Késsinnimek - Roots - Racines

Finding Anne Marie: The Hidden History of Our Acadian Ancestors
Parts 1 -3
by
                        Marie Rundquist

Version française

Part One: The Search Begins

"This is an overwhelming experience -- here's this community [of Acadians] that is literally building itself from all corners of the world -- it's as if there were all of these related genomes rushing at each other at once trying to reconstitute!" …Marie A. Rundquist, March 2006.

In October of 2005, my maternal ancestry, starting with my mother Nancy, and continuing with my Grandmother, Asselia, became extremely significant to me; this was the month that I received my mitochondrial DNA, (abbreviated as MtDNA,) test results from the National Geographic's Genographic Project.

In July of that year, after watching an intriguing documentary about how a Dr. Spencer Wells of the National Geographic was researching how we all are connected back to our ancient ancestral origins through MtDNA or through y-chromosome testing, I logged on to the National Geographic website and ordered my MtDNA test kit. As a participant in this study, I had vigorously scraped the inside of my cheek with cotton swabs twice, once in the morning, and another time at night, sealing the swabs into two numerically encoded vials. I then completed a "consent form", specifying that I was a female, placed the two numerically encoded vials that now held my DNA information into a puffy shipping envelope, and mailed them, anonymously, back to the National Geographic, wondering what the National Geographic would learn about my "ancient ancestral origins."

As part of participating in the National Geographic project, I've learned that your MtDNA is passed within your maternal ancestral line unchanged from generation to generation. Envision your MtDNA as a genetic baton that your mother passed to you, that your mother's mother passed to her, that her grandmother passed to her mother, and so on and so on, and you have the picture. The significance of MtDNA is that it can be used not only to trace our genetic ancestry, but it may also be used to trace the migratory patterns of our most ancient ancestors. The National Geographic Genographic Project, has, in fact, charted the migrations of our ancient ancestors all across the World, and continues to add new information as more individuals are tested in this program.

I know from my grandmother's extensive genealogical research, that I am of English and Norman ancestry (through my Beville ancestors), of Swiss ancestry (through my Great Grandfather's paternal ancestors, the Strobhars,) and I was certainly aware of my French ancestral history (through my Great Grandmother, Asselia Gaschet de Lisle Strobhars's family line). The beautiful French names that you find in the tales of Asselia Strobhar's family recounted in Pioneering in America with the Beville Family lead you from her childhood home in New Orleans, back to her grandfather's home on the Isle of Martinique, and finally, with the story of Joseph Gaschet de Lisle, to the Gaschet's ancestral home in Bordeaux, France. My father's very British family history is clearly traceable for 300 years on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, starting with the arrival of Alexander Brown of Glasgow, in Jamestown, Virginia, from England, in approximately 1640.

What I did not know, and it is what my National Geographic MtDNA test result told me: that - based on my specific genetic mutations - (also referred to as a "markers" - that genetic characteristic which identifies them within populations and provides geneticists with an accurate method of tracking a people's migratory history) - I could be assured that my maternal ancestors, which I inherited from with my own mother, Nancy, were directly traceable to the Aboriginal peoples who had originally settled North America, specifically those tribes that crossed the Bering Strait from Siberia into the Arctic and Sub-arctic regions of North America. Their descendents number among the Aleut, Inuit, and the Native American Indian populations of North America.

You can imagine my confusion. I nearly "fell out of my chair" as I read my MtDNA test results online, and followed the path of my ancestors, as shown on a map, across the plains of Central Asia, and upward through the Bering Strait into the Aleutian Islands and the Arctic Circle regions of Alaska and eastward into Northern Canada. I looked at the photographs of the Chuchki, Inuit and Aleutian people whom I found online; the tiny people with their distinctively Asian features bore little resemblance to the photographs of my Grandmother's maternal ancestors (all women of French descent), and, as I am 6'2" tall, I'd have to say, very little resemblance to me. I could not imagine striding into an Aleutian village in Northern Alaska and having anyone recognize me (or claim me) as a long-lost family member. This was a mystery to me, in perhaps the truest (and most unfathomable) sense of the word.

After I told husband Ed and my son Paul, about my "ancient ancestral origins" which the National Geographic had found, describing how my MtDNA test results showed that I was descended from the same group as the Inuits and the Aleuts, and how my ancient ancestors followed the herds from Siberia across the Bering Strait to North America, I called my mother and father, Frank and Nancy Pierce, and repeated my story. They were as perplexed as I was about our new-found ancestral history, and could not explain the results I had received from the National Geographic. I asked my mother what she knew about my Grandmother Asselia's maternal line, as the only information that I had was that Asselia's mother, Asselia Gaschet de Lisle, was from a well-established French family. My mother couldn't immediately respond to my questions. However, she recalled that she did have a file, which my Grandmother Asselia had passed along to her before she died, which may hold the clues I was looking for. She promised to locate the file, and, reminding me that I was Celtic, hung up the phone.

So, without any further information to go on, but not about to let the absence of facts stand in the way of perfectly good information, I began to hunt for clues about my Native American ancestry using the best hunting tool around, my computer.

Part Two: My MtDNA "Cousins"

I began my journey, where I started, on my computer, at the National Geographic Genographic Project website. I typed in my unique identification number, that the National Geographic had issued me when I applied to participate in the project, entered the site, and studied my results. I reviewed my mutations: 16111T, 16192T, 16223T, 16290T, 16319A, 16362C, which identified me as a member of the MtDNA Haplogroup "A." National Geographic presents you with an opportunity to share your mtDNA test results with others with similar markers; I checked the box authorizing National Geographic to pass my results along to the FamilyTreeDNA website. A few clicks later, my results had been made public; the world would know who I was and where I came from!

When I arrived at the FamilyTreeDNA website, after giving permission to FamilyTreeDNA to share my test results with others, I was prompted to enter everything I was willing to share about my earliest female ancestor, her name, for example, where she was from, her known port of departure from her country of origin and her known port of arrival into the United States. By establishing this base of family line information, I was helping the FamilyTreeDNA organization assist others who shared the same DNA test results determine common surnames and locations in their own family histories, possibly enabling the discovery of previously unknown family connections.

I had not read Asselia's book, "Pioneering in America with the Beville Family" in detail (looking at the pictures doesn't count). I did however know about my Great Grandmother Asselia Gaschet de Lisle Strobhar from my Grandmother's stories, so I entered what I knew of her. When pressed for my great grandmother's country of origin, remembering my Grandmother's enthusiasm about her own French ancestry, I entered "France" and saved what little information I had entered to the FamilyTreeDNA MtDNA test result database.

As I studied the information provided on the FamilyTreeDNA site, and learned more about the genetic characteristics of Haplogroup A and the Native American population that shared this group of genetic mutations with me, I began to feel more and more uncomfortable about Asselia Gaschet de Lisle Strobhar's, and likewise my Grandmother's, my Mother's, and my own French lineage. It simply did not make sense to me that my maternal ancestors would not have come from France or at least, another European country; I could not see how any of us would have been of Native American Indian descent. When I had enrolled in the National Geographic Genographic project and had sent in my $99.00 check to have my MtDNA evaluated to find my "ancient family origins," I had expected my results to be un-dramatic, to identify me, for example, with other people of French and English descent, as this was my known family history. Although my Grandmother was born in Biloxi, MS, and raised in New Orleans, she had emphatically denied any Cajun associations when I had asked her about it in passing -- so much so, that I never asked her about any Cajun people in our family again! I wondered if anyone else was as confused about their MtDNA test results as I was with mine. I decided to find out.

The FamilyTreeDNA website has a "matching" service available as well - not to pair you with your perfect romantic mate - but rather to group you with others who have had their DNA tested, for the purpose of sharing and discovering common family information. As a female, I can only have my MtDNA tested; I cannot discover, through my own DNA testing, anything about my father's ancient genetic origins as I do not have, or share, his "Y" DNA. (At my instigation, he has done so and as a descendant of the Cro-Magnon people, he had no surprises.) However, a male may choose to find out about both his father's and his mother's ancient genetic lineage, and have both his "Y" and his MtDNA tested. When I've looked for individuals whose MtDNA test results match mine, I've found that, albeit few and far between, there have been both men and women who have my exact mutation string and they are as interested in discovering their family backgrounds as I am in mine.

I began researching the biographical information posted by various of my "MtDNA cousins" online, in the FamilyTreeDNA, Mitosearch.org, and other related MtDNA test result databases. Again and again, I found references to the term "Native American," and family histories that pointed to a Canadian origin. Other than my Grandmother Asselia's salute to her grandfather's "well-known and large Gosselin" family" of Quebec that is noted on page 7-44 of Pioneering in America with the Beville Family, I had no other clues as to a possible Canadian connection from my Grandmother's maternal line. Indeed, it appeared that Asselia's maternal line had to be from France - as there was simply no evidence to the contrary in any of her published works.

I began searching for information on Native American peoples in Canada, attempting to gather some perspective on how Canadians and Indians related to me, or, barring that, to my Grandmother, who thought of herself as a person of "French descent." As I sifted through the Internet, looking for information about Canada's "First Nation", I began to find references to the term "Metis" or "Metisse." I had never heard the term before. I hopped onto a few Metis sites on the web, and very quickly I learned that "Metis" is a term that describes a Canadian (or North American) person of mixed French and Indian origins - and also indicates an Aboriginal line of descent. For many who are of "Metis" background, the story of their Native ancestry began at least twelve generations ago, when a French settler married a Native American woman (typical of the marriages that occurred in Nova Scotia during the early habitation by the French).

Finding little to help me resolve my newly discovered Native American ancestry, with what I was learning about the Metis in Canada, and what I knew of my French family lines on my mother's side, I pulled out my copy of "Pioneering with the Bevilles in America" from my china closet and turned to page 7-44, where my Grandmother Asselia's New Orleans story begins.

Part Three: Pioneering Gone Wild In the Louisiana Backwaters

On page 7-44 of Pioneering in America with the Beville Family, the author, Asselia S. Lichliter, tells us about her own grandmother, Annais de Gosselin, stating "Your author has not done research in depth in Canada on the well known and large de Gosselin family," but she tells us that "Her family had plantations on the Red River in Louisisana, where her father had moved from Quebec Canada."

This one brief paragraph written by my Grandmother about Annais de Gosselin, along with a single photograph, and a caption describing her only as the "wife of Charles Gaschet de Lisle, Captain of Engineers, CSA" were the only clues available to me when I set out to discover my maternal ancestry. Following this single, fragile thread of information, I began to look for the facts regarding this hidden family line.

I consulted the Internet, and found that by searching for variations on the name Anais (the correct spelling) and Gaschet, her married name, I was able to retrieve some initial proof of Anais' married relationship with her husband Charles, her petition for a Confederate military pension, and documentation of the date of her death. I also found interesting information about her father, Simon Gosselin ( the correct name, not de Gosselin) - that he was part of a "Police Jury," and that there were several recorded transactions for home purchases in the name of Simon Gosselin. He was clearly a man of means and well documented for his day. However, what I could not find were any records of Simon's marriage to Anais' mother, nor could I find her name. I had reached, what genealogists will call, "a brick wall."

The wall began to crumble, brick by brick, when my mother, Nancy, located my Grandmother Asselia's "Gosselin File" - a sheaf of papers that traced my Grandmother Asselia's own personal research into her maternal line. As my mother read my Grandmother Asselia's family history, over the phone, and later as I studied her hand-written notes, I learned of her hidden pedigree. Asselia's was a classically Cajun ancestry going back several generations in Louisiana - her own notes concluding with the birth of her Great Great Great Grandmother, Angelique David, to her mother Genevieve in Maryland. Chills ran up and down my spine. I closed my Grandmother's book about pioneering with the Bevilles, realizing that with this new branch of our family, heretofore undiscovered, our family's pioneering had gone wild! How I came to be looking at this file, with family names that were never mentioned in any of Asselia's written family histories, was part of a mystery that I now felt I had to solve.

Marie Asselia Rundquist's Maternal Ancestral Line

Notes: Detailed Record of Marriages Chronicled in Finding Anne- Marie

First Generation: Marie Asselia Rundquist, daughter, Nancy Beville Pierce married Edward Nowicki, January 19, 1997, in Rockville, Maryland.

Second Generation: Nancy Bevill Poore, daughter Asselia Strobhar Lichliter, married Frank H. Pierce III, December 21, 1952, in Washington, D.C.

Third Generation: Asselia Strobhar, daughter of Marie Asselia Gashet d'Lisle, married Emery Bruce Poore, 1932, in Detroit, Michigan.

Fourth Generation: Marie Asselia Gaschet d'Lisle, daughter of Marie Anais Gosselin, married Cecil Strobhar, 1906, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Fifth Generation: Marie Anais Gosselin, daughter of Harriet Denelle, married Charles Gaschet d'Lisle, about 1867, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Sixth Generation: Harriet Denelle, daughter of Celeste Mary Elizabeth Ouvre (aka Oubre, Hoover) married Simon Gosselin on 10 January, 1853, according to St. Tammany marriage records, File 2.

Seventh Generation: (Celeste) Mary Elizabeth Ouvre (aka Oubre, Hoover), daughter of Angelique David, married Jean Baptiste Ginel-Denelle, July 22, 1806 in St James Church, St James Parish, Louisiana.
(Celeste) Mary Elizabeth Ouvre Denelle married Antoine Lavigne, 11 Sep 1819.

Eighth Generation: Angelique David, daughter of Genevieve Hebert, married Henri Francois Houwer (Ouvre), September 24, 1787, in St. James Parish, Louisiana.

Ninth Generation: Genevieve Hebert, daughter Marguerite Gautrot, married Michel David, 1/20/1744, Grand Pre, Nova Scotia. Source: Parish Registers for Grand-Pre.

Tenth Generation: Marguerite Gautrot, daughter of Francoise Rimbaux, married Michel Hebert, 8 May 1726, in Grand Pre, Nova Scotia. Source: Dictionnaire genealogique des familles acadiennes by Stephen A. White, published 1999, page 696 #5i

Eleventh Generation: Francoise Rimbault (Rimbeaux, Rimbaut, Raimbault), daughter of Anne Marie, married Charles Gautreaux (Gautrot) in 1685, in Grand Pre, Nova Scotia.

Twelfth Generation: Anne-Marie, daughter of (UNKNOWN INDIAN) married Rene Rimbault, 1653, in Port Royal, Nova Scotia.

And at last - there she was, my ancestor Anne-Marie, an "unknown Indian" and the ultimate reason that I was so surprised at the results of my MtDNA testing.

Joint Copyright held by either Frank H. Pierce, III or Marie Rundquist -2006

E-mail the author Marie Rundquist

To be continued in the July and August 2007 issues...

 

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Created 1 Feb 2003