Genealogist, Stephen A. White Wrong on Radegonde Lambert's Origin

The main dissenter of Radegonde Lambert’s native origin is Stephen A. White, Genealogist, Centre d'études acadiennes.(**See link below to read White's dissertation) He writes in 2005:

“LAMBERT, Radegonde, came from France with her husband Jean Blanchard, according to Jean LeBlanc, husband of her great-granddaughter Françoise Blanchard (Doc. inéd., Vol. III, p. 43).”....and “The deposition of Françoise’s nephews Joseph and Simon-Pierre Trahan is to the same effect (ibid., p. 123).”

The person giving this information in the 1700's was the husband, Jean Leblanc, not his wife, Françoise Blanchard, who was the great-granddaughter of Francoise Blanchard (the daughter of Radegonde Lambert). The information he gives is hearsay, though “Francoise’s nephews” were said to confirm the same information. The issue here is the mistakes, if there really are any,  that both Leblanc and the nephews made in their dispositions:

“Both depositions mistakenly give Guillaume as the ancestor’s given name. Jean LeBlanc’s makes an additional error regarding the name of Jean Blanchard’s wife, calling her Huguette Poirier.”

In other words the first sentence above using this information would be, “Huguette Poirier came from France with her husband Guillaume Blanchard, according to Jean Leblanc.....(and) nephews...to the same effect.” 

This is a serious error on the part of Leblanc and the nephews, unless they meant exactly what they said originally. Huguette Poirier did indeed immigrate from France with her husband Guillaume Blanchard, arriving in 1640 with their son Jean. They were the first Blanchard's in Acadia. You can Google this one yourself.

White rashly discards these so called errors as an honest mistake by sighting “the censuses of 1671 and 1686 meanwhile clearly show that she was named Radegonde Lambert (see DGFA-1, pp. 143-144).”  Ironically, the census has absolutely nothing to do with these supposed disposition errors. White simply has changed what someone said to correct, in his mind, a three hundred year old error. They really meant to say............this!

White goes on to write:

“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 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.........”

Read the previous statement carefully!  White said that the “simple” reason for the errors is that Leblanc's wife’s grandfather “Martin” had a brother named, “Gillaume”, married to “Huguette” (her first name) who was assumed to have the last name “Poirier” because “all her male-line descendants in Acadia were Poiriers,” and her last name, of course, is “Gougeon”, who was her mothers second husband’s last name as well as Hugette’s biological  father. You guessed it, her mothers first husband was a Poirier! Simple!

There really was no serious mistakes as White asserts. The dispositions in question had absolutely nothing to do with  Radegonde Lambert and her husband Jean Blanchard, but everything to do with Gillaume Blanchard and his wife Huguette. White manipulated  these dispositions erroneously by substituting his own information with what was said in 1700 —a pure stretch of imagination.

He went on to say:

“Unfortunately, we do not know just what questions Jean LeBlanc asked in trying to establish the Blanchard lineage,.........”

Note that the lineage Jean Leblanc was establishing was the "Blanchard Lineage", not the Lambert lineage. This is a veiled admission that, maybe more information is needed,  but goes on to defend his line of reasoning trying to place himself in the thoughts of Lablanc:

.....”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).”“

One’s reputation is based on right thinking and logical assumptions.  If this is just a suggestion or possibility on White’s part, it seems to me, it is seriously flawed if applied to  Radegonde Lambert and her husband Jean Blanchard.  Anyone who seriously entertains White’s logic on this one are those people who cannot accept the alternative:

Radegonde Lambert is still, in my mind, historically Mi’kmaq!

December 11, 2013
For those who must have some sort of proof to determine Native ancestry, a new autosomal test is available from most DNA companies. The cost is between $200 and $300 Be sure to insist on ANY percentage!
 If you simply want a confirmation of Native ancestry (a positive or negative) the following DNA testing company in Toronto can provide it for $125:  http://www.accu-metrics.com/first-nation.php
Be aware that such tests are for personal use only. It is not legally or culturally accepted for any other use. A negative doesn't mean you do not have Native ancestry!

Roland Belanger BA BEd    Elder_Metis

** http://www.acadian-home.org/acadian-origins.html