Re: Indians in Desjardins Line
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In reply to:
Re: Indians in Desjardins Line
john desjardins 9/12/09
Hi, John,
It depends on which DESJARDINS's you're researching.
There are several DESJARDINS's (they are not recorded as ROY dit DESJARDINS's) listed in "The Genealogy of the First Metis Nation" D.N. Sprague and R.P. Frye, which gives information from various records of the Red River Settlement Metis. I believe the book is available online. I don't know whether you could find it through a general bookstore, or a specialty bookstore--probably the latter.
From information online, it seems at least some of the above were sons of Jean-baptiste DESJARDINS and Josette (Cree Indian) SERPENT, married in the mid-1700's. These are reportedly their children, possibly born in Manitoba:
Jean-Baptiste DESJARDINS
Antoine DESJARDINS
Josette DESJARDINS
Marguerite? DESJARDINS
I believe Fr.Dennisson documented one marriage between a ROY or a DESJARDINS (or ROY-DESJARDINS) in his book of marriages. The title is something like 'Marriages of the Detroit River Region.' (Sorry if this isn't right. It's been a long time since I've seen a copy.) I think this family was from Windsor or Sandwich ON, which connects to Detroit, MI.
Antoine ROY-DESJARDINS, was the first ROY in Quebec to use the DESJARDINS dit name in the 1600's. He was from France, as was his wife, so their only son Pierre was not Indian. I've heard there was later intermarriage in this ROY-DESJARDINS line with NAI women of Cree, Mi'q Maq, Iroquois, and Objibwe tribes. Some ROY-DESJARDINS's went west to the Great Lakes area, both CA and US sides, and there was supposedly some intermarriage with NAI women there. Most is by tradition, though, with no documentation I've ever seen.
Rene Jette, in "Dictionnaire Genealogique des Familles du Quebec des Origines a 1730" (publ 1983) lists at least two ROYs who married N.A.Indian women, but they are not of Antoine ROY's DESJARDINS line.
Bonne chance!
Anne