Lloyd and Lillian Lerat at the 2024 Cowessess powwow. (Kerry Benjoe/EFN)

By Eagle Feather News/Kerry Benjoe

Elder Profile

Few can say they’re 100-per-cent Indigenous but Lillian Lerat is close

Oct 17, 2024 | 12:03 PM

Cowessess elder Lillian Lerat made a surprising discovery while researching her family tree — she is 99.6 per-cent Indigenous.

Born Lillian Assiniboine in 1945 on the Ochapowace First Nation, to Frank Assinboine and Alice Louison. She has lived through and experienced many changes in the province.

Her great-grandfather Possimosis (Little Assiniboine) was an original member of the Chakachas band, which was reinstated as a First Nation earlier this year.

Lillian always had a fairly good grasp of her maternal lineage, but had questions about her paternal side.

“I was very puzzled about it,” she said. “Possimosis had two sons Charlie and Jimmy Assiniboine. His girls, that’s what I don’t know. He had one daughter married in Piapot, one daughter in Kawacatoose and another in Rocky Boy (Mont).”

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Lillian married into the Cowessess First Nation and that’s how she connected with Dean Lerat, an RCMP officer and amateur genealogist.

As a hobby, he helps people build their family trees through DNA testing and archival research.

“I found out what he was doing and I asked him to help me,” said Lillian who was somewhat surprised by her results.

Dean has gathered DNA from elders who have 100-per-cent Indigenous ancestry.

Read the rest of this story on Eagle Feather News.

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