Methodology & Source Inventory

How Two Families Were Pulled Apart

The document-by-document reasoning behind “Two Families the Trees Merged” — separating Delard from Despard, Souchouabe from Tchinouke, and tracing the Delard line from the Willamette Valley to a parish in the diocese of Cahors.

A conflation is only as durable as the reading that created it. This one survived because two families who married on the same day were copied from tree to tree without anyone returning to the register that had always kept them apart.

This page sets out the evidence behind the case study: which records establish which facts, how the two couples were distinguished, and where the documentation reaches its honest limits. Every conclusion is tied to a specific source, and the surviving questions are named as openly as the answered ones.

Independent Corroboration

The central identification — that the Sorel-born Joseph Delard is the Joseph Delard/Delore of French Prairie — is independently supported by a published proof narrative by Connie Lenzen, CG, a Certified Genealogist. Her ten-page study, documented across sixty-four source notes, reaches the same core conclusions from the same body of records. Where her work supplies detail beyond the scope of this analysis — the land-claim survey, the citizenship filings, the Champoeg vote — it is cited directly below.

The Research, Step by Step

The Central Problem This Case Addresses

Standard genealogical practice requires correlating evidence across independent sources and documenting every claim to a primary record. This case began with a pattern familiar from the Quintal–Nipissing correction: widely circulated family trees for Joseph Delard and Lisette carry no primary source citations, and the identity they assign to Lisette — Chinook, daughter of the head chief Comcomly — is contradicted by a register that has been in print for half a century.

Here the error has a documentable mechanism. Two different men named Joseph, from two different Québec parishes, each married a woman named Lisette at the same January 1839 mission ceremony. The public trees collapsed the two couples into one, and the Chinook identity of one bride migrated onto the Shuswap identity of the other. The correction is not a matter of interpretation. The register records two marriages. The two Lisettes died two deaths, ten years apart. The case requires only that the sources be read — in full, not in fragments.

1

Read the 1839 register in full, not in fragments

The starting point was the complete January 1839 marriage series recorded by Father François Norbert Blanchet at the Willamette mission, as published in the Catholic Church Records of the Pacific Northwest (Munnick). Entry M15 records Joseph Delard, of Sorel, marrying Lisette Souchouabe, with a legitimation clause naming six children by age. A separate entry, M5, records Joseph Despard, of Saint-Hyacinthe, marrying Lisette Tchinouke, with a wholly different set of four children.

The two entries share the date, the priest, the two witnesses, the grooms’ given name, and the brides’ given name. Everything that identifies a family — origin parish, nation, children — differs. The conflation collapses M5 and M15; the register keeps them apart.

2

Prove the two Lisettes were two women by their baptisms and deaths

Each bride was baptized on her wedding day in her own entry: B38, Lisette, aged 32, of the Souchoabe (Shuswap); and B27, Lisette, of the Tchinouke (Chinook). The decisive separation came from the deaths. Lisette Souchouabe, the Shuswap wife of Joseph Delard, died on 19 February 1841 and was buried at St. Paul the next day, her age given as 36. Lisette, named as the wife of Joseph Despard in her own death entry, died at St. Paul on April 27, 1851, “aged 43 years.”

Two women, two nations, two deaths a decade apart. The Chinook identity, and with it any connection to the head chief Comcomly, belongs to the woman who died in 1851 — not to the Shuswap woman who died in 1841.

Lisette Souchouabe’s burial: St. Paul register S-2, 20 February 1841, as quoted by Connie Lenzen, CG, “Joseph Delard,” n. 23. The Chinook Lisette’s death is known from the annotations to the published register. Original register entries are to be obtained from the Archdiocese of Portland (see Open Research Questions).
3

Confirm the register’s own editor kept them separate

The published index indexes Delard and Despard as distinct surname blocks, each with its own cross-references to M15 and M5. The editor, working from the original registers, never treated the two names as variants of one family. The families’ separateness is not a modern reinterpretation — it is preserved in both the register and its scholarly index. Outside the mission registers, the two Josephs stand on consecutive lines of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s 1824 servants’ abstract — Deslard of Sorel, a steersman, and a Joseph Dispard of Yamaska, a middleman — each with his own age and length of service.

4

Trace Joseph’s line, generation by generation, to France

With the couple correctly identified, Joseph Delard’s ancestry was documented backward through the Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH-IGD) and the underlying parish registers: his 1792 Sorel baptism (#455108); his father François, baptized 1753, married Catherine Lavallée 1781 (#133148, #57042); his grandfather François the immigrant, born about 1725 at St-Georges, Lascabanes, diocese of Cahors (#135998), married at St-Laurent, Île d’Orléans, in 1748 (#142223); and behind him Guillaume Delard and Jeanne Verdon in France (#135996, #135997).

The Québec record falls silent on Joseph after 1792 — no marriage, no burial there — consistent with a man who married and died in Oregon. The two record sets meet without overlap or contradiction.

5

Read the line forward to the Quintal junction

Joseph and Lisette’s son Augustin Delard married Zoé Quintal at St. Louis Church, Marion County, on August 25, 1857. The marriage record names both parent-couples in a single entry, joining this family to the Quintal–Nipissing line documented separately in these pages.

The Oregon settlement record — the Champoeg vote of 2 May 1843, the citizenship declaration of 1849 and final papers of 1864, and the Grand Prairie land claims near St. Louis church — is set out in detail in the Lenzen proof narrative, whose findings align with the record at every point.

The 1850 census corroborates the family structure from the other direction: Augustin, Bazile, and Antoine are in their father’s household eleven years after the legitimation, and Pierre heads his own household two dwellings away. Their stated ages, however, run two to four years older than the M15 ages imply — Antoine, nine months old in January 1839, is listed at 15 — the usual drift of household-reported ages, and a reason the M15 clause, not the census, anchors their birth years. The same household lists Marguerite at age 3 (born about 1847): born after Lisette’s 1841 death and the 1843 second marriage, she is a child of Marie Poirier, not of Lisette — a distinction the merged trees routinely lose.

Champoeg vote, citizenship, and land-claim particulars: Connie Lenzen, CG, “Joseph Delard,” pp. 4–5, notes 35–38, 43. 1850 census schedule examined directly (NARA M432, Marion Co., p. 102, dwellings 436 and 438); 1860 and 1845 per Lenzen’s transcription (see Source Inventory).
6

Name the limits honestly

Lisette Souchouabe’s baptism records her as born of non-Christian parents of the Shuswap nation, naming neither. Her ancestry beyond herself reaches an honest limit there. No baptism has been located for her son Augustin; his birth (about 1826–27) rests on his stated age of 12 in the 1839 legitimation, and his reported birthplace of Fort Kamloops is drawn from later compiled sources. Joseph’s fur-trade service — read from the North West Company and Hudson’s Bay Company account books and his 1817 Montreal engagement — is documented in the companion study, The Steersman’s Ledger.

Source Inventory
The 1839 Register · Catholic Church Records of the Pacific Northwest, Vancouver Vol. I · Munnick
M15
21 Jan 1839

Marriage of Joseph Delard and Lisette Souchouabe, with legitimation of six children. Groom of Sorel, farmer of this place; bride Souchouabe (Shuswap) by nation. Children by age: Pierre (15), Catherine (17), Augustin (12), Basile (6), Marie Anne (3), Antoine (9 mo.). Witnesses: Jean Baptiste Dupati, Pierre Stanislas Jacquet. Priest: F.N. Blanchet. The anchor record for the family.

Analyzed
M5
21 Jan 1839

Marriage of Joseph Despard and Lisette Tchinouke — the separate couple. Groom of Saint-Hyacinthe, District of Montreal. Children: Joseph (12), Marie Anne (5), Rose (3), Marguerite (one year old the following 18 April). Same day, same witnesses, same priest as M15 — but a different family entirely. The conflation of M5 and M15 is the documented mechanism of the circulating error.

Analyzed
B38 · B27
21 Jan 1839

Adult baptisms of the two Lisettes. B38: Lisette, aged 32, of the Souchoabe (Shuswap); parents not named; godfather Etienne Lussier — the evidentiary floor for her identity. B27: Lisette, of the Tchinouke (Chinook), baptized the same day — the Despard bride’s own entry.

Analyzed
Shuswap, Lisette
d. Feb 1841

Death and burial of Lisette Souchouabe, with six surviving children. Burial S-2, St. Paul, 20 February 1841: legitimate wife of Joseph Delard, died the day before, aged 36 (per Lenzen, n. 23). Editor’s annotation: surviving children Catherine, Pierre, Augustin, Basile, Marie Anne, Antoine — the M15 set exactly, excluding the Despard children.

Analyzed
Chinook, Lisette
d. 27 Apr 1851

Death of Lisette, Chinook — named as Despard’s wife in the entry. Died at St. Paul, 27 April 1851, “aged 43 years” (b. ~1808); buried in the old cemetery. Ten years after Lisette Souchouabe. The record that definitively severs the two women and returns the Chinook/Comcomly attribution to the correct family.

Analyzed
Index
pp. 30–31

Published surname index — Delard and Despard as separate blocks. Delard: Augustin, Basile, Catherine, Joseph (“to Lisette, Shuswap”), Marie Anne, Pierre. Despard: Joseph (“to Lisette, Chinook”), Joseph Frederic, Marguerite, Marie Anne, Rose. The editor never merged the two families.

Documented
B53–B55
22 Jan 1839

Baptisms of Marie Anne (3), Basile (6), and Antoine (9 months) Delard, children of Joseph Delard and Lisette Souchouabe. Ages identical to the M15 legitimation. Despard children Marie Anne (5) and Rose (3) baptized in the same series as B57–B58. Catherine (bap. July 1841, aged 20) and Pierre (bap. September 1842, aged 18) per Lenzen, nn. 24, 28.

Analyzed
M-23
3 Aug 1846

Marriage of Pierre Delard and Josephte Lapierre, St. Paul. The eldest son’s marriage — Josephte is a Delard daughter-in-law, not a Delard daughter. Corroborated by the 1850 census (dwelling 436) and by Lenzen, note 51.

Documented
The Delard Line to France · PRDH-IGD · Sorel & Île d'Orléans Registers
PRDH-IGD
#455108

Joseph Delard — born and baptized 30 December 1792, Sorel (St-Pierre). Son of François Delard and Catherine Lavallée. The single documented Joseph Delard of that parish and era; no Québec marriage or burial follows — consistent negative evidence for emigration.

Analyzed
PRDH-IGD
#133148 · #57042

François Delard (b. 1753) × Catherine Lavallée, m. 8 January 1781, Sorel. Joseph’s father — baptized 1 Dec 1753, St-Pierre-de-la-Rivière-du-Sud; d. 19 Jan 1820, Sorel. The family record (#57042) lists Joseph among 13 children and shows no further Québec event for him.

Analyzed
PRDH-IGD
#135998 · #142223

François Delard the immigrant — b. ~1725, St-Georges, Lascabanes, diocese of Cahors, Guyenne (Lot), France. Married (1) Marie Thérèse Therrien, 8 August 1748, St-Laurent (Île d'Orléans); (2) Marie Anne Blais, 26 November 1754, Québec. Parents: Guillaume Delard & Jeanne Verdon (#135996, #135997), in France. Buried 29 April 1797, Montréal.

Analyzed
PRDH-IGD
#12544 · #5760

Maternal depth — Therrien, Jahan Laviolette, Trépanier. Marie Thérèse Therrien (bap. 1722, St-Jean, Île d'Orléans) ← Guillaume Therrien × M.A. Jahan Laviolette (m. 1717) ← Jacques Jahan Laviolette × M.A. Trépanier (m. 1686, Château-Richer). Seventeenth-century Québec founding-era documentation behind the immigrant’s wife.

Documented
Oregon Records · U.S. Federal Census · Early Oregonian Database · St. Louis Church
1850 Census
Marion Co., p.102

Dwellings 436 and 438 — the two Delard households. Schedule image examined. 438: Joseph (49), Marie (24), Augustin (25), Bazile (19), Antoine (15), Margarite (3), Narcisse Montignie (33). 436: Pierre Delard (30) with Josephte (19), Julienne, and Joseph. Children’s ages run two to four years above those implied by M15; Marguerite (b. ~1847) is a Poirier child — the data point that divides the two wives’ child-sets. NARA M432.

Analyzed
1860 Census
Marion Co.

Peter/Joseph Delore household, Labish. Per Lenzen’s transcription; located via AIS Compiled Census Index. Original schedule not personally examined — retrieval pending. NARA M653.

Documented
1845 Terr. Census
Champoeg Co.

Joseph Deslards household, 1845 Oregon Territorial Census. Per Lenzen, citing USGenWeb transcription (T. Neal). Original: Oregon State Archives, Docs. 12188–12277b. Original not personally examined.

Documented
St. Louis Ch.
25 Aug 1857

Marriage of Augustin Delard and Zoé Quintal — the junction record. Names both parent-couples in one entry: Augustin, legal son of Joseph Dellart and the late Lisette, a native woman; Zoé, daughter of Laurent Quintal and Marie Ann Nipissing. Witnesses: Joseph Dellart, Louis Quintal, Louis Vandale. Links this family to the separately documented Quintal–Nipissing line.

Analyzed
Early Oregonian
Database

Multiple records — Joseph Delard, Lisette Shuswap, Marie Toussaint Poirier, Augustin Delard. Joseph: b. 30 Dec 1792 (alt. 1794), Sorel; arrival 1815; d. 26 Aug 1869, St. Louis, Marion Co.; alias “Delore, Peter.” Lisette: “Sochanale Indian,” b. 1805 (variant), d. 19 Feb 1841, no parents listed. Marie Toussaint Poirier: m. January 1843 (day not established); parents Toussaint Poirier & Catherine Clatsop. Augustin: alias “Delore, Quinn”; b. 1825 (alt. 1826), Ft. Kamloops, BC; “½ Indian”; parents Joseph Delard & Lisette Shuswap; d. 26 Oct 1891, Suplee, Crook Co. The 1815 arrival is a compiled value; Joseph’s Montreal engagement of 3 January 1817 places his departure west in that year.

Analyzed
Independent Corroboration · Published Professional Work
Lenzen, CG
"Joseph Delard"

Connie Lenzen, CG — ten-page proof narrative, 64 source notes. Independently reaches the same core identification (Sorel-born Joseph = French Prairie Joseph) from the same body of records. Cited in this study only where it supplies detail beyond scope: the Champoeg vote (2 May 1843, voted against organization), citizenship (declared 21 Apr 1849; final papers 10 Oct 1864), the Grand Prairie land claims (483.45 acres; 1852 survey; neighbors Ogle and Laderoute), and the 1845/1860 census transcriptions.

Analyzed
Companion Study
HBCA & BAnQ
1813–1836

Joseph’s fur-trade career, from the account books. North West Company and Hudson’s Bay Company records (F.4/5, F.4/32, F.4/46, B.239/g/1–16) and the 3 January 1817 Montreal engagement of “Joseph Delard de Sorel.” Set out in full in The Steersman’s Ledger and its methodology.

Analyzed
Open Research Questions — Not Yet Resolved
Lisette's
parents

Not named in any located record. Her baptism records her as born of non-Christian parents of the Shuswap nation, naming neither. Her ancestry beyond herself may lie outside the documentary reach of the mission registers — an honest limit, stated as such.

Pending
Augustin's
baptism

No baptism located. Not in the January 1839 series, where his three youngest siblings were baptized (B53–B55), nor among the 1841–42 St. Paul baptisms of Catherine and Pierre. His birth (about 1826–27) rests on his stated age of 12 in M15; his reported Fort Kamloops birthplace is drawn from compiled sources. Candidate repositories: HBCA Thompson’s River/Kamloops post records; St-Boniface if the family cycled through Red River.

Pending
Original
register entries

M5, M15, B27, B38 and both Lisettes’ burials from the original St. Paul / Willamette register. Consulted to date through the published edition and its annotations. Certified copies from the Archdiocese of Portland would allow a fresh transcription from the French and upgrade every citation in this group.

Pending
1860 & 1845
schedules

Original schedule images to retrieve. The 1850 schedule has been examined; the 1860 federal and 1845 territorial schedules are consulted to date via index and published transcription only.

Pending