De Lotbiniére-Harwood

In the early 1980’s, my mother challenged me to discover who the family of her first husband was. So I went to the Vancouver Public Library and started the bury my head in the Who’s Who of Canada.

Now, I really should have known better, since I knew my birth name was Stewart, but I got fixated on a family that started out in Quebec and then moved to British Columbia. The family was called de Lotbiniére-Harwood.

Rene-Louis Chartier de Lotbiniére

There are no images of this individual who was born in 1641 (Paris, France) and died 1709 (Quebec, New France). He arrived in Quebec in 1651, around the same time as Pierre-Esprit Radisson. That makes Chartier de Lotbiniére Radisson’s contemporary.

His biography is here. Rene-Louis was everything that Pierre-Esprit was not.

I suspect they ‘crossed swords’ during that time, but there is no way to prove it from the records. However, my instinct suggests that my fascination with his descendants may have been the clue of a connection of some sort. In my imagination, something to do with a court case may have been their field of battle.

Coincidence?

Some might say so. But I’m more inclined to think it’s synchronicity.

What do you think?