Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rene Alexandre LeMoyne (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:42, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Rene Alexandre LeMoyne
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A completely unreferenced biography of an individual who, quite frankly, does not seem to have any claim to notability cited in the article itself. It was nominated for deletion way back in 2008, but kept on the arguments that notability isn't important, and that its plausible that there might be sources on the individual. Neither of those arguments would actually fly anymore, so I'm bringing it back for discussion 11 years later. As stated in that old AFD, the article history seems to indicate that this article was created by a descendant or relative of the subject, whose only edit was to create this article. I searched for sources, both using the name of the article, as well as both alternative spellings that were mentioned in the old AFD, and came up with nothing substantial with any of them. Outside of mirrors of this article, I'm only finding brief mentions of the individual in genealogy charts and similar texts, or a few short blurbs about a couple of his daughters that amount to stating that he was their father. I am finding nothing that would allow this individual to pass either the WP:GNG or WP:NBIO.Rorshacma (talk) 16:40, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Here's a book that states that it contains biographical sketches. According to the index, the subject is on pages 13, 16–18, 31, and 32.  Pages 16–18 appear to be such a biographical sketch, as far as I can see.  It mentions the fur trade and the Capitaine de Milice.
 * Uncle G (talk) 17:32, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - That would be one of the genealogy texts I mentioned in the nomination. Based on the author's name and the "Private Printing" publication status, that would appear to be a book created by the Le Moyne family detailing their own genealogy. Rorshacma (talk) 17:41, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It's undoubtedly a family history, and apparently not what the author of this article used (going by the first person editorializations that have stood in Wikipedia article space here for 13 years). But it isn't a genealogy.  It is a bona fide biography, written in prose of complete sentences, talking about the aforementioned things and other stuff like a treaty.  The article conforms to the family history, it seems, and I suspect that they both came from the same primary sources.  The question is thus the reliability of the historian and whether there is any other source.  (I may have mentioned, many times over the years, that multiple sources are a good thing.  I did put it in a page somewhere.)  I have no idea what the credentials are of Edith White, and I have no way of reading the other book mentioned in the first AFD discussion.  But that's why this is a discussion.  Now someone can find out, and we are a lot further along within a couple of hours than the silly argument about notability in the first AFD discussion got in a week.  Uncle G (talk) 18:05, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * One of the books mentioned in the old AFD appear to be here. It, as well as this one are about Marie-Marguerite d'Youville, who may have had one of Rene Alexandre LeMoyne's relatives as a follower.  I say "may" because one of the books lists the follower's father's name as "Rene-Alexandre Lemoine-Despins", so this could possibly be a false positive, actually referring to someone with a similar name.  Rorshacma (talk) 18:56, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Quebec-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 17:34, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Quebec-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 17:34, 18 July 2019 (UTC)


 * You would need to search also with a few variations in spelling. Names of that time can be written in a number of different ways in different documents. You could find, for example, Lemoine, Lemoisne, LeMoyne, Le Moyne, and Despain, Despins, Des Pins, Despains. The Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (Library and National Archives of Quebec) writes the name "René-Alexandre Lemoine Despain", from archived documents in their 18th-century collection from the Seigneuries of Sainte-Anne and Sainte-Marie. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography also writes "René-Alexandre Lemoine, dit Despain" when it mentions him in the article about his brother Alexis Lemoine, dit Monière, by historian Louise Dechêne, and writes "René-Alexandre Lemoine, dit Despins" in the article about his son Jacques-Joseph, by historian José E. Igartua, and in the article about his daughter Marguerite-Thérèse Lemoine Despins, by Claudette Lacelle.  -- Asclepias (talk) 19:13, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment So, the "Lemoine-Despins" reference I mentioned above is our guy, then. I guess the question now is, with these references found under the various spellings, if it is enough to establish notability.  I still find it rather iffy, since these sources are all rather brief mentions of him while talking about his arguably more notable relatives.  Case in point, he does not appear to have an entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography that I can find like several of his relatives.  I'll leave the notability issue up for discussion from here, but I just want to give shout outs to Uncle G and Asclepias for their excellent work on this.  Rorshacma (talk) 19:54, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Weak delete. Given the problems researching this I'm open to changing my mind if someone finds better sources, but overall, I'm getting the picture that this is someone best-known as the relative of a more notable figure, and he was perhaps notable on his own merits, but there's simply not enough surviving information about him to put together a well-sourced article:
 * The genealogical text found is up on archive.org here. The title page confirms that this is an internal family history; Edith White's full name is Edith Le Moyne White. pp. 17 contains a baptismal record followed (pp. 17–8) by a letter about his more notable daughter Marguerite-Thérèse, so the actual biography is just (most of) p. 16, and even then it's very thin—all it says is that he had certain titles at some point and some trivial personal details like when he married and when he moved. As for pp. 31 and 32, they are just a genealogical list with no substantive detail.
 * The article also mentions a notice in Sillon's Vie de Madame Youville. I can't find any online version of this book—though there's another Vie of Mme Youville by a different author which doesn't mention René—but the quote in the article is also given in a French-language genealogical journal. Given the context (M-T was a successor of Youville as superior of the Sisters of Charity), I assume it is just a mention of him as the father of M-T.
 * I note the author of the article seems to have relied on some other unpublished(?) sources because of the various notes indicating OR: "and the Michilimackinac. (I think this is the Makinaw Indians)."
 * So, apart from the privately-published family biography, there's really not much apart from passing references in material relating to his more famous daughter. It might work as a redirect though it seems that there are multiple notable figures he's connected to. —Nizolan (talk · c.) 00:02, 19 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:GNG. His only claim really is through his daughter, a notable religious in colonial Quebec. Bearian (talk) 15:45, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per NOTGENEALOGY. E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:08, 26 July 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.