Hi everyone!
It's time to meet another one of our Wonderful WikiTreers! This week's member is Jason Grant.
Jason became a Wiki Genealogist in December of 2019. He is active in our Acadia and Native American projects.
What are some of the surnames you are researching?
Some of the surnames I’m researching are Grant, Vienneau, Doucet, Sewell, Peter-Paul.
What are some of the locations you are researching?
I’m mostly interested in L’nu’ Āgade aka (Acadie) Nouvelle France, France and New England.
When and how did you get interested in genealogy and family history?
As a boy, we were raised speaking English, but my mother was French Acadian mixed indigenous. When I got older, I found out that my paternal line was actually Scottish, and this really intrigued me. One of my cousins did extensive research on the Grant Clan and our family and there were strong ties back to Scotland. In 2007, I found out online there was a global Grant DNA project and I thought it would be interesting to see if I could find out more about my paternal side of our family. I wasn’t disappointed. A few months after I submitted my DNA to the project, the secretary for the current Chief of Clan Grant contacted me saying they were notified that my DNA matched with one of the Clan Chiefly lines of the Grant Clan. It was all very interesting, and I was excited.
Who's your favorite ancestor and why?
My 9th Great grandfather - Sachem Madockawando.
As proud as I am and privileged to have an extensive knowledge of our family genealogy my favorite ancestor is Madockawando. Reading the history of Madockawando I’m fascinated with his role in fighting the English, being a major ally with the French and his daughter eventually marrying Vincent D’Abbadie. I married into a Mi’gmaq family at a young age, and I was fortunate to have learned the culture, traditions fakelore and language I was unaware of my Native American ancestry except for the confessions made by my grandfather Arthur Vienneau just before he passed away. I spent all those years immersed in a culture not truly knowing my proud history until much later in life. Though my Native American ancestry is distant, my father-in-law always told me that if you are living this way of life then you are this life. He never believed in blood quantum.
Tell us about a brick wall you were able to break down.
One brick wall I would like to break through is a grandfather in my Grant line. My DNA and family tree brings me to him back through my father, grandfather and so on but when we get to him, we know very little. Some say he could have been an illegitimate son of the Clan Chiefs but that’s just a theory. He was killed in NYC at the end of the Revolutionary war and that’s about all we know.
If you could pick one person in history to be related to, who would it be and why?
It would have to be Chief Red Cloud. He was an intelligent man, soft spoken but always willing to stand up for what is right. I admire all the chiefs of his era, but he is my favourite.
(interview continues in comments)
