In a message dated 11/3/01 7:49:49 AM Central Standard Time, andre_lozier@yahoo.com writes: > Exactly what relationship do Rene Landry & Rene Landry l'jeune have to each > other? If there was no Jean Claude Landry, then were these 2 men ever > related at all? ============= On the origin of the Acadian Landrys: According Stephen A. White, genealogist at the University of Moncton's Centre d'Etudes Acadiennes in Moncton New Brunswick, "regarding the origin and the parents of the two René Landrys, there is probably no other Acadian family about whose background there has been so much speculation and wishful thinking. The result is that what we actually know about the Landry families, who emigrated from France to Acadia, has come to be regrettably enshrouded in a dense fog of error and confusion. Four individuals named Landry, who were born in France, appear in the Acadian censuses of 1671, 1678, 1686, and 1693. Two of these were men, both named René, and two were women, named Perrine and Antoinette. Many researchers have presumed that these four Landrys were all closely related, but such is not the case. In fact, while it is possible to prove that Antoinette Landry was the sister of one of the Renés and permissible to believe that Perrine Landry was his sister as well. But after a study of the dispensations granted upon the marriages of the descendants of the Landrys, it appears that the first two René Landrys in Acadia could not have bee been any more nearly related to the other René Landry than as cousins in the second or third degree. The proofs to which I have just alluded repose in the presence or absence of dispensations for consanguinity in the records of the marriages of the descendants of the Landrys. As you may know, until the first world war, the Catholic Church required dispensations of relationships, whether by blood or by marriage, as remote as the fourth degree, that is as distant as those between third cousins, or persons whose great-grandparents included siblings. In the case of Antoinette Landry and the elder René Landry, we find, for example, that when Antoinette's great-grandson Francois Brun married the elder René's great-granddaughter Madeleine Dupuis, October 24, 1735, at Port Royal, there was a dispensation granted the young couple for the fourth degree consanguinity. I can refer you to at least eight more marriage records in which like dispensations are marked down, all involving great-grandchildren of Antoinette Landry, who wed great grandchildren of the elder René Landry. Two among these eight are mentioned in an article on the Landrys that the late Father Patrice Gallant published in the Cahiers de la Societe historique acadienne in 1972 (Vol. IV, pp. 271-273), Unfortunately, Father Gallant confused the question of the relationships among the Landrys, despite his good intentions, by misidentifying the parents of Madeleine Dupuis' parents, Jean Dupuis and Anne Richard. He confounded and Anne with another couple, Jean Dupuis and Marguerite Richard, who were the other Jean's nephew and Ann's first cousin. By chance, both Dupuis couples descended from Landrys, while the Jean Dupuis who married Marguerite Richard was a grandson of the younger René Landry. Father Gallant thus got the two Rene Landrys mixed up, which gave him the impression that both René Landrys were Antoinette Landry's brothers, and thus brothers one to the other. As you can see, however, the dispensations to which Father Gallant referred to, when properly worked out, only have the potential to connect the elder René Landry to Antoinette. As both Antoinette Landry and the elder René Landry married Bourgs, it would appear that one could explain the relationship between their respective descendants equally well by supposing that Antoine Bourg and Perrine Bourg were siblings. Fortunately, there is an easy way to resolve this apparent dilemma. Perrine Bourg had first married Simon Pelleret, and their two daughters had numerous descendants, at least seven of whom married descendants of Antoine Bourg who would have been their third cousins, if Perrine and Antoine had in fact been sister and brother. Not one of the records of these seven marriages includes a dispensation for any degree of consanguinity whatsoever. The possibility that Perrine and Antoine were siblings can thus be eliminated, leaving only the possibility, which may thereby be considered amply proved, that Antoinette Landry was a sister to the elder René Landry. The widow Perrine Landry, who had married Jacques Joffriau but is not known to have had any children, is listed in the censuses of 1671 and 1678 as residing beside or with Laurent Granger and Marie Landry. As Marie Landry was the daughter of the elder René Landry, it may be supposed that Perrine was very nearly related to him too. Given that Perrine was sixty years old in 1671, when the elder René Landry was himself fifty-three, it seems quite likely that Perrine was this René's sister. On the other hand, your ancestor, the younger René Landry (lejeune), was not nearly related to any of these other Landrys. We can be sure of this from the absence of dispensations in the records of the marriages of his descendants to descendants of either the elder René Landry or Antoinette Landry. The younger Rene's grandson Germain Dupuis, for example, married the elder Rene's granddaughter Marie Granger, November 3, 1717, at Grand-Pré, without any dispensation for kindred. Had the two Renés been even first cousins, there would have had to have been a dispensation for consanguinity in the fourth degree in this record. Regarding Antoinette Landry and the younger René, I would point out the absence of dispensations in the marriages of Joseph Landry and Marie-Joseph Bourg, Jan 11, 1745 at Grand Pré, of François Landry and Dorothée Bourg, November 21, 1731, at Grand Pré and of Jean Daigre and Madeleine Landry, November 6, 1721 at Grand Pré. In all three of these instances the Landrys were grandchildren of the younger René, and their three spouses were all great-grandchildren of Antoinette Landry. We can thus rule out any possibility of the younger René being the brother, or even the nephew of Antoinette. And about the mysterious "Jean-Claude Landry", Stephen A. White, Genealogist, Centre d'etudes Acadiennes writes: "What can I tell you about "Jean-Claude Landry" that I have not already said? Not much, I can assure you. No one has brought forward any new information to show that two different census takers, at two separate times, both forgot to put the name Landry in the entries pertaining to the widow Marie Salé. No one has discovered a cache of passenger lists for any of the vessels mentioned by Father Lanctot to show, as he maintains, that "Jean-Claude Landry" arrived in Acadia on a certain date, at the head of a group of a specific number of family members, In these circumstances, serious researchers must agree that nothing supports the contention that there ever was a "Jean-Claude Landry" in early Acadia." "No one really knows how the Landrys came to Acadia, how many of them came together, if indeed they did come in a group, or if and how they were related, beyond the simple fact that Rene Landry l'Aine and Antoinette Landry were brother and sister. We certainly have no documentation to show that Rene and Antoinette were twins! Even though Rene and Antoinette are said to have both been fifty-three years old in the 1671 census, no experienced genealogist would read that as meaning that they necessarily born at the same time, because such records are rarely strictly accurate. After all, fifteen years later, in 1686. Antoinette is said to have been eighty! And by 1693 she had regressed to seventy-six. Such records are merely guides; they do not admit strict interpretation. To go further, without additional proofs, is to indulge in the creation of romantic fiction". "It is most regrettable that Father Lanctot chose to present his account of the history of our early Acadian families as though all of his points were based on documented facts. And it is reprehensible that a publisher saw fit to distribute such an admixture of truth and fantasy, as though it were serious history. The result is particularly invidious insofar as those people who have little or no means to consult the original records are concerned. They are left to suppose that Lanctot's work is a reliable piece of research, where as it is in fact treacherously misleading, because there are some extremely good information mixed in with the bad."