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The purpose of this post is first and foremost to honor my ancestors PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and his Wife. Secondly, to refute comments made on this forum as well as other forums by persons who are not descendants of the above couple and thirdly and most importantly to educate the descendants of the above couple so that they understand the Native American ancestry of the Wife of PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) is not a myth, and that there are sufficient records that when weighed without prejudice, can lead to only one conclusion, that the wife of PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) was of NATIVE AMERICAN ANCESTRY.
Please note, I’m speaking about the Pierre Lejeune who may have married an Unknown Doucet. I’m not referring to the Pierre Lejeune some have claimed to be the father of my Pierre Lejeune and the two sisters Edmée and Catherine. This message is not to be connected in any way to the two sisters, or to the man believed by some to be their father.
When it comes to the Native American ancestry of the descendants of PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRAIRT(D) and his wife, there is one known and proven LEJEUNE dit BRAIRT(D) whose Native American ancestry is simply not mentioned or is generally dismissed as not being important when it comes to the Native American ancestry of the LEJEUNE dit BRIART(T) family. The name of that individual will come as no surprise to those who have thoroughly researched the family, she is JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRAIRT(D). JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRAIRT(D) along with her husband François Joseph are listed as being « de la Nation Sauvage - of the Indian Nation » in the marriage record of their daughter Catherine Joseph to Jean Comeau. Recent DNA testing has revealed that the Haplogroup of JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) was the Native American Haplogroup A. This clearly shows that JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) was not said to be of the Indian Nation in the marriage record of her daughter simply because her husband was, but because she was also from the Indian Nation.
So there we have it,JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D), A FULLY DOCUMENTED LEJEUNE DIT BRIART(D) WHO WAS A NATIVE AMERICAN, proving that there was Native American ancestry in the LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) family dating back to as early as the 1650 period and NOT as some have suggested that it was only introduced when MARTIN LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) married an Indian wife or when THE LEJEUNE FAMILY OF BRAS D’OR IN THE 1750s married into other Indian families. Just to correct some recent misinformation, THE LEJEUNE FAMILY OF BRAS D’OR married into the Roy, Gallant, Guédry, Benoit, Mius AND Chego families, certainly not just the Guédry family, all were Indian families JUST LIKE THE LEJEUNE FAMILY which married into them. Indian families marrying into other Indian families. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out.
To overlook and dismiss this record regarding JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) is in my opinion nothing more than reckless genealogy. It’s important to point out that JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) WAS FIRST AND FOREMOST a LEJEUNE DIT BRIART(D) and that point will be stressed over and over and cannot be stressed enough.
The question which remains and that is too quickly dismissed is this:
"Was JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D), married to François Joseph (AmerIndian), the daughter of PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and his Wife?"
The answer to this question is pivotal in understanding the Native American ancestry of the descendants of PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and his Wife.
Some have claimed that JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) could not have been the daughter of PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and his Wife, simply because no dispensation was recorded in the marriage record for Joseph Lejeune who was the grandson of PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and Marie Thibodeau to Martine (Marthe) LeRoy, the great-granddaughter of JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and François Joseph.
The logic being based on church policy for this time period, which dictates that if PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D)-Marie Thibodeau and JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) were brother and sister, then there should have been a dispensation of consanguinity recorded because Joseph Lejeune and Martine (Marthe) LeRoy would have been 2nd cousins once removed which translates into the 3-4 dispensation of consanguinity in the church.
Is a missing dispensation sufficient evidence to present a case that neither PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D)-Marie Thibodeau and JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) were not brother and sister.
When people throw that missing dispensation out, they seem to overlook another important missing dispensation which was not recorded for the BRAS D’OR LEJEUNE FAMILY. There is a KNOWN missing dispensation for the marriage of Germain Lejeune to Marie Anne LaSonde, the widow of Honoré Boucher. Germain Lejeune was the half-brother of the Joseph Lejeune just mentioned. The marriage record is found in Bailly’s records, the Missionary Priest to the “Sauvages” and is hard-clade PROOF that dispensations were not always recorded. There should have been a dispensation recorded for this marriage because Germain Lejeune and Marie Anne LaSonde were 2nd cousins once removed because both were descendants of Claude Petitpas and Catherine Bugaret.
With this knowledge on hand knowing dispensations were not always recorded, is there any reasonable reason why a dispensation may not have been recorded when Joseph Lejeune and Martine (Marthe) LeRoy were married?
When Joseph Lejeune and Martine LeRoy were married in 1754, their families had been uprooted from their homes and land in Acadia. It is clear just by the time period, and their presence in Cape Breton as early as 1749, these families escaped to Cape Breton Island to avoid the ax of Cornwallis who was seeking the scalps of Indians. These were times of upheaval, certainly not times where everything was done neatly and to the letter.
We can picture a number of scenarios as to why a dispensation may have never been recorded:
1. Simply because dispensations were not always recorded as discussed above.
2. The priest may have travelled to Baie d’Espagnole from Lousibourg to marry Joseph Lejeune and Martine (Marthe) LeRoy. When he returned to Louisbourg, did he only record the information he could remember? Joseph and Martine (Marthe) lived in the isolated community of Baie d’espagnole and they probably were not well known by the Cure, not to mention they had only been on the Island for a short period before the marriage.
3. Records recorded by the priests were not always reliable. Pierre Lejeune who was the son of Charles Lejeune and Marie LeRoy was recorded as the son of Joseph Lejeune and Martine LeRoy in the same set of records.
3. Was it because the records in Louisbourg where incomplete due to the lack of and/or missing records which were lost, destroyed or in the hands of another group of Acadians fleeing Acadia?
4. Was family history lost as families were divided and went in different directions?
5. What knowledge did the priest at Louisburg have with regards to the families which left the mainland for Cape Breton?
6. How dedicated was the priest to recording details?
7. Was it because of the political climate and difficult times?
8. In the absence of records, where the families members completely honest when the marriage took place?
9. Finally was the family simply dismissed because they were Indian and the priest couldn’t be bothered verifying their relationship to one another.
Any one of the reasons above or a multiple of them could easily account for a missing dispensation in the records, especially in this time period. The marriage record itself had missing information that was normally included such as the fact Joseph’s mother was deceased at the time of the marriage.
A missing dispensation in conjunction with other circumstantial evidence can certainly add weight to a theory that perhaps two families are either related or not related, however, a missing dispensation, especially if it is used in isolation can easily lead to the wrong conclusion.
This has been the case for the LEJEUNE descendants of Pierre Lejeune and his wife. Rather than researching the records for themselves, they accepted the wrong conclusion made by one man in particular and they have allowed themselves to be swayed into believing our LEJEUNE family was not of NATIVE AMERICAN ancestry since the days of PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and his Wife when IN FACT everything points to the contrary.
The above discussion presents some reasons as to why we shouldn't be side-tracked into believing that PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) weren't related simply because there is a missing dispensation. We, THEIR DESCENDANTS need to ask ourselves, “Is there a record which ties everything together, so that there can be no doubt in our minds, that PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) were brother and sister? “
Fortunately there is such a record and it is found in the Indian Census recorded in 1708.
At La Heve 1708 [LeJeune was listed as Briart(d)]
1. Pierre Briart 55 ans
Marie Thibodeau 46
Pierre, son fils 19
Germain 15
Jean 11
Joseph 3
Jeanne 15
Marguerite 13
Anne 9
Catherine 15
2 Joseph Boutin 32 ans
Marie Briart 22 ans
3 Martin Briart 49(?) ans
Marie Godet 23
Bernard 15
Theodor 8
Paul 6
Martin 6
Claire, sa fille 2
4 Jean Godet 58 ans
Jeanne Briard 62
5 Rene Labauve 30 ans
Anne Briard 21
Pierre son fils 5
Marie Joseph 2
In this record we have PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and Marie Thibodeau, then we have MARIE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and her husband Joseph Boutin. Marie was the daughter of PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and Marie Thibodeau. Next is MARTIN LEJEUNE dit BRAIRT(D), the brother of PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) with his second wife Marie Godet. Next is Jean Godet and JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D). The fifth couple listed in the census is ANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and Réné Labauve (Grandson of Anne Marie – AmerIndian). Anne was the daughter of MARTIN LEJEUNE dit BRAIRT(D), and his first wife Marie Jeanne Kagigonias (AmerIndian).
It is a KNOWN FACT, that PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) AND MARTIN LEJEUNE dit BRAIRT(D) were brothers and that MARIE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and ANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) were their daughters respectively. THEY ARE ALL THE SAME FAMILY.
What you see unfolding before you in the 1708 census, is not a list of different families, but a record of a single family, the LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) family. Only BLIND IGNORANCE would lead a person to ignore this cluster when considering how the families were related.
DOES IT NOT MAKE SENSE!!! THAT JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) IS ALSO PART OF THIS FAMILY. The only way to complete the above picture handed to us by the census records is to place JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) in this family. She was born between 1651 & 1654. The time of her birth coincides with what one would expect if she was the daughter of PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and his wife and she is found CLUSTERED with the LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) family in La Heve, known Indian territory.
Since JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) is the daughter of PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and his Wife, and JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D)’s mtDNA revealed Native American ancestry, then the Wife of PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) most also have been of Native American ancestry.
Had this not been a question of Native American ancestry being linked to the other LEJEUNE SISTERS, JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) would have been placed in the family of PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and his Wife a long time ago.
Without the 1708 census it would be difficult to make this claim, but it is the 1708 census which ties this all together and when we couple this with the mtDNA results for JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and the existing marriage record which clearly reveals both JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and her husband François Joseph were of the "Indian Nation" we are left with no other conclusion than the descendants of the FAMILY OF PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) AND HIS WIFE ARE NATIVE AMERICAN.
When you consider the family is recorded in the Indian Census, lived in Indian settlements, that both JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and MARTIN LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) married an Indian, that PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) the husband of Marie Thibodeau was referred to "Espece de SAUVAGE" and four (perhaps five) of their children married into another Indian family, that the MtDNA test revealed the Haplogroup of JEANNE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) was the Native American Haplogroup A, that she was recorded as belonging to the "Indian Nation", that all were clustered together in Indian territory, you can be left with no other conclusion, we descend from the Indian Lejeune family.
There is no foundation to claim this family wasn't Native American, the records and evidence confirm it was.
If you are a descendant of PIERRE LEJEUNE dit BRIART(D) and his Native American Wife send me an email and I’ll send you an invitation to our private site on AmerIndian ancestry.
Eric Burton
Copywrite 2006
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