In the May 2020 newsletter, we published an article about the Robichaud who are Richard. In that article, Joseph Robichaud, son of Charles Robichaud and Marie Bourg was reportedly identified as the son of a Richard and not of Charles Robichaud. A first hypothesis was that Michel Richard, son of René, the son of Michel Richard said Sansoucy would have been the father. Here is an update on that study.
On February 22, I received this article from Denis Savard on my Facebook group “Racines Acadiennes”.
“Already more than 4 years ago, I published this column which announced that many Robichaud would in fact be (according to their true paternal line) of Richard frin the line of descendants Michel Richard dit Sansoucy. After several other tests with the Robichaud, we were able to determine that it was indeed Charles Robichaud (and not his son Joseph) who was the result of this ENP (non-paternal event). We can therefore believe that the parents of Charles Robichaud dit Cadet were undoubtedly the pioneer Michel Richard dit Sansoucy with Françoise Boudrot, before she married Étienne Robichaud.
There are therefore even more Robichaud who are in fact Richard than we thought! “
Following this article, concerning Michel Richard dit Sansoucy being the father of Charles Robichaud, I returned to the censuses of 1671, 1678 and 1686 to verify certain information. Françoise Boudrot, Etienne Robichaud’s wife would have been approximately the same age as Magdeleine (about 13 years younger than Michel). We have no information on Étienne Robichaud and Françoise Boudrot in 1671 since he allegedly refused to answer the census questions. In the census we see Etienne’s family four families later in the document after Michel Richard and it is indicated “Estienne ROBICHAUT, did not want me to see me he left his house and told his wife who told me he did not want to give the count of his cattle and lands. “
On the other hand, in the 1678 census, we have the following information: Estienne Robichaud and Françoise Boudrot have 6 children: 4 boys (Charles – 12 years old, Prudhomme – 9 years old, Alexandre – 4 years old, François – 1 year old) and 2 girls (Magdeleine – 15 years old and Marie – 6 years old). This means that Charles would have been born around 1666 or 1667. The same year of birth or the year after the birth of Martin Richard (son of Michel and Magdeleine). Martin was their fourth child (after René, Pierre and Catherine). This would also mean that there is a good chance that the two women (Magdeleine and Françoise) may have been pregnant at the same time or at least very close to each other.
There is one thing that struck me when analyzing the 1686 census. Charles (son Michel Richard and Françoise Boudrot) appears last in the list of Françoise and Estienne’s children (Françoise was widowed in 1686). Throughout the rest of the census (as well as the vast majority of censuses, children are always listed in descending order of age (oldest first) or boys first and then girls (but still in order of age) “I wonder if there is any significance to that? Is he last by coincidence, by mistake, or because people know who his real father is? We will probably never know.”
How do we know that Michel Richard said Sansoucy is indeed the father of Charles Robichaud? Every human being on earth receives one chromosome 23 (the one that determines the sex) from the father and one from the mother. A daughter receives an “X” chromosome from the mother and a 2nd from the father. A son receives a “Y” chromosome from the father and an “X” from his mother. So “XX” is a girl and “XY” is a boy. Y-DNA is passed from father to son virtually unchanged from generation to generation with what is called mutations from time to time between generations. This means that if we could test Michel Richard’s DNA, he would have the same as me today (or almost). All surnames have different y-DNA sequences, which means, for example, that Gallant, Arsenault, Babineau, Richard, etc. do not have the same y-DNA signature.
At one point, some Robichaud took their y-DNA test and discovered that they did not have the same DNA signature as others of their surname who had done their genealogical research up to Estienne Robichaud. To their surprise, they actually had the same signature as that of the Richard who had researched up to Michel Richard dit Sansoucy.
All this means that today there are even more Robichaud who are in fact descended from Michel than we thought 4 years ago. This also means that Michel would have had an affair with Estienne’s wife (Françoise) while both were married since we know that Michel and Magdeleine had already had children and that according to the 1678 census, Estienne and Françoise already had a daughter, Marguerite, aged 15.
