The Bras d'Or Indians descend from several Benoit families, but two in particular are presented in the descendancy trees below.

We know according to one baptismal record recorded in 1770 in Bras d'Or that the Benoits were recorded as Mi'kmaq. 

Benoirt, Lydivine
Baptized: 1767.8.25
Age/Birthdate: 1767.5.13
Parents: Boniface Benoirt and Marie Joseph Bouche
Priest: CF Bailly
Register: St. Pierre aux Liens, Caraquet
Witnesses: Germain Lejeune and Isabelle
Notes: 'mikmak' baptized at Petite Bradore, Cape Breton
Taken from Maliseet and Mi'kmaq records

Recently another document surfaced which shows a number of Benoit families recorded as Indians in 1829 in Eskasoni, Cape Breton.  Unfortunately by the time of the 1871 census, many of the family names of the Mi'kmaq living on reserves seem to have been changed to the first name of a father.  The first names of some of the Benoit men in the 1829 census were Joseph, Noel and Gabriel.  All of those names are the surnames of many Indian families today.  Could some of the Joseph, Gabriel and Noel families really be Benoits?  The fact certain Young families took on the name Paul, it's not out of the realm of possibility.


There is no documentation which supports what follows and the claim that our BENOIT family  was a Mi'kmaq family as early as Martin Benoit and Marie Chaussegros, but we believe this family was Mi'kmaq much earlier than the first known record presented above which was recorded in 1767.  If you look at the history of the Benoit family, not from a French or Acadian perspective but from a Mi'kmaq perspective, all the existing records actually do weigh in favor of the Benoit family being Mi'kmaq back to the days of Martin and Marie Chaussegros.

Many are not aware that the name Benoit shows up in several of the Treaties made between the British and the Mi'kmaq / Maliseet.  Two Pierre Bennoits show up in the 1725 Treaty and another Pierre Benoit shows up again in the 1749 Treaty.  Other families like the Mius, the Pinet and the Cheqo/Chicau families which are undisputedly Mi'kmaq also show up on the same Treaties, placing the Benoit family in the same arena as these other families.  The Bras d'Or Indians descend from all four families, the Benoits, the Mius, the Pinet (Anne Marie) and the Chego families.

Martin Benoit according to the records married a woman by the name of Marie Chaussegros.  To date no one knows where she came from except for one lone entry in the Belle Ile en Mer declarations which is in question.  If you search the name Chaussegros, even in France, it's not a name which shows up very often, in fact, one site reports that only 109 persons in France today have the name.  However, there is one Mi'kmaq family surname found in the records which is very similar to Chaussegros and it is the name Chego, Chicau, Chigaut, etc.  We suggest that the name Chaussegros, is really the name Chego, Chicau, Shegone, etc.  This is not as far of a jump as one may think, especially if the pronunciation of the Indian name itself sounded like Chaussegros when spoken and therefore was given the French spelling for those two words.

Wherever you find the Benoits, you will always find them clustered with other Mi'kmaq families and for that reason we are looking for a more reasonable explanation as to why this was the case.

What's important to note about the two lines presented below is that the Bras d'Or Indians descend from both of these lines, each definitely of Mi'kmaq descent by 1760 and even though each took a different route, they were both clustered and married into other Mi'kmaq families and both eventually formed a new clustered in the early 1800s which included both lines.  

Wherever you find the Benoits, you will always find them clustered with other Mi'kmaq families and for that reason the name change for Marie Chaussegros is presented only as a possible explanation as to why the family historically has been clustered with the other Mi'kmaq families presented on this website.  We are not claiming Marie Chaussegros was Marie Chicau or Marie Chego, only suggesting the possibility because of the Benoit-Mi'kmaq clusters.

The MI'KMAQ Family
of
MARTIN BENOIT  and MARIE CHAUSSGROS (CHICAU??)

Copyright © 2007 The Bras d'Or First Nations Community