential to answer questions that nothing else can!

The 76 articles I wrote in 2025 fall into multiple categories and focus on different topics based on what was happening in the industry.

From my perspective, here are the most notable announcements and trends in genetic genealogy, and genealogy more broadly.

#1 for 2025 – Mitochondrial DNA: The Million Mito Project Released the New Mitotree, Updates, and mtDNA Discover

The biggest genealogy news items this year, both industry-wide and genealogy-changing are definitely the release of the new Mitotree, plus two tree updates. But that’s not all.

In addition, full sequence mitochondrial DNA testers received new Mitotree haplogroups, if appropriate, and everyone received a haplotype – a new feature. Along with Mitotree, FamilyTreeDNA introduced mtDNA Discover which provides 13 individual reports based on your haplogroup and matches.

It’s no wonder that mitochondrial DNA articles led the pack with the most views based on the eleven articles about that topic. If you haven’t yet tested your mitochondrial DNA at FamilyTreeDNA, there’s no better time! You never know what you’re going to discover and the more testers, the more matches for everyone.

You don’t know what you don’t know, and you’ll never know if you don’t test. Remember, mitochondrial DNA is for both males and females and tests your mother’s direct matrilineal line (mother to mother to mother, etc.) – reaching beyond known surnames.  Click here to order or upgrade.

#2 – MyHeritage Low Pass Whole Genome Sequence Test Charges into the Future

Another big hitter is the new MyHeritage low-pass whole genome test (WGS) test. It’s new and innovative, but we haven’t seen comparative results yet.

My results from the new low-pass whole genome test just came back, and I haven’t had the opportunity to review them yet, as compared to the earlier tests. That said, I do have roughly the same number of matches, but I need to determine if they are the same matches, and how well they track. I’ll be working on that review soon.

The new whole genome test may be more about future proofing and preparedness than additional current benefit – but we will see. I definately wanted to take the whole genome test so I can receive and benefit from whatever new is coming down the pike.

MyHeritage allows you to maintain multiple DNA tests on your account, so the new whole genome won’t “replace” your older or uploaded test. That way, you can easily compare the results of the whole genome against any DNA test that you curently have at MyHeritage.

Click here to order the new test.

#3 – 23andMe Experiences Problems

On a less positive note, but still quite newsworthy is the bankruptcy of 23andMe and subsequent repurchase of 23andMe by the original founder after setting up a new nonprofit. I have real mixed feelings about this topic. However, 23andMe was really never about genealogy, and now, matching segment information is no longer available. Those searching for unknown parents or family may want to test there if they are unsuccessful elsewhere.

Best Genealogy Tool

The FamilySearch full text search continues to have a HUGE impact for genealogists. This tool is not one-and-done, but provides increasing amounts of rich information as more records are added to the “fully scanned” collection. If you haven’t tried it, please do. It’s a game-changer and continues to improve.

A Cautionary Word About AI – Artificial Intelligence

AI is such a hot topic right now that I feel it needs to be included.

The FamilySearch full text search uses a form of AI. However, you’ll quickly notice that it can’t read everything, gets words and names wrong, and if you actually need to fully depend on it for accuracy, you cannot. (That said, it’s still an amazing tool, and I’m not picking on FamilySearch.)

Aside from FamilySearch, AI in its current form is both wonderful and terrible. I’ll be writing about AI in the new year, but for now, don’t ever rely on AI for anything that you can’t verity. It’s your assistant, not an expert, no matter how insistent it is. Never trust and always verify.

This is ESPECIALLY TRUE WHEN RELATED TO GENETICS and genetic related topics. I can’t even begin to tell you how very wrong it has been, and how much people fall in love with inaccurate results. No, just no – at least for now.

You need to know your AI tool, your skill set, your understanding of AI broadly, the tool’s limitations, and yours, and that’s all before verifying the actual AI results. If you want to educate yourself, and everyone should, treat yourself to anything, anyplace by either Mark Thompson or Steve Little, the dynamic AI duo. They offer YouTube videos and classes in a wide variety of places – but keep in mind that AI tools and technology literally change every few weeks.

AI is, indeed, a specialty all unto itself, much like genetic genealogy. And right now, it’s not soup yet, but it is cooking.

Tried and True Genetic Genealogy Staples – DNAPrint and Genetic Affairs

I haven’t written about either one this year, but I use both DNAPainter and Genetic Affairs regularly.

I consistently paint segments from matches at both MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, and GEDmatch that are newly identified to an ancestor or ancestral couple at DNAPainter.

Unfortunately, neither Ancestry nor 23andMe provide matching cM location information for your matches (chromosome browser), but you may find some people who have tested at those companies at both FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch if they have uploaded to either of those vendors. Both vendors provide segment information and a Chromosome Browser, enabling you to paint that information to DNAPainter when you can identify your common ancestor.

MyHeritage also provides a Chromosome Browser, but unfortunately, no longer accepts uploads from any other vendor. You can paint segments from MyHeritage, but no longer upload DNA files to MyHeritage.

Thanks to DNAPainter, I have 90% of my segments identified to specific ancestors – which is actually rather remarkable given that my mother’s grandfather was a Dutch immigrant, and her great-grandparents on her other side were German immigrants, meaning we don’t have many matches on either of those lines.

Genetic Affairs continues to develop new, advanced clustering tools, one of which I’ll be reviewing soon.

Major Vendor Releases

Aside from what’s listed above, most of the major vendors released new features.

MyHeritage released a VERY COOL new tool called Cousin Finder that finds your relatives in the MyHeritage database, whether they match you on a DNA test, or not. They may not have even taken a DNA test. Cousin Finder identifies your common ancestor and shows your relationships. It’s a wonderful way to initiate communications, discuss your common ancestors, and ask about DNA testing.

Of my 378 Cousin Finder matches, only 23 (about 6%) are on my DNA match list, so that leaves 355 people to message, several of whom represent Y-DNA and mtDNA lines I don’t have. You can bet I’ll be offering testing scholarships.

Additionally, MyHeritage released a new ethnicity version.

FamilyTreeDNA, in addition to the new Mitotree, Discover, and associated features, released a new match matrix so you can see if and how selected matches are related to each other in a grid format. In other words, you can create your own cluster.

A new built-in “Share” feature blurs private information to make sharing easier both on the website and in Discover.

Discover improvements include thousands of new Y-DNA and mtDNA tree branches, plus thousands of new Ancient DNA samples. Discover is evergreen, so once you’ve taken that Big Y-700 test or the mitochondrial DNA test, your learning never stops as more content is added.

Tree integration with WikiTree is super-easy and means you don’t have to choose between trees. You can choose to retain your archived tree at FamilyTreeDNA, or move your tree to MyHeritage, PLUS link yourself to your family at WikiTree.

Ancestry released match clustering and a new beta pedigree view of ThruLines, but that’s back in the shop for more work. I’d expect to see it rereleased in 2026.

Conferences

RootsTech is the granddaddy of genealogy conferences, and it’s always fun to attend and write about the experience. Many vendors release new tools or products during the conference.

The ECGGC (East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference), held in the fall, is the only conference that focuses entirely on genetic genealogy, new tools, how to use existing tools, and more. The 2025 conference was virtual and provided a great deal of focused content. Attendees particularly appreciate the deep dive in a particular topic presented in DNA Academy.

I’ll be at RootsTech in 2026, will write about that soon, and hope to see you there.

Concepts, Techniques and Plain Old Genealogy

In the past, my Concepts series and genealogy “how to” articles have been very popular, so, in 2025, I penned a half-dozen articles focusing on frequently asked questions about relationships and DNA.

For example, how does one go about finding DNA testing candidates? The number of options may surprise you and includes both Cousin Finder and Relatives at RootsTech.

By testing ONE PERSON for either Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA that represents an ancestor, you actually receive information about that entire lineage of ancestors. So, on my Estes line, by locating an Estes male from my line to test, I received relevant information for every Estes male in my line, back to and beyond the progenitor.

Eventually, we hit a brick wall in every line, and those tools are the perfect way to break through those brick walls.

Other articles discuss things like how to use Discover’s Ancient Connections, and the difference between half and full relationships, both in your tree and genetically. Plus, what does a cousin “once removed” mean anyway? And why do I care?

Another question I receive is how far back, based on the shared amount of DNA, should I look in my matches’ trees for our common ancestor? In other words, how many generations back should I click? That article was fun and produced some unexpected results.

Memorial Articles

Because we are part of a community, I write memorial articles when one of our friends passes on. This year, sadly, Schelly Talalay Dardashti, well-known Jewish genealogist, and another very close friend joined the ancestors, so I’ve recognized the best in both of their lives which constitutes their legacy.

Be the Storyteller

Last, but not least, I wrote about my ancestors in the “52 Ancestors” series, which launched several years ago with Amy Johnson Crow’s challenge to write about one ancestor per week. She hosts this every year, and you can join (free) now.

I’m now on ancestor #467, so yes, it’s addictive, but it’s also AMAZING how many wonderful cousins I’ve met who have information that I did not. Not only that, but after publishing about an ancestor, I’ve discovered that I’m related to people I’ve known for years. We were SOOOooo excited!

I’ve been writing about the lives of my ancestors for several years now, and the articles include attempts to identify Y-DNA and mtDNA testers for each ancestor, where appropriate. There’s so much to learn that can’t be revealed any other way.

Plus, people seem to like the “mystery” and “short story” aspect, and I salt each story with the history of the region and relevant historical events of the timeframe. You might find your ancestors here too, or other helpful information.

Find a way to share about your ancestors!

Do You Have Suggestions for 2026 Topics?

Do you have suggestions or requests for article topics in 2026? If so, please comment on this article and let me know.

Check Out the 2025 List

Here’s the list of the 2025 articles. Did you miss something fun? Enjoy!

  Title Category Date Link
1 Welcome to 2025 – Opportunities and New Genetic Genealogy Articles Welcome, general 1-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/01/02/welcome-to-2025-opportunities-and-new-genetic-genealogy-articles/
2 Anne Doucet (1713-1791), Oceans, Rivers, and Perseverance – 52 Ancestors #438 52 Ancestors 1-4-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/01/04/anne-doucet-1713-1791-oceans-rivers-and-perseverance-52-ancestors-438/
3 Register for RootsTech 2025 Now RootsTech 1-16-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/01/16/register-for-rootstech-2025-now/
4 What IS the McNeil Family History, by George Franklin McNeil – 52 Ancestors #439 52 Ancestors 1-19-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/01/20/what-is-the-mcneil-family-history-by-george-franklin-mcneil-52-ancestors-439/
5 Jean Garceau dit Tranchemontagne (c1785-1711), Soldier from Saint Marseault – 52 Ancestors #440 52 Ancestors 1-29-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/01/29/jean-garceau-dit-tranchemontagne-c1785-1711-soldier-from-saint-marseault-52-ancestors-440/
6 Memories Resurface When the Old Family Home Gets a Facelift Genealogy 2-3-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/03/memories-resurface-when-the-old-family-home-gets-a-facelift/
7 MyHeritage Introduces Ethnicity v2.5 MyHeritage 2-6-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/06/myheritage-introduces-ethnicity-v2-5/
8 Relatives at RootsTech Reveals Cousins and Provides DNA Candidates RootsTech, techniques 2-8-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/08/relatives-at-rootstech-reveals-cousins-and-provides-dna-candidates/
9 FamilyTreeDNA’s New Matrix Shows How Your Matches Are Related to Each Other FamilyTreeDNA 2-12-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/12/familytreednas-new-matrix-shows-how-your-matches-are-related-to-each-other/
10 René Doucet (c1680-c1731), Lifetime of Incessant Upheaval – 52 Ancestors #441 52 Ancestors 2-15-2024 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/16/rene-doucet-c1680-c1731-lifetime-of-incessant-upheaval-52-ancestors-441/
11 Lineages Versus Ancestors – How to Find and Leverage Yours Techniques 2-23-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/23/lineages-versus-ancestors-how-to-find-and-leverage-yours/
12 Mitotree is Born Mitochondrial DNA 2-25-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/25/mitotree-is-born/
13 RootsTech 2025 – The Year of Discover and the New Mitotree RootsTech, Mitochondrial DNA 3-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/03/15/rootstech-2025-the-year-of-discover-and-the-new-mitotree/
14 Pierre Doucet (c1621-1713), Walking History Book Lived to Nearly 100 – 52 Ancestors #442 3-16-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/03/16/pierre-doucet-c1621-1713-walking-history-book-lived-to-nearly-!100-52-ancestors-442/
15 Welcome to the New FamilyTreeDNA mtDNA Group Mitochondrial DNA 3-17-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/03/17/welcome-to-the-new-familytreedna-mtdna-group/
16 23andMe Files for Bankruptcy – What You Need to Know! 23andMe 3-24-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/03/25/23andme-files-for-bankruptcy-what-you-need-to-know/
17 New “Share” Features at FamilyTreeDNA Blur Match Information and Make Sharing Easy FamilyTreeDNA 4-1-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/01/new-share-features-at-familytreedna-blur-match-information-and-make-sharing-easy/
18 The Chauvet Cave: Trip Back in Time with Prehistoric European Humans – Are We Related? History, DNA 4-6-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/06/the-chauvet-cave-trip-back-in-time-with-prehistoric-european-humans-are-we-related/
19 DNA for Native American Genealogy Webinar & Companion Book Native American 4-8-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/08/dna-for-native-american-genealogy-webinar-companion-book/
20 Marie Levron (c1686-1727), Tragedy from Cradle to Grave – 52 Ancestors #443 52 Ancestors 4-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/14/marie-levron-c1686-1727-tragedy-from-cradle-to-grave-52-ancestors-443/
21 Mitochondrial DNA: What is a Haplotype Cluster and How Do I Find and Use Mine Mitochondrial DNA 4-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/14/mitochondrial-dna-what-is-a-haplotype-cluster-and-how-do-i-find-and-use-mine/
22 New Mitotree Haplogroups and How to Utilize Them for Genealogy Mitochondrial DNA 4-23-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/23/new-mitotree-haplogroups-and-how-to-utilize-them-for-genealogy/
23 Sir Francois Levron dit Nantois(c1651-1714), and Acadia’s Pirate – 52 Ancestors #444 52 Ancestors 4-26-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/27/sir-francois-levron-dit-nantois-c1651-1714-and-acadias-pirate-52-ancestors-444/
24 Catherine Savoie (c1661-c1722/25), Whispered Threads Weave a Tapestry of Life – 52 Ancestors #445 52 Ancestors 5-4-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/04/catherine-savoie-c1661-c1722-5-whispered-threads-weave-a-tapestry-of-life-52-ancestors-445/
25 Discover’s Ancient Connections – How Are You Related? Discover, Ancient DNA 5-8-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/08/discovers-ancient-connections-how-are-you-related/
26 Mother’s Day and Legacies 52 Ancestors, Genealogy 5-10-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/11/mothers-day-and-legacies/
27 The Mystery of the Blue Fugates and Smiths: A Study in Blue Genes and Pedigree Collapse Genetics, Genealogy 5-18-1015 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/19/the-mystery-of-the-blue-fugates-and-smiths-a-study-in-blue-genes-and-pedigree-collapse/
28 Regeneron Wins Bid for Bankrupt 23andMe – Wedding Planned 23andMe 5-19-2023 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/19/regeneron-wins-bid-for-bankrupt-23andme-wedding-planned/
29 Francois Savoie’s Homestead Rediscovered – 52 Ancestors #446 52 Ancestors 5-24-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/24/francois-savoies-homestead-rediscovered-52-ancestors-446/
30 Memorial Day – Some Gave All Memorial 5-25-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/25/memorial-day-some-gave-all/
31 Mitotree Webinar – What It Is, How We Did It, and What Mitotree Means to You Mitochondrial DNA 6-4-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/04/mitotree-webinar-what-it-is-how-we-did-it-and-what-mitotree-means-to-you/
32 Catherine LeJeune (c1633-1671/1686), Meet Your Grandchildren – 52 Ancestors #447 52 Ancestors 6-7-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/07/catherine-lejeune-c1633-1671-1686-meet-your-grandchildren-52-ancestors-447/
33 Mitotree Q&A for Everyone Mitochondrial DNA 6-11-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/11/mitotree-qa-for-everyone/
34 Father’s Day: Bravery and Love 52 Ancestors, Genealogy 6-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/14/fathers-day-bravery-and-love/
35 Francoise Bourgeois (c1659-1693/1697), High Drama in Beaubassin and Terror at Port Royal – 52 Ancestors #448 52 Ancestors 6-16-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/16/francoise-bourgeois-c1659-1693-97-high-drama-in-beaubassin-and-terror-at-port-royal-52-ancestors-448/
36 Requesting Suggestions for RootsTech 2026 Topics RootsTech 6-18-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/18/requesting-suggestions-for-rootstech-2026-topics/
37 FamilyTreeDNA and WikiTree Collaboration – In Two Easy Steps!! FamilyTreeDNA, WikiTree 6-25-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/25/familytreedna-and-wikitree-collaboration-in-two-easy-steps/
38 Jacques Bourgeois (c1620-c1700), Surgeon of Port Royal – 52 Ancestors #449 52 Ancestors 7-1-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/01/jacques-bourgeois-c1620-c1700-surgeon-of-port-royal-52-ancestors-449/
39 TTAM, a Nonprofit Formed by 23andMe’s Founder Now Plans to Buy 23andMe 23andMe 7-1-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/01/ttam-a-nonprofit-formed-by-23andmes-founder-now-plans-to-buy-23andme/
40 Jacques Bourgeois: Complex Acadian, Founder of Beaubassin – 52 Ancestors #450 52 Ancestors 7-6-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/06/jacques-bourgeois-complex-acadian-founder-of-beaubassin-52-ancestors-450/
41 How to Use Ancestry’s New Match Clusters and What They Mean Ancestry 7-10-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/10/how-to-use-ancestrys-new-match-clusters-and-what-they-mean/
42 Walk with Your Ancestors: Peace, Light and Healing in an Abandoned Medieval Village History 7-21-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/21/walk-with-your-ancestors-peace-light-and-healing-in-an-abandoned-medieval-village/
43 Jeanne Trahan (c1629-c1699), Life in Chinon, La Heve, Port Royal, and Beaubassin – 52 Ancestors #451 52 Ancestors 8-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/28/jeanne-trahan-c1629-c1699-life-in-chinon-la-heve-port-royal-and-beaubassin-52-ancestors-451/
44 Wherefore Art Thou, Oh Ancestor – New Generation Tree Chart Suggests Where to Look in Your Matches’ Trees Techniques, Genetics, Genealogy 8-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/02/wherefore-art-thou-oh-ancestor-new-generation-tree-chart-suggests-where-to-look-in-your-matches-trees/
45 Guillaume Trahan (c1601-1625), More Than Meets the Eye – 52 Ancestors #452 52 Ancestors 8-13-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/13/guillaume-trahan-c1601-c1684-more-than-meets-the-eye-52-ancestor-452/ 
46 The East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference – ECGGC – Register Now for the Best of the Best ECGGC Conference 8-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/14/the-east-coast-genetic-genealogy-conference-ecggc-register-now-for-the-best-of-the-best/
47 Schelly Talalay Dardashti – May Her Memory Be a Blessing Memorial 8-17-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/17/schelly-talalay-dardashti-may-her-memory-be-a-blessing/
48 Francoise Corbineau (c1609-c1665), Bride in Chinon, Founder of Acadia – 52 Ancestors #453 52 Ancestors 8-25-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/23/francoise-corbineau-c1609-c1665-bride-in-chinon-founder-of-acadia-52-ancestors-453/
49 Nicolas Trahan (c1570->1632), Life in the Heart of French Wine Country – 52 Ancestors #454 52 Ancestors 8-31-2015 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/31/nicolas-trahan-c1570-1632-life-in-the-heart-of-french-wine-country-52-ancestors-454/
50 Mitochondrial DNA A-Z: A Step-by-Step Guide to Matches, Mitotree, and mtDNA Discover Mitochondrial DNA, Discover, Genealogy, Techniques 10-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/02/mitochondrial-dna-a-z-a-step-by-step-guide-to-matches-mitotree-and-mtdna-discover/
51 Renée Desloges (c1570-1627/1632), Fragments of Life in Montreuil-Bellay – 52 Ancestors #454 (this is actually 455) 52 Ancestors 9-6-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/06/renee-desloges-c1570-1627-1632-fragments-of-life-in-montreuil-bellay-52-ancestors-454/
52 Best Mitochondrial DNA Presentation EVER – You’re Invited to DNA Academy!! Mitochondrial DNA 9-9-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/09/best-mitochondrial-dna-presentation-ever-youre-invited-to-dna-academy/
53 Unfillable Shoes Memorial – Douglas Rhodenbaugh 9-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/14/unfillable-shoes/
54 Concepts: What Does a Cousin “Once Removed” Mean? Concepts, Genealogy 9-24-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/24/concepts-what-does-a-cousin-once-removed-mean/
55 Daniel Vannoy (1752-after 1820), “Lived in the Boundary of the Cherokee Indians” – Say What??? 52 Ancestors 9-29-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/29/daniel-vannoy-1752-after-1820-lived-in-the-boundary-of-the-cherokee-indians-say-what/
56 Daniel Vannoy and the Strange Case of the Two Sarahs – 52 Ancestors #457 52 Ancestors 10-5-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/06/daniel-vannoy-and-the-strange-case-of-the-two-sarahs-52-ancestors-457/
57 Cousin Finder – MyHeritage’s Innovative New Tool Finds Your Relatives MyHeritage 10-9-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/09/cousin-finder-myheritages-innovative-new-tool-finds-your-relatives/
58 Sarah Hickerson Vannoy (c1761 – after 1826), Threw More than Shade – 52 Ancestors #458 52 Ancestors https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/13/sarah-hickerson-vannoy-c1761-after-1826-threw-more-than-shade-52-ancestors-458/
59 MyHeritage Introduces a Low-Pass Whole Genome Autosomal DNA Test & Why It Matters MyHeritage 10-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/14/myheritage-introduces-a-low-pass-whole-genome-autosomal-dna-test-why-it-matters/
60 Henriette Pelletret (c1640 – before 1694), Life Death in the Shadow of the Fort – 52 Ancestors #459 52 Ancestors 10-21-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/21/henriette-pelletret-c1640-before-1694-life-and-death-in-the-shadow-of-the-fort-52-ancestor-459/
61 Cheat Sheet: Mitochondrial Matches, Haplotype Clusters, and Haplogroups Mitochondrial DNA 10-22-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/22/cheat-sheet-mitochondrial-matches-haplotype-clusters-and-haplogroups/
62 Simon Pelletret (1610-1642/1645): A Walk Through Port Royal – 52 Ancestors #460 52 Ancestors 10-27-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/27/simon-pelletret-c1610-1642-1645-a-walk-through-port-royal-52-ancestors-460/
63 Perrine Bourg (c1626-1693/1698): Phoenix Rising from the Ashes – 52 Ancestors #461 52 Ancestors 11-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/02/perrine-bourg-c1626-1693-1698-phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes-52-ancestors-461/
64 Concepts: What is a Half Relationships, Life Half First Cousins, Anyway? Concepts, Genealogy 11-4-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/04/concepts-what-is-a-half-relationship-like-half-first-cousins-anyway/
65 Marie Broussard (1686-after 1752), Life Across the River from Port Royal – 52 Ancestors #462 52 Ancestors 11-10-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/10/marie-broussard-1686-after-1752-life-across-the-river-from-port-royal-52-ancestors-462/
66 Francois Broussard (1653-1716), Intractable Acadian – 52 Ancestors #463 52 Ancestors 11-22-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/22/francois-broussard-1653-1716-intractable-acadian-52-ancestors-463/
67 Mitotree Sprouts 12,773 New Branches and Includes Ancient DNA Mitochondrial DNA 11-24-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/24/mitotree-sprouts-12773-new-branches-and-includes-ancient-dna/
68 Catherine Richard (c1663 – after 1714), Mother of Beausoleil, Acadian Freedom Fighters – 52 Ancestors #464 52 Ancestors 11-29-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/29/catherine-richard-c1663-after-1714-mother-of-beausoleil-acadian-freedom-fighters-52-ancestors-464/
69 Ancestry’s ThruLines Has a New Pedigree View Ancestry 12-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/03/ancestrys-thrulines-has-a-new-pedigree-view/
70 Ancestry Reverts ThruLines to the Original View Ancestry 12-6-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/06/ancestry-reverts-thrulines-to-the-original-view/
71 Michel Richard (c1630-1686/1689), Carefree Acadian – 52 Ancestors #465 52 Ancestors 12-7-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/08/michel-richard-dit-sansoucy-c1630-1686-1689-carefree-acadian-52-ancestors-465/ 
72 Mitochondrial DNA: How Do I Know if I’m a Candidate to Receive a New Haplogroup? Mitochondrial DNA 12-9-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/09/mitochondrial-dna-how-do-i-know-if-im-a-candidate-to-receive-a-new-haplogroup/
73 Heavens Ablaze: the 1833 Leonid Meteor Storm and Your Ancestors History, Genealogy 12-15-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/15/heavens-ablaze-the-1833-leonid-meteor-storm-and-your-ancestors/
74 Madelaine Blanchard (c1643 – 1678/1683), Gone Too Soon – 52 Ancestors #466 52 Ancestors 12-20-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/20/madelaine-blanchard-c1643-1678-1683-gone-too-soon-52-ancestors-466/
75 Soar Inspiration 12-24-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/24/soar/

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39

Many people are struggling this year, often in ways that aren’t visible to anyone else. For countless reasons, the holidays can be especially difficult, especially in the face of loss, and when grief and long-held pain rise uninvited to the surface.

Keep in mind that most people will never let on. Often plastering on their happy face or retreating into silence – especially if something painful happens. Pain doesn’t just include things that occurred recently, but can be layered over time, like a cake or an onion. And sometimes all it takes is one harsh word, or too many memories, to pull you back to that awful place.

I hope you’re not among those battling sadness or despair this holiday season. But if you are, I’ve written this article of encouragement particularly for you. That said, it applies to everyone, because we’re all human and after all, this is the holidays! Trust me – this ends on a postive note. But first, I need to explain.

When I was young, my environment was bathed in “can’t”.

You’re too young…

You’re a female, so you can’t…

Ladies don’t…

We’re not going to waste a perfectly good advanced-placement (college prep) seat on a girl…

You’re too fat, skinny… (or fill in the blank)

You can’t…

We don’t hire…

So glad you’re a female, so we can pay you less… (Yes, this really happened more than once.)

You’re not <something> enough! (Says it all!)

The voices, if there were any, saying I was good enough, smart enough, talented enough, or even simply welcome, were drowned out by the others, and the toxic culture I was steeped in, where all of this was “normal.” If any encouraging voices were there, I couldn’t hear them in the cacophony of both direct and implied criticism.

Every single one landed like a blow, bruising my heart.

People either don’t understand, or don’t care that words can cut deeper than any knife ever could. Directly into your soul. Inflicting wounds that don’t heal and instead fester over time.

Words you hear again and again when the next person says something similar. No matter how many years later.

One Voice

But there was one voice. The man who fate sent to become the wind beneath my wings. The man who secured his forever legacy through his encouragement and kindness when no one else was there.

When he uttered those life-altering words to me, I was a young, single mother, having escaped a horrifically abusive marriage and was battling my way through college by working two jobs. I was both incredibly tired and unbelievably discouraged.

I repeatedly heard “can’t”, “shouldn’t”, and saw the disapproving glances everywhere. People were incredulous that I even considered the possibility that I could or should. What was wrong with me anyway?

They were all perfectly willing to explain what I “should” be doing, “shouldn’t” be doing, or best case, treating me like I was invisible. Silence still conveys a message, but it’s one notch better than continuing to be beaten with a hammer.

I heard a lot of “If you would just…” or “You should…”

Not one person encouraged me or asked if they could help.

Except him.

God bless that man for changing my life.

The Decision

I was visiting my folks one hot August day when I was trying to make what I knew would be a life-changing decision.

No female was ever encouraged to make something better of her life, let alone move away to do so. If you absolutely HAD TO go to college, you should be a teacher or nurse, a traditional female career. Certainly NOT an engineer, scientist, or something similar. Even applying for admission to those schools earned you a battle that required a warrior to win.

I worked very hard, maintaining stellar grades despite numerous challenges, and received an offer for a professional position as a systems engineer. My dream job. That was exactly what I had worked towards. The catch was that I’d have to move out of state.

Me, and my two young children.

Alone.

I was terrified. Not that there was much support where I lived, but my folks were there, and I knew my way around. The devil you know versus one far away. In a new place, I’d literally be starting over again.

In the echo chamber of my mind, all those negative words and criticisms that I had been peppered with all of my life were bouncing around.

“You’ll never make anything of yourself.” (Teacher)

“Girls don’t become scientists. <snicker> Pick something else.” (Different teacher)

“Why would you do that to your children?” (To give them a better life, so they don’t have to deal with this.)

“Why don’t you just settle down and get married?” (Hello, I did that once already.)

“Just do what your husband says.” (Neighbor, after the police were called when the former husband beat me.)

“Why can’t you just behave?” (Family member)

“Girls like you are the reason there’s unemployment. You’re taking all the jobs that belong to men.” (Quote from my brother’s mouth. I can’t even. And no, he was not kidding.)

My Dad

The most unlikely person you’d ever expect to be an advocate in these circumstances would be an old Hoosier farmer – but there he was.

Dad, seated with Spot, Mom in blue, with her Aunt Eloise Lore about 1980

My stepfather, Dean Long.

A man of very few words. The local prankster who graduated from high school, married, and stayed on the farm. He never set foot out of Indiana until he came to visit me, button-busting proud, a year or so later – in that distant state.

That fateful day is forever burned into my mind.

I was sitting on the blue and white metal lawn furniture in the yard outside the back door on the farm, “snapping beans.” The beans were in a towel in my lap. The bucket on one side was for the ends and strings that would be fed to the hogs, and the other bucket was for the beans that would be snapped into bite-sized pieces and cooked.

Mom was inside, probably cooking.

Dad had been at the barn, doing something.

My oldest child was playing on a tree swing nearby, and the youngest was inside napping.

It was beastly hot. No AC in that farmhouse.

I was rolling the various options around in my head, like a worry stone, wrapped in my fear, uncertainty, and insecurity. I kept hearing all of those things I had been told forever, over and over again. I was terrified.

What should I do?

What if I failed?

What if something bad happened to my children?

Of course, I had a logical “answer” for each of these things, and I fully realized that the only way “out” of systemic and generational poverty was through applied education.

However, logic and emotion are two entirely different animals, and I didn’t know how much was fear. Was I being foolish? Or wise? I had no idea.

This was truly the fork in the road, and I knew it.

Based on all of those voices, it seemed like heresy to even try, but then again, how could I NOT try?

I knew that my mother did not want me to move. No one wants their child to move away. She wanted me to be happy and safe, but there, where I could snap beans on Sunday afternoon and she could watch her grandchildren play outside the window, not someplace else.

But I wasn’t safe, by any definition of the word, and neither were my children.

An entire audience of people would love to see me fail and get my “comeuppance”, being one of those “liberated women,” and all.

If I didn’t take advantage of the opportunity, fighting so hard and against nearly insurmountable odds for my education would have been for naught. All those late nights. Multiple jobs. I wasn’t fighting only for myself, but for opportunities for my children in some place where opportunity existed – which was not where I lived. I didn’t want my daughter to endure what I had – and be expected to just shut up and take it.

Haven’t our ancestors been seeking better opportunities for generations?

I certainly wasn’t the only one, but I was very alone as I sat there, mulling the options and possibilities, both positive and negative.

I had talked to my parents about my looming decision and its ramifications, but I still had no idea what to do. I knew deciding either way would change my life – my children’s lives – and probably the lives of my parents too.

Dad was walking up from the barn towards the house. The small, uneven, sidewalk had a slight incline, so he moved slowly. He always wore overalls in the barn and took them off in the mudroom, between the back step and the kitchen. There was a sink there too for washing up.

Dad walked up beside me. I looked up and smiled at him, that smile that says, “I’m smiling externally, but I’m really very torn inside.”

My eyes were probably puffy. That decision-making process was agony.

Dad stopped and said:

Bobbi, don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. You can do anything you set your mind to. You’re going to change the world.

I just looked at him, incredulous and truly speechless.

In an affectionate gesture, he thunked me gently on the shoulder with his thumb in passing, then just shuffled on into the house. The screen door clacking shut behind him.

Not another word was said.

He didn’t need to say any more.

He said it all.

Hot tears streamed down my cheeks, dripping onto the beans. I didn’t know why then, but I do now.

That may well have been the first time I had ever received direct, outright encouragement from anyone. Not only that, but he had complete faith in me. Far, far more faith than I had in myself.

My Dad saved me that day.

He is directly responsible for me taking that terrifying leap into the unknown future… a journey that, step by step, year by year, led me here.

He became the wind beneath my wings and sealed his legacy that day.

So, when you have the opportunity, choose words of kindness and encouragement.

Be that wind, lifting others up.

Soar

You don’t need permission to fly.

Ignore the naysayers.

Fill your life with those who are the wind beneath your wings.

Listen for that one uplifting voice in the darkness.

That clarion call.

Everyone has wings.

A majestic eagle,

A raven carrying light into the world,

A sparrow battered by the storm,

Or a graceful butterfly.

The wings are yours.

The sky belongs to no one.

It beckons you to take flight

Even when the wind is faint

And the night feels long.

Believe you can.

Because you can

Soar!

Madelaine Blanchard (c1643 – 1678/1683), Gone Too Soon – 52 Ancestors #466

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Madelaine (also spelled Madeleine) Blanchard was born to Jean Blanchard and Radegonde Lambert about 1643, probably in Port Royal, Acadia.

Madelaine grew up right beside the fort, on the waterfront in Port Royal, at least for the first several years of her life. Her family’s home stood right about here, on the other side of the erosion-prevention boulders, back on higher ground out of the photo at right. Every Acadian had at least some access to the waterfront, and her family’s was here.

Madelaine would have scampered down to the river, perhaps searched for pretty rocks, taken off her shoes, and waded in the water.

How do we know where the Blanchard land was located?

Locating the Blanchard Land

When a new fort was being built in 1705, several lots were expropriated, including one owned by Jean Blanchard, which was located between Simon Pelletret and Guillaume Trahan, founding families of Acadia.

These families were among the earliest arrivals, establishing themselves in Port Royal when Charles d’Aulnay relocated the seat of Acadia from La Hève to Port Royal between 1636 and 1640. Their neighbor, Guillaume Trahan, arrived in Acadia in 1636, so it stands to reason that the men who received these fort-side premier real estate lots were the earliest arrivals and settlers in Port Royal.

Madelaine would have grown up playing along the Port Royal waterfront, as viewed here from across the river.

Born about 1643, Madeleine was an infant, or not yet born, during the Acadian Civil War from 1640-1645, but she would have been an eyewitness to the events of 1654.

The English Invasion

In July of 1654, when Madelaine was about 11, the English sailed up the river and anchored right in front of her home, in the part of the river shown above.

The Acadians had one day’s advance warning, because Emmanuel Le Borgne had been in the process of attacking the rival French fort of Saint John, across the bay, when the English arrived to do the same. French on French warfare was an ugly family feud, but the English attack was another matter altogether.

For better or worse, instead of staying to help defend Fort Saint John against the English, Le Borgne scooted back home to Port Royal.

After taking Fort Saint John, the English arrived in Port Royal to find French soldiers and Acadian men poised to ambush. The 130 men in Port Royal tried their best to fend off the British, but had absolutely no chance against more than 530 English soldiers. They quickly had to retreat into the fort, and the English laid Port Royal under siege.

We have no idea where the women and children were sheltering, although they may well have been inside the fort too, in the garrison. That’s the typical arrangement. There wasn’t much of anyplace else other than the woods and hills behind the town, or someplace upriver.

The English siege lasted approximately four weeks, from July 13th to August 8th, when Port Royal surrendered.

Given the circumstances, the capitulation terms were generous. The Acadians were to remain unharmed, could retain their property, including homes and livestock, and were permitted to continue worshiping as Catholics. The French soldiers and administrators would be sent back to France, and all property belonging to the French King would become the property of the English.

The English were now in command, but they had not planned ahead for how they would administer Port Royal. Major Robert Sedgwick had not originally planned to attack the French, but did so when the war with the Dutch was settled and New Netherlands became off limits. His warships were ready, and his men itching to go – so he headed for the French Acadian ports.

Sedgwick left a small contingent of Redcoat soldiers at the garrison in Port Royal, and an Acadian delegation in charge. Aside from the English coming and going from time to time, as far as a child like Madelaine was concerned, not much changed.

After the siege was over, Madelaine would have returned home from wherever she had taken shelter with her mother and siblings, but I’d wager that she was forever wary of English ships and English soldiers.

The English would rule Acadia for the next 16 years, but Madeleine was busy with other things.

Madeleine Marries

Madeleine was about 13 in 1656 when she married Michel Richard dit Sansoucy, who probably arrived as a soldier, either with Charles d’Aulnay before his 1650 death, or with Emmanuel Le Borgne, his successor, prior to the 1654 fall of Acadia.

While 13 sounds young today, it wasn’t uncommon for Acadian brides to marry early. There were probably few marriage candidates in Port Royal at the time, so one needed to strike while the iron was hot and a good candidate was available and interested.

Nicolas Denys, an English captive held at Port Royal, said that there were about 270 residents there, and that they were mostly families brought by de Razilly. That would include d’Aulnay who was Razilly’s right-hand-man in Acadia. D’Aulnay served as Governor after Razilly’s 1635 death, which is when he decided to move the seat of Acadia, along with the settlers, from rocky La Hève to fertile Port Royal.

A decade or so later, in 1653, Denys recorded that the Acadians had “multiplied much at Port Royal.” He also added that many had abandoned their houses in the town of Port Royal and settled along the river on farms, specifically around the BelleIsle Marsh. Maybe that’s where the women and children sheltered in 1654. Soldiers never braved the river’s boar tide and rocks beyond Hogg Island at Port Royal. Ocean-going ships could not navigate the river above Port Royal.

The small number of residents in 1654 likely amounted to approximately 30 families, or 60 parents, leaving about 210 children, or roughly 7 per family. Those children would range in age from newborn to approximately 20, implying that there were 10 people in each year age bracket from 0 to 20, with an average of 5 males and 5 females. Therefore, Madeleine either needed to marry a widower, or one of the older male candidates, who typically didn’t marry until they were 25ish.

Michel Richard would have had his choice of a widow or maybe a total of 10 females who were old enough to marry.

That’s not much selection.

We know very little about the earliest church in Port Royal, but the Acadian families knew each other quite well and would have either gathered together in the church, or in the priest’s home, to witness Madelaine and Michel’s marriage and celebrate the joining of their lives.

Weddings were probably social events as well.

1671 Census

In 1667, Acadia was returned to French control via treaty, although functionally that didn’t occur until 1670.

The first Acadian census was taken in 1671, where we obtain our first glimpse of Madelaine herself.

In her parents’ census entry, it’s noted that three of their children are married. Fortunately, French and Acadian women retained their birth surnames, so locating Madeleine in the census was easy.

Madeleine Blanchard, 28, is married to Michel Richard, a farmer, 41, and they have seven children. Rene is 14, so born about 1657, Pierre is 10, Catherine is 8, Martin is 6, Alexandre is 3, and Madeleine has just given birth to twin daughters, Anne and Magdeleine, who are five weeks old.

Madeleine and Michel have 15 cattle, 14 sheep, and farm 14 arpents of land.

It’s challenging to determine precisely where they are living because they are listed beside Abraham Dugas on one side, who we know is the armorer and lives beside the fort, and beside Charles Melanson on the other side, who lives across the river and is married to Abraham Dugas’s daughter. It’s likely that the census taker was canoeing back and forth across the river and not listing residents in house-to-house order.

What the Census Doesn’t Say

There’s a tale of heartbreak hidden in this census, told by blank spaces.

Madelaine would have given birth to another child who should have been 12 and one who should have been 4 – and that’s assuming that each of those children lived long enough to be weaned. Madelaine could have given birth to more children if the baby died shortly after birth, so she would have become pregnant quickly, leaving just a year between births.

There’s also room for a possible child who died in 1670.

By 1671, Madeleine had already buried at least two, if not three, children, the first one when she was only 16, the second at 24, the third one just the year before, when she was 27. I wonder if any of those births were twins, too. Twins are often born underweight.

Childbirth was dangerous for women and children alike, and only about half of the children born survived to marry.

The 1678 Census

The 1678 census is somewhat unusual for Michel Richard and Madeleine Blanchard. Based on the neighbors, they are almost assuredly living in the town of Port Royal.

  1. Their oldest daughter, Catherine Richard, has married Francois Broussard. The newlywed couple has five cattle, but no land, and are listed beside her parents, Michel Richard and Madeleine Blanchard. How do you graze five cows with no land?
  2. Michel Richard and Madeleine Blanchard are listed with no additional information – no children, no livestock, nothing. That’s very odd.
  3. Next, we find Germain Doucet and Marie Landry with a normal listing, including their children, livestock, and land.
  4. Then, the census shows Michel Richard without Madeleine’s name, but WITH four boys and five girls, plus 21 cattle on 10 arpents of land.
  5. Next is Michel Boudrot “at the brook”, who we know lives beside the fort and beside Abraham Dugas.

So, what exactly does this mean? No one else is listed twice, let alone once with and once without a spouse.

Madeleine Blanchard Dies

Based on the next census, taken in 1686, Michel Richard, now 56, has remarried to Jeanne Babin, who is 18. They have been married for at least three years because they have a child who is 2.

This tells us that Madelaine had died by 1683 when Michel remarried.

The strange 1678 census entry might indicate that Madelaine died sometime during the census. Or maybe not.

Michel Richard’s children in the 1686 census who would have been born to Madeleine Blanchard include: Martin, 19, Alexandre, 17, Marie, 12 (born 1674), Cecile, 10 (born 1676), and Marguerite, 7 (born 1679).

Madeleine’s youngest child, Marguerite, is shown as age 7 in 1686, so born in 1679, but in two later censuses, she is shown as born in 1677. This date, which is the most critical for determining Madelaine’s death year, is uncertain because it brackets 1678.

Can we determine anything more?

Unfortunately, the 1678 census only provides a count of children by sex. Let’s retrofit this information for Madelaine’s family.

We know that daughter, Catherine Richard, was married because she was living next door. This leaves a total of 5 girls in the household. Using the 1671 and 1678 censuses, we can account for all daughters, including the youngest, Marguerite. Therefore, we know Marguerite was NOT born in 1679, unless an unknown child was born in 1677 or 1678 and had died by 1686.

Madelaine’s children are as follows:

Child Birth – Death Marriage/Spouse # of Children
Rene Richard 1657 – before 1693 in Port Royal Married Magdelaine Landry about 1680 5 children
Unknown child 1659 – before 1671
Pierre Richard 1661 – after Jan. 1739 in Grand Pre Married Marguerite Landry about 1686 In Minas by 1693 – 10 children
Catherine Richard* 1663 – after 1714 in Port Royal Married Francois Broussard about 1678 11 children
Martin Richard 1665 – before Feb. 1748 in Beaubassin Married Marguerite Bourg about 1691 In Beaubassin by 1695 – 10 children
Unknown child 1667 – before 1671
Alexandre 1668 – October 1709 in Port Royal Married Isabelle Petitpas about 1690 9 children
Possible child 1670 – 1670
Twin, Anne Richard 1671 – 1745 in Grand Pre Married Germain Terriot about 1686 In Minas by 1693 – 11 children
Twin, Magdeleine Richard 1671 – after July 1729 in Grand Pre Married Charles Babin in 1686 In Grand Pre by 1688 – 12 children
Unknown child 1673
Marie-Joseph Richard 1674 – 1709 in Pisiquit Married Michel Vincent about 1689 In Pisiquit by 1690 – 8 children
Cecile Richard 1676 – after 1731 in Pisiquit Married Pierre Forest about 1692 in Pisiquit 9 children
Marguerite Richard 1678 – after June 1731 maybe in Minas Married Jean LeBlanc about 1698 In Grand Pre by 1699 – 10 children

*Catherine Richard’s first child born in 1678 or 1679 may have been born before Catherine’s mother, Madeleine, died. Sadly that child died soon after birth, as did Catherine’s second child born about 1680. Catherine’s first child that lived was born about 1681, although it’s very unlikely that her mother lived that long, given that Madelaine’s last known child that lived, Marguerite, had been born by the 1678 census.

In 1678, Madeleine Blanchard was 35 years old and had given birth recently, within the year, to Marguerite. She had nine children at home, and her oldest daughter had married and was living next door.

Madeleine may have died in 1678, or she may have died anytime between 1678 and 1683 when her husband remarried. Had she been alive during the intervening years, she would have been expected to have borne a child in both 1680 and 1682. For all we know, she did, and they died as well.

If Madeleine did not die in 1678, she would have buried her first grandchild, standing beside her distraught daughter, Catherine, who was only about 15. She may well have buried a second grandbaby too, a year or two later, if she lived long enough. Maybe Madeleine and Catherine bonded in an incredibly sad way – they may both have buried multiple children in a very short timeframe. First children for Catherine, the daughter, and last children for Madeleine, the mother.

One way or another, Catherine’s mother, Madelaine, was gone by 1683, joining several of her children and her first grandchildren, too.

Magdelaine’s Funeral

Michel and their children would have made their way to the church beside the fort, within sight of their home. The parish priest, probably Father Louis Petit, would have given Madeleine’s Requiem Mass, in Latin, of course, focusing on Christ’s resurrection and Madelaine’s soul. The service would have included scripture, hymns, communion, and prayers for the departed.

He would have offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Eucharist for the faithful, making Christ present with them on that day.

Then Madeleine’s sons would have lifted their mother’s coffin, lovingly carrying it into the churchyard, and lowering her mortal remains into the earth, where she rests today in an unmarked grave.

Tears watered the soil.

Catherine named her first surviving child, born about 1681, after her mother. If they were both exceedingly lucky, Magdelaine lived long enough to welcome that baby and enjoy her for at least a few months.

Catherine probably helped raise her remaining siblings left behind by their mother’s passing, especially given that her new stepmother was three years younger than Catherine, and Michel may not have remarried right away.

I feel like Madelaine’s life was somehow unfairly short-circuited. She endured a great deal of sorrow but was never able to enjoy grandchildren, which, in Acadia, were assuredly among the finer things in life.

Madelaine was simply gone much, much too soon, leaving a sorrowing family to carry on without her.

_____________________________________________________________

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Heavens Ablaze: The 1833 Leonid Meteor Storm and Your Ancestors

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“The Falling Stars, Nov. 13, 1833.” Bible Readings for the Home Circle, p. 323. Review and Herald Publishing Association. 1914.

Every year during meteor showers, I think of my ancestors and wonder how they interpreted the 1833 Leonid meteor super-event and how it affected them. During the night of November 12th and the early morning of November 13th, 1833, the meteor shower turned into a storm, and was known as “the night of the falling stars,” and similar descriptions.

I began this article thinking about each of my ancestors who were alive then and, based on what I know about their lives, pondering what they might have thought and how they might have reacted. Where did they watch from? How much could they see? Did it affect their lives, and if so, how?

I had no idea I had 69 ancestors who were living in 1833, so I’ve narrowed the focuse of this article to the ancestors on my father’s side, in part because we actually have a local account.

The Night the Stars Fell

Beginning late on November 12, 1833, a Tuesday, and overnight, the heavens rained meteors at a rate of from 50,000 per hour to more than 240,000 per hour.

Most meteors are actually tiny fragments of rock the size of a pebble that burn up when entering the Earth’s atmosphere, emitting colors based on their chemical composition, sometimes resulting in vibrant streaks across the sky.

By Edmund Weiß – E. Weiß: “Bilderatlas der Sternenwelt”, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=562733

Fortunately, the 1833 storm is recorded in a number of drawings, paintings, newspaper articles, journals, and oral history.

Reports varied from around the world, but the event was described as a “rain of fire,” and a “tempest of falling stars.” With thousands every minute streaking across the night sky for hours on end, meteors were also described as “falling like snowflakes from the skies.”

The meteor shower began normally around midnight, but within a couple of hours, the sky was entirely filled with a display described in the New York Evening Post as “magnificent beyond conception.”

The Leonids are caused by the Earth passing through a cloud of space debris in the tail of Comet 55P/Temple-Tuttle, but people had no idea at the time. They thought the stars were literally falling out of the sky. Never before had there been a meteor shower of this magnitude, and it was frightening. Why was it happening?

Was it supernatural?

Was it God speaking?

Was it a prophecy?

Was it a warning?

Was it an answer?

Was the earth about to end?

Was Judgement Day here?

So many questions, with everyone left to decide the answers for themselves.

The most common reaction was fear and dread. Many people believed the end-times was approaching or had arrived, or the display was a sign of prophecy, as noted in this article by the Joseph Smith Foundation.

Some cultures measured time from that event of historic proportions.

For example, the Lakota marked time by the Leonids, but the 1833/1834 winter event was astounding, as detailed here. Battiste Good was the Lakota winter count-keeper, and recorded the meteor shower as the single event that would define that year in Lakota history.

The Library of Congress wrote an interesting blog article about the 1833 Leonid shower, or storm, that you can read, here.

Mary A. Hansard from Tazewell, Tennessee

Mary Hansard was born in 1825, died in 1899 in Claiborne County, Tennessee. She wrote a book, Old Time Tazewell, detailing local history. Cousin Travis Chumley extracted Mary’s entry about the Leonid meteor shower of 1833, and posted this excerpt in his historical Appalachian series.

In the year 1833 a most remarkable phenomenon occurred. I suppose that it is recorded in history. It was called the falling of the meteors. It happened in the night, and as I was only a small child, I was not an eyewitness to the awful scene. I heard my parents and others describe it next morning, as being the most awful sight that was ever looked upon with mortal eye. They said that the firmament on high was one solid glare of fire and light, and it looked as though every star in the sky was falling to the ground, and that they were certain the Day of Judgment was at hand. There were many wicked men on their knees that night praying to the Lord, and calling on others to pray for them, that had never been known to bow in prayer before. Such wild confusion had never been seen in Tazewell before. Next morning after all was over there seemed to be a solemn gloom resting on everyone’s countenance. It seemed that they were expecting more to occur. But everything moved on as usual. But I do not suppose that the scenes of that night were ever erased from the memory of those that were eye witnesses to the frightful event.

Where Were Our Ancestors?

I wondered where my ancestors lived in November of 1833. How old were they, and what did they think?

Were they frightened, as Mary Hansard reported, or perhaps enchanted?

My great-great-grandparents’ generation was living at the time, as were some of their parents, along with a few grandparents. In some cases, three generations were alive, and only three more would have brought the story to my father’s generation. How I wish they had kept a diary, but many couldn’t read or write. They probably told the story for a generation or two, until it was lost in time.

The Cumberland Gap Contingent

My father’s family was from the Cumberland Gap region, which includes families that lived in Claiborne County, Tennessee, Hancock County, Tennessee, which was formed from Claiborne in 1844, and Lee County, Virginia. Many lived in the Powell River Valley, shown above from the summit atop the Cumberland Gap.

  • John Y. Estes, Civil War Veteran, was born in 1818 in Halifax County, Virginia, to John R. Estes and Nancy Ann Moore, but had moved with his family to Claiborne County as a child. In 1833, he was 15 years old and living either in Estes Holler, near today’s Pleasant View Church, or across the Clinch River in Grainger County. There are no existing church records from nearby churches from this period, and there’s nothing to indicate that this family was particularly religious, so perhaps John was awakened and called outside by his parents to stare up at the sky in awe, side by side with his siblings.

  • John R. Estes, War of 1812 veteran, was born around 1787 in Halifax County, VA to George Estes and Mary Younger. He moved his family to the new frontier in Claiborne County, Tennessee about 1820. In 1826, he obtained land someplace close to the Indian Boundary line, but it’s unclear if he ever actually lived on that land. In 1833, a few years shy of 50 years old, he was probably living in Estes Holler, and would have witnessed the meteor shower in the skies between the mountain ridges, accompanies by his wife, Nancy Ann Moore, and their nine children. In Halifax County, John was probably a Methodist, since his father-in-law was a Methodist minister.

  • Nancy Ann Moore was born about 1785 in Virginia to the Reverend William Moore and Lucy, whose surname is unknown. Nancy Ann made the trek to Claiborne County with her husband and oldest five children around 1820. They settled someplace along Little Sycamore Road, probably in what would come to be known as Estes Holler, shown above. Did she gather her children close, fearing the worst? Her father was a Methodist minister, so she had assuredly grown up hearing the prophecies of Judgement Day.

Methodists, caught in the Second Great Awakening, interpreted the dramatic 1833 Leonid meteor shower as a powerful sign of Jesus’s Second Coming and the End Times, fulfilling Bible prophecies that stars would fall from heaven, sparking intense spiritual fervor, fear of judgment, and many conversions.

  • John Y. Estes’s wife, Martha “Ruthy” Dodson was born in 1820 in Alabama to Lazarus Dodson and Elizabeth Campbell. We believe that Ruthy’s mother died before 1830, when her father, Lazarus Dodson, brought his children back to Claiborne County, TN. In the 1830 census, Ruthy’s Campbell grandparents have four young children living with them. In 1833, Ruthy would have been 13 and would either have been terrified or fascinated by the night sky show. Did she equate the meteor shower with a message from her mother?

  • Lazarus Dodson (Jr.) was born around 1795 in Hawkins County, TN to Lazarus Dodson (Sr.) and Jane, whose surname is unknown. By 1833, he had returned from Alabama with his children after his wife, Elizabeth Campbell, died. By 1833, he would have been about 38 years old and was living just below Cumberland Gap on Gap Creek Road, now Tipprell Road. He was involved in the founding of Gap Creek Church, above. Interestingly, in 1833, he sold his land to David Cottrell and moved to Pulaski County, KY – although we don’t know when that move took place because those records are anything but clear. We will never know, of course, but I wonder what the meteor shower would have looked like from the Pinnacle of Cumberland Gap, directly above his land, some 2400 feet above sea level, and probably more than 1000 feet above his home. If I had been Lazarus, I would have ridden to the top to take a look for myself.

  • We know that Lazarus Dodson Jr’s father died in 1826, but his mother, Jane, whose surname is unknown, was born about 1760 and died sometime between 1830 and 1840, probably in McMinn County, TN. It’s unclear when Jane was living in Claiborne County, where she would have attended Gap Creek Church, just down the holler, or was living in McMinn County. In 1833, if she were living, she would have been in her 70s and most likely residing with one of her children. I wonder how she would have interpreted this heavenly spectacle from her view overlooking the road descending from Cumberland Gap. The Cottrell cemetrey above, now on LMU land, was once theirs. Were some people so fearful that they had heart attacks and died?

  • Elizabeth Campbell died before 1833, but her parents John Campbell and Jane “Jenny” Dobkins were still living. John Campbell was born about 1772 in Hawkins County, TN, moved to Claiborne County about 1802 and set up housekeeping on what is today Little Sycamore Road, right beside the Liberty Baptist Church. While Liberty had not yet been established at that time, there is a long-lost Baptist church back on Little Ridge, shown above, behind his house shown in the holler. Everyone in the neighborhood would have attended there. In 1833, John was about 50 and, like his neighbors, was a farmer. Was he wondering if the meteors were hitting the ground and damging his crops, or was he worrying about something different entirely?

  • Jane “Jenny” Dobkins was born around 1780 in Dunsmore County, VA to Jacob Dobkins and Dorcas Johnson. She married John Campbell around 1795 in Hawkins County, TN. As newlyweds, they moved to Claiborne County where, by 1833, at 53, she was raising her orphaned Dodson grandchildren in the log cabin portion of the home above, plus three of her own children who were still at home. What did Jenny tell her young grandchildren? Did she explain the phenomenon in terms of religion, or perhaps reassure them that their mother was looking over them?

  • Jacob Dobkins was a Revolutionary War Veteran who had been an Indian Scout on the frontier, barely escaping death. He was born about 1751 in Augusta County, VA, but was one of the first settlers in Claiborne County after the county was formed, obtaining prime farmland along the Powell River. In 1833, he would have been in his early 80s, maybe 82 or 83, and after what he had gone through in the war, I imagine nothing much phased him.

  • Dorcas Johnson was born around 1750, but much about her early life remains a mystery. She married Jacob Dobkins, setting out to homesteaded in the State of Franklin, then Jefferson County, TN, and then in a small log cabin, in Claiborne County around 1802. The cabin is shown above before it was dismantled. Dorcas was clearly one formidable woman. In March of 1833, at age 83ish, she was a sworn chain carrier for her grandson’s survey. After everything she had survived, she probably took a look at the meteors, thought, “Wow, those are cool,” peacefully enjoyed them for a while sitting on her porch in a rocking chair before going inside and back to bed. A few little meteors, or a lot, weren’t going to ruffle this woman’s feathers. Nosireee…

  • Joel Vannoy was born in 1813 in Claiborne County. He grew up in the portion that is now Hancock County, near the intersection of Little Sycamore and Mulberry Gap Roads, shown above. In 1833, Joel was 20 and still living at home, farming with his father, Elijah Vannoy on very steep, rocky terrain, on the side of Wallen Ridge. In his adult life, Joel struggled with mental health issues with symptoms that suggest paranoid schizophrenia. Given his challenges later in life, and that his diagnosis was “preachin’, swearin’ and threatenin’ to fight,” I can’t help but wonder how he interpreted the meteor sky show.

  • Elijah Vannoy was born about 1784 in Wilkes County, NC, married Lois McNiel, then moved across the mountains to Claiborne County, TN in about 1812. They settled on Mulberry Creek, with Elijah doing all of the normal pioneer things, like serving as a juror at court. However, beginning around 1820, Elijah began experiencing difficulties and lost his land entirely in 1834. So, in 1833, Elijah would have been struggling terribly and may have suffered from the same mental illness that his son would later exhibit. Elijah would have watched the meteors with Joel, and Lois if she was still living, along the rest of their nine children. He may well have believed the world was ending, because in a sense, his was. It’s beyond me how he managed to farm this incredibly steep land.

  • Phebe Crumley was born in 1818 in either Greene County or Claiborne County, TN to William Crumley the third and Lydia Brown. In 1833, she was 16 and living with her parents, either in Pulaski County, KY, or near Blackwater, on the Lee County/Claiborne County line. We have no records of the family’s involvement with a church, but many people joined churches in response to the meteors. Regardless, she would have told stories about that night into the late 1800s, before her death in 1900.

  • William Crumley the third, a War of 1812 veteran, was born in 1788 in Frederick County, VA, to William Crumley II and a woman whose name is unknown, but who had died by 1817 when his father remarried. William sold his land in Green County in 1822, was in Pulaski County, KY before 1830, and was living near Mulberry Gap Church, shown above, in Claiborne, now Hancock County, near or just over the Lee County, VA border, not long after.

  • William Crumley II was born about 1767 in Frederick County, VA, but had moved to the Territory South of the Ohio by about 1793, then to Greene County, TN by about 1795. He was probably raised as a Quaker, but as an adult, worshipped as a Methodist and helped establish Wesley’s Church in Greene County in 1797. His exact path to Lee County, Va, just across the border from Claiborne/Hancock County, TN is uncertain, mostly due to the fact that both he and his son had the same name. Regardless, it appears that in 1830, this William was living in Lee County, VA, near Blackwater, shown above. Would his religious leanings have influenced his interpretation of the meteor storm?

Some Quakers viewed the meteor shower as a Divine sign. Others encouraged scientific observation, and recognized it as a natural phenomenon, but still emphasized its spiritual meaning as an “inner light.”

  • Margaret Herrell was born about 1810 in Wilkes County, NC, to William Herrell and Mary McDowell. Her parents moved to the border region between Lee County, VA, and Claiborne County, TN on the Powell River by 1812. The Herrel land is shown above. In 1833, Margaret would have been 23 years old and had been married since about 1829. Her first child was born in early 1830, and her second known child arrived sometime in 1833. It’s quite interesting that on Sunday, December 1, 1833, Margaret was “received by experience,” into the Thompson Settlement Baptist Church. This means Margaret had undergone some sort of religious awakening, was baptized in the cold Powell river, and joined the church. Given that the sky rained stars just two and a half weeks earlier, I would be surprised if those two events weren’t connected. Margaret probably interpreted the meteor shower as a divine event, which convinced her to join the closest church, some 15 miles distant.

Baptists interpreted the brilliant meteor shower as awe-inspiring display by God that indicated fulfillment of the Biblical prophecy, specifically Matthew 24:29 and Revelation 6:13, signaling the imminent Second Coming of Christ and the End Times, which created a sense of urgency.

William Miller, who founded a sect called the Millerites, was a Baptist preacher who predicted that the end of the world would occur around 1843-1844. The “stars falling” became a key piece of evidence for his followers.

  • William Herrell, a War of 1812 veteran, was born around 1790 in Wilkes County, NC, and had moved his family to the northern-most portion of Claiborne County, TN before 1812. In 1833, William was about 43 years old and was living in a location on the Powell River known as Herrell’s Bend. One of the Herrell homes is shown above. William is quite the quandary, because while the meteor shower caused many people to reassess their lives, not so with William. In the 1830 census, William did not own any other humans, but William’s son, named Cannon, was born to an enslaved girl, Harriett, about November 1834, or perhaps somewhat earlier. William continued to have a “black wife” and a “white wife” for the rest of his life, living on opposite sides of his property and traveling back and forth between the two. Members of both families recount that he would live with one until she got mad at him, then go live with the other one until the same thing happened there too. However, there are no other known children borne by Harriett – so perhaps the meteor shower instilled at least a little fear of God in William. Or, maybe Harriett had children that died, or were sold.

  • Mary McDowell was born around 1785 in Wilkes County, NC, to Michael McDowell and Isabel, whose last name is not known. By 1833, Mary was living with her husband, William Herrell, five of her six known children ranging in age from 17 down to four, plus an enslaved girl, Harriett, also about 16 or 17, who gave birth to her husband’s child. There’s no possible way that either Mary or Harriett were happy with the situation, but neither of those women had any agency to do anything about it either. How did either, or both of them, interpret the meteor shower? Did that night sky display have anything to do with why William never fathered another child with Harriett, and perhaps why he built her a house? After Harriett’s death between 1840 and 1850, Mary raised Harriett’s son, Cannon, as her own, and as an adult, Cannon took care of Mary and his half-sister, who never married. The Herrell Cemetery, near their homes, with many unmarked graves, is shown above.

  • Michael McDowell was born about 1747, probably in Botetourt County, Virginia. After serving in the Revolutionary War, he settled in Wilkes County, NC, then, in 1809 or 1810, he forged on with the Herrell family to Claiborne County, TN. Michael settled on a peninsula of extremely rugged land in the Powell River aptly named Slanting Misery, shown above, looking towards the Claxton land across the Powell River. In 1832, when Michael applied for a Revolutionary War Pension, one of his witnesses was the Reverend James Gilbert of the Thompson Settlement Church, with whom Michael says he has a good relationship. By the time 1833 rolled around, Michael was 86 years old and still living on his relatively inaccessible, mountainous land. He was clearly thinking about the afterlife, though, because Michael deeded his land to two male McDowell men that year, “for love,” who are presumed to be sons or close family members. We don’t know whether the land transfer occurred before or after the meteor shower, because, of course, that deed book is missing. If Michael thought God was coming for him immediately upon seeing the stars falling, he was mistaken. He didn’t pass away until July of 1840 and may have been living with the Reverend Nathan S. McDowell at the time.

  • Isabel, spelled Isbell, whose surname we don’t know, was born around 1753, probably in Virginia. She and Michael McDowell settled for some time in Wilkes County, NC but Michael was a bit of a rabble-rouser, and by 1810 or so, they headed over the mountains to Claiborne County, TN. Isabel was about 60 by then, and in 1833, she would have been 80ish. In the 1830 census, a female, age 70-80 is living with Michael, and in 1840, it looks like Isabel is living with her daughter, Mary McDowell Herrell. Isabel’s children were all married by 1833 of course, except for her youngest daughter, Sally, born before 1790, who never married. No church records exist, but we do know that Nathan S. McDowell, her probable son or family member, was a minister in Claiborne County at the Big Springs Baptist Church, above, and was reported to have a “very crabbed disposition.” Closer to home, Isabel’s husband was close to the Reverend James Gilbert of the Thompson Settlement Church. I bet the discussions in November of 1833 were interesting in those mountains, especially if the interpretations of the two ministers didn’t quite align.

  • Samuel Claxton/Clarkson, a Civil War veteran, was born in 1827 in Claiborne County, TN, near the Harrells and McDowells, on Claxton Bend in the Powell River. In 1833, he would have been only 6 years old and may have stared at the Heavens in awe. He would have taken his cues in terms of “meaning” from his parents, Fairwick/Fairwix Claxton and Agnes Muncy, and the other adults around him. Samuel died a protracted, miserable death 43 years later as a result of his service in the war, and I hope that he was at least able to regale his children with stories about how the stars fell plum out of the sky one winter night a long time ago.

  • Fairwix Claxton was born around 1799 in Claxton Bend on the Powell River to James Lee Clarkson/Claxton and Sarah Cook. By 1833, he was married with five children. Fairwix and his siblings were trying to sort out his father’s land, above, on which his mother was still living. Estates can bring out the worst in people. Perhaps the meteor shower served as a stark reminder that Divinity is watching and was a wake-up call to whoever needed a rather remarkable reminder to be kind. Fairwick did not join a church until 1851.

  • Sarah Cook was born about 1775 in Russell County, VA where she met and married her husband, James Lee Clarkson/Claxton. They moved down the mountain range, settling along the Powell River, above, where she had eight children before James’s death in the War of 1812. Sarah never remarried and conducted business as any man of her time. By 1833, Sarah would have been about 58 years old, with two young adult children yet unmarried. She lived among and near the rest of her children and grandchildren on Claxton land. There is no evidence of a church affiliation. Sarah was very much a no-nonsense woman, so perhaps she thought that all of the superstition was bunk, and falling stars were simply that, stunningly beautiful, awe-inspiring, falling stars. The Claxton land looking across the Claxton Cemetery from the road, above.

  • Agnes Muncy was born in 1803, probably in Virginia to Samuel Muncy and Anne Nancy Workman. Agnes married Fairwick Claxton about 1819 or 1820 and they settled at Claxton Bend on the banks of the Powell River, near the Lee Co., VA, border with Claiborne County, TN. In her early life, Agnes probably attended the Thompson Settlement Church, as many of her neighbors and family members did. Something happened in September or October of 1833, perhaps a revival or “Camp Meeting”, although those were normally held in August, that caused a large number of people to join Thompson Settlement “by experience.” Perhaps, for these folks, the meteor shower was a “thank goodness” or maybe a confirmation of their choice. Later in life, Agnes was one of the founders of Rob Camp, a church located closer to where she lived.

  • Samuel Muncy was probably born around 1765, give or take a few years in either direction, in Montgomery County, VA. His twisty turny path would eventually take him to Lee County, and then by 1800 on the Powell River on the North side of Wallen’s Ridge, shown above. By 1833, Samuel, then 68 or 70, joined the Thompson Settlement Church on November 1st. This would have made more sense had it been December 1st. Obviously, Samuel had been thinking about the hereafter – and the meteor shower probably confirmed whatever spurred him to join the church.

  • Anne Nancy Workman was born between about 1761, probably in York Co., PA on Walker’s Creek. By 1788, she was marrying Samuel Muncy in Montgomery County, VA. Along with Samuel’s parents, the newlyweds hitched up the wagon, loaded with their possessions, and moved on down the Appalachian Range to Lee County, VA. We know the identity of three of Anne’s children, all of whom stayed in the Powell River/Wallen’s Ridge area of Lee County and Claiborne Co., TN. On September 1, 1833, Anne Workman was baptized in the Powell River, shown above, and joined Thompson Settlement “by experience,” a month before her husband joined, along with two of her three known children. A few weeks later, when the meteors appeared in the sky, they all probably heaved a sigh of relief because they knew that when the Rapture occurred, as the meteors were assuredly prophesying, they were saved.

  • Nicholas Speaks, a War of 1812 veteran, was born about 1782 in Charles County, MD. Ironically, he was born Catholic, although someplace along the way, he became a Methodist. He moved with his father to Rowan Co., NC, then Iredell County, where he was orphaned. Nicholas wound up in Washington County, VA where he met and married Sarah Faires. Two decades later, they made their way to Lee County, VA to establish a Methodist Church on Glade Branch, now Speaks Branch. By 1833, their older children had married, but other than their eldest, remained nearby. Their youngest child was seven. Given Nicholas’s unquestionable devotion, I would presume that he interpreted the meteor shower as a Biblical or Divine message and as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. Given his Catholic upbringing, I wonder if he automatically crossed himself occasionally, “just in case”, especially in times of intense emotion. Did he remember that ancient Catholic traditions link the August Perseids meteors, the Tears of St. Lawrence, to martyrdom? After the 1833 meteors made their appearance, Nicholas probably fervently prepared his parishioners in this beautiful little white church for the imminent arrival of Judgement Day. I would love to sit in those wooden pews to hear his message.

  • Sarah Faires was born about 1786 in Washington County, Virginia where she married Nicholas Speaks in 1804. In 1823, they packed a wagon and moved to the next frontier, where they built a one-room cabin, shown above in the 1970s before the wood was salvaged and incorporated into a newer cabin. By 1828, Nicholas had established what is now called the Speaks Chapel Methodist Church. When the meteor shower occurred in 1833, Nicholas had been preaching for at least five years, but probably closer to 13. Sarah may have felt that God was answering a prayer, but which prayer, for what, and in what way? Maybe she had prayed for her oldest son, Charles, to return home from Henry County, Indiana so he could be with the family when the end came – a prayer that was answered.

Henry County, Indiana

  • Elizabeth “Betty” Speaks, shown above with her husband, Samuel Claxton, was born in July of 1832, probably in Henry County, Indiana to Charles Speak/Speaks and Ann McKee. Elizabeth would only have been 16 months old when the meteor shower occurred, so probably slept through the entire thing.

  • Charles Speaks was born about 1804 in Washington County, VA to the Methodist minister, Nicholas Speak/Speaks and Sarah Faires. In 1823, when Charles was 19, his family made their way to Lee County, Virginia, and settled on Glade Branch where the family built what is today the Speak Chapel Methodist Church. Given that daughter, Elizabeth, is recorded as having been born in Indiana, and Charles is found in Henry County, Indiana in the 1830 census, it’s certainly possible that Charles and his family were not in Virginia in 1833. He had returned by 1839 when Nicholas Speak deeded the church’s land to the church’s trustees, and Charles is listed as one. Regardless of where Charles lived in 1833, given his religious convictions, the meteors probably moved him deeply. It may even have been what prompted Charles to pull up stakes and move his family back to Virginia where he spent the remainder of his days before joining other family members in the Speaks Cemetery, above.

  • Anne McKee was born about 1805 in Washington County, VA, to Andrew McKee and Elizabeth, whose surname is unknown, and was probably living in Henry County, in East-central Indiana, in 1833. Anne converted from Presbyterianism to Methodism when she married Charles Speak. At that time, the Presbyterians looked down on the Methodists for their “emotional exhorting,” which probably became even more pronounced in November of 1833. Anne had six children between the ages of 16 months and nine years. Her older children would have been quite curious about the stars falling from the sky, especially if they heard the accompanying cracks, pops, and whistles. Perhaps Anne explained that God was speaking to them.

The Virginia Contingent

  • George Estes, a three-time Revolutionary War veteran, was born in 1763 in Amelia County, VA, but had moved to Halifax County with his parents as a child. In 1833, he was 70 years old and must certainly have been in awe of the night sky. Never had he seen anything like this in his seven decades upon the earth. Several of George’s children lived on his or adjacent land, on what is now known as Estes Street in South Boston, Virginia, shown above, across from the Oak Ridge Cemetery which was originally part of his land. George’s daughter and her five children were probably living with him. Did they come and wake their grandfather, or did he learn about the celestial show the next morning and then watch on the following night to see if there was going to be a repeat performance?

  • Joseph Preston Bolton was born in 1816 in Giles County, VA to Henry Bolton and Nancy Mann. In 1833, he would have been 17, still living with his parents, and had not yet married. Joseph assuredly attended the local Baptist church that his father had helped found, and where his brother-in-law was the minister. What did Joseph think about the “falling stars”? Nestled between mountain ranges near Fincastle, VA, shown above, was he able to see the full display, or was some of it obscured by forest, mountains or clouds?

  • Henry Bolton was born in 1759 in London, England, became an indentured servant upon arrival in the colonies, and served in the Revolutionary War, reportedly caring for George Washington’s horse. By the 1830 census, he had moved from Botetourt County, VA a few miles away to Giles County, where he was living in 1833. We know Henry had a Bible, because he recorded genealogical events there. It was reported that Henry was a member and deacon of the Mill Creek Baptist Church, above, near Fincastle, VA, where his son-in-law was a minister. In 1833, Henry was 74 years old, but still had several children living at home. Did the entire family gather at the church during or after the meteor storm? Did they believe, as many did, that the End Times was approaching and the stars were omens?

  • Nancy Mann was born about 1780 and married the older Henry Bolton as his second wife in 1798 while living in Botetourt County. By 1833, they were living in Giles County on today’s heavily forested Stoney Creek Road. Nancy was 53, and her youngest of 14 children was 7 years old. Although meteors had been falling for time immemorial, nothing in recorded history, before or since, has rivaled the “night of the falling stars” that Nancy and her children would have witnessed.

  • Ann McKee’s mother, Elizabeth, whose surname we don’t know, was born about 1767, probably in Virginia. Based on the fact that Ann’s family was Presbyterian, her mother probably was as well. It would be very unusual for a mother to be a different religious denomination from the rest of her family. We know that Ann was living in 1830, but either deceased or living with one of her children by 1840. In 1833, she would have been about 60 and enjoying her grandchildren. Perhaps they all watched out the window of this old frontier “station” together and then later loved hearing their grandmother retell the story, over and over, of the night the stars fell from the sky.

Presbyterians, like other denominations, interpreted the incredibly rare and intense storm as the literal fulfillment of the Biblical prophecy of “stars falling from Heaven.” Many churches and groups of people held impromptu prayer meetings, believing they would not live to see morning.

In New Salem, Illinois, a devout Presbyterian deacon named Henry Onstot ran to alert his 24-year-old neighbor, pounded on his door, and urgently awakened him, declaring “Arise, Abraham – the day of judgment has come.”

Alarmed, Abraham lept out of bed and rushed to the window. Through the breath-taking meteor shower, he spotted the constellations, and realized that, indeed, the world was fine because the constellations were still in place.

Who was Abraham? Why, the future President, Abraham Lincoln, who concluded that the display was simply meteors. The spectacular event impressed Lincoln deeply though, because during the Civil War, he used the meteor shower as a metaphor for the Union itself, opining that beneath the chaos and falling fire of battle, the foundation remained solid and unchanged, and would endure.

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