This short communication concerns the identification of the Y-DNA haplotype (signature) of ancestor Jean Beaugrand-dit-Champagne through triangulation[2].
Jean Beaugrand, whose war name as a soldier was “Champagne”, came to New France in 1665 with the Regiment of Carignan. After his service, he stayed in the colony and married Marguerite Samson, a “Fille du Roi”[3]. Their son Jean-Baptiste was the only one of their children to assure their descent. Jean-Baptiste married Françoise Guignard d’Olonne and the couple had two sons, Antoine and Pierre-Simon, from who descend all Beaugrand-dit-Champagne of French Canadian root[4]. Today, these descendants carry various surnames: Beaugrand, Beaugrand-Champagne, Beaugrand-dit-Champagne, Champagne etc. We will simply refer to them as Beaugrand-Champagne. Figure 1 shows the relatedness of the participants with ancestor Jean and among each other. The first names of the five men who had their Y-DNA tested are marked with an asterisk.
For the identification of the signature of the ancestor we have used the Y-DNA test results of five Beaugrand-Champagne men. Three of them had already been tested at FTDNA[5] but belonged to Antoine’s branch. We thus made calls on various forums and Family Newsletters and were in a position to recruit two additional participants from the alternate branch, that of Pierre-Simon. All five men had a well documented descent from ancestor Jean Beaugrand. Nonetheless, we verified this descent, systematically resorting to the original documents[6].
DNA testing on the first 12 STR markers was done by FTDNA [7] and the haplogroup was estimated algorithmically as R1b1b2 for all five participants. Moreover, for two of them, Raymond for the Pierre-Simon’s line and Jacques for Antoine’s line, the haplogroup and its subclade were SNP determined by FTDNA.
All five Beaugrand-Champagne participants showed the same STR signature based upon the first 12 markers (Panel I), shown in Table 1. For comparison purposes Table 1 also presents the modal haplotype of haplogroup R1b1b2 which is the same (for the moment) as that of the WAMH (Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype). The Beaugrand-Champagne and the R1b1b2 haplotypes differ on 4 markers. Marker DYS-439 has a low mutation rate and shows two units of difference. Other markers, DYS-385, DYS-390 and DYS-391 have moderate mutating rates. The relatedness between the Beaugrand-Champagne and modal R1b1b2 is thus far from being recent and could correspond to several thousand years.
Following the Deep Clade test, Raymond and Jacques were found belonging exactly to the same haplogroup and subclade, which is R1b1b2a1a2d3* (short form: R-L2*). Their Y-DNA possesses the S28/U152 SNP and the more downstream mutation L2/S139. It was assumed from these results that all participants shared the same haplogroup, which is R-L2* [8] The fact that all participants share the same haplotype (STR signature) and haplogroup (and subclade) confirms their relatedness. Indeed, there are known precedents from haplogroup R1b1b2 where two signatures perfectly matched on STR values but resulted in not being related when their subclade became known through SNP testing.
Figure 1. Descent of the participants from ancestor Jean and relatedness among each others. The first names of those who were Y-DNA tested are marked with an asterisk and their FTDNA kit number indicated.
Two identical signatures which are distinct from the modal of their haplogroup most probably share a common ancestor who has lived recently or quite recently.
The signatures of Pierre and Raymond share the same haplotype and their documentation shows that their Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) is Pierre-Simon. Troy and Jacques (or Florent) also share the same haplotype and in their case, documentary research shows that their MRCA is Jean-Baptiste, the father of Jean-Baptiste and of Norbert. Moreover, the two lines of Beaugrand-Champagne, that of Pierre-Simon and Antoine, also share a MRCA in the person of Jean-Baptiste, the son of ancestor Jean who first established in New France.
Was Jean-Baptiste the biological son of ancestor Jean? We cannot answer this question but, based on the available documentation and on the mentality of the epoch we can reasonably assume that it was the case.
The haplotype shown in Table 1 would thus be that of ancestor Jean Beaugrand-dit-Champagne, Soldier of the Carignan Regiment.
Using this revealed signature as a model of exploration it will become possible to find European cousins, especially in France, and to answer questions which are still pending, especially concerning his original surname and region of origin. The genealogy of all descendants of Jean Beaugrand-dit-Champagne could also be augmented of by 2-4 generations of ancestors who lived in Europe before him. The identified signature could also serve in the future as a beacon for those who hypothesize that they descend from ancestor Jean Beaugrand-dit-Champagne and for those who have lost their roots through adoption or otherwise.
Concerning the ancestral origins of the five men of the present study, we now know that their haplogroup is R1b1b2-L2* and that it is of West European origin. In the current ISOGG taxonomy, L2 is nested within the S28/U152 subclade for which the approximate age and European geographical distribution are known. The S28/U152 mutation would have occurred in Western Europe 3 to 5 thousand years ago, surely after the last glacial maximum (LGM). It is not clear at this moment if ancestor R1b1b2 from which S28/U152 men descended had already populated Europe when glaciations occurred and in which European refuge he might have spent the LGM; or if he entered Europe from the East (from Eurasia, the Middle East or Anatolia) after the end of the LGM.
It has been proposed that S28/U152 men were part of the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures and later became Alpine Celts or even Italics. However, such a hypothesis still awaits anthropological confirmation. As for R-L2, we cannot say much for the moment. The tested L2 cases report having European origins in Northern Italy, Switzerland, Germany (Upper Rhineland), Belgium and France, as well as along the Eastern coast of the British Isles.
Table 1.
Haplotype shared by the five Beaugrand-Champagne men who participated in the present study. They show the same values at each of the 12 markers composing their signature. For comparison purpose, the modal haplotype of the modal WAHM/R1b1b2 is also presented.
Acknowledgements
The following persons are thanked for their valued participation in this study: Florent Beaugrand (Acton Vale, Québec), Raymond Beaugrand-dit-Champagne (Pennsylvania, USA), Troy Champagne (Michigan, USA) and Pierre Champagne (Chicoutimi, Québec).
Declaration
The full consent of all participants was obtained.
Notes
[1] Corresponding author: Beaugrand.Jacques@UQAM.CA
[2] « Triangulation » according to Kerchner:http://www.kerchner.com/deducedancestralhaplotype.htm
[3] About King’s daughters:http://www.fillesduroi.org/Daughters/daughters.html
[4] There are Beaugrand, Bogran(d) in North, Central (including the Caribbean) and South Americas who have other origins (see the Beaugrand-surname project at FTDNA). Moreover, most people carrying the Champagne surname have other ancestors than Antoine and Pierre-Simon Beaugrand-Champagne.
[5] Family Tree DNA (FTDNA): https://www.familytreedna.com/
[6] The PRDH, BMS2000 or Ancestry.ca, were used to locate vital records; each copy of the original was then examined in the Drouin collection. The ancestry of each participant is available upon request to the first author.
[7] These results are part of the French Heritage DNA project :http://frenchdna.org
[8] The asterisk at the end of the label indicates that it is the ancestral form and that eventual discovery of further SNPs could allow further splitting of the subclade.
