Before going any further, I want to share with you what currently exists on the internet regarding the parents of Michel Richard dit Sansoucy. If you do the exercise and make a query, you will find that the following couples have all been identified as possibilities:
- Guillaume Richard dit Sansoucy and Huguette Poirier
- André Richard and Michelle Paullin
- André Jean dit Richard and Huguette Poirier
- André Richard and Catherine Noel
So, the question is: Who are Michel’s real parents?
Last February, I received an article from André Richard, editor of the Entre Richard newsletter of the Association des familles Richard (see article “What is the Association des familles Richard”). This article was sent to me so that I could give my opinion on the document entitled “Origins of Michel Richard, Saintongeais dit Sancoucy” which claims to have identified the parents of Michel Richard.
This research was written by Rodolphe Defiolle, Onile Gagné and Antoine Hardy in the MSGCF (Mémoires de la Société généalogique Canadienne-française).
My first reaction was one of excitement at finally getting to know our ancestor’s parents. Afterwards I began to read the article in more detail.
Article Summary
The article indicates that Michel Richard dit Sansoucy would be a Saintongeais having left for Acadia from LaRochelle on March 25, 1654 aboard the Châteaufort, a boat chartered by Emmanuel Le Borgne.
The study was carried out by making a census of all Michel Richard who lived in Saintonge in the 17th century and was made from various bibliographic sources. Several databases were consulted as a priority. They made a search for all Michel Richards born in Saintonge at the beginning of the 17th century who could therefore be 25 years old in 1654, the age required to emigrate.
From this census, they identified 15 Michel Richards born between 1617 and 1708 and continued to analyze them by eliminating them either due to the fact that there is evidence that they still live in France after 1654 or that they are either too old or too young based on the fact that our Michel Richard was born around 1630. At the end of their study, only one remains. Michel Richard, born October 1, 1629 in Brie sous Mortagne. He is 24 years old from Saintonge. He does not seem to be recorded in France after 1654 and he is the second child of a notarial dependent family which he cannot claim. He is therefore the only candidate who meets the criteria to be the ancestor sought. He was be the son of André Richard and Marie Cellier. Including the 4 pairs indicated at the beginning of the article, we now have a fifth.
This therefore brings us to the following question: Is this study valid and are André Richard and Marie Cellier really the parents of Michel Richard dit Sansoucy?
Reading the article, I found that the analysis and conclusions were, to me, a little too easy and that there were not enough hard facts to confirm this conclusion once and for all. I continued my analysis and also took the liberty of forwarding the article to Denis Savard and Stephen A. White for their comments.
We have all come to the same conclusion. The study is based on the fact that Michel Richard arrived on the Châteaufort and that he is Saintongeais. This aspect has never been 100% confirmed. There were other ships that came to Acadia in the same period and no document has been found proving that he was on the Chateaufort with Emmanuel LeBorgne or any other ship. Also, the study assumes that all church records or other documents have been found. This is most likely not the case since many church records have not survived, and others simply did not exist during this period of time. In addition, one of the starting principles is that Michel is Saintongeais. Without any concrete documentation, this point is no longer valid as a starting point for the study.
At the end of the day, the conclusion of the article does not hold.
So, where are we and what do we know about Michel Richard dit Sansoucy
The first thing we know for sure is that he was born in either 1629 or 1630. According to the Port-Royal censuses of 1671, 1678 and 1686, he is indicated to be 41, 49 and 56 years old respectively.
We also know that he died between 1686 and 1689. Michel is listed on the 1686 census with his second wife, Jeanne Babin, and 6 of his children (5 from his first marriage to Magdeleine Blanchard and 1 from his second). In the 1693 census, Jeanne Babin is remarried and has 2 other children, a 3 year old boy and a 1 year old girl). If we do the math, that would indicate that she remarried about 4 years earlier, in 1689.
The third thing we know about Michel is that he was French and most likely in the military. This information is included in the declarations of Belle-Île-En-Mer. The nickname Sansoucy is mentioned four times in the declarations from Belle-Île-en-Mer, always attributed to the ancestor Richard who came from France. On the other hand, it must be remembered that nowhere in the documentation found to date is there any mention that he comes from the Saintonge region. The fact that he is named “dit Sansoucy” indicates that he was most likely in the military.
Finally, we know that he married Magdeleine Blanchard around 1656 since according to the 1671 census, their eldest son, René, was already 14 years old.
Next steps
For the moment, we do not know the real parents of Michel Richard dit Sansoucy. Will we find out eventually? Perhaps…
There are two possibilities:
- There are always new documents that are discovered or digitized and made accessible through the internet. Who knows, maybe one day we will find a link between our Michel Richard and concrete documentation indicating either his parents, his place of birth or possibly a signed contract for a ship coming to Acadia.
- The second possibility, and probably the most probable, is to discover kinship ties though DNA with people in France who have done their genealogical research and who have been able to trace their ancestors to the beginning of the 17th century when potential parents of Michel would have been born. With the use of the YDNA test (see the article “My Adventure with YDNA”) it would be possible to identify whether or not we are descendants of these same ancestors.
More to come…