Nova Scotia Community College campus in Lawrencetown housing rare historical documents. Research into Acadian genealogical records revealed a marriage between the Rochefoucauld and Dugua families, connecting the alleged Templar map to the founder of French Acadia.
About This Site
The Centre of Geographic Sciences (COGS) is a campus of the Nova Scotia Community College located in Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia. The centre maintains a collection of rare historical documents related to Nova Scotia and Acadian history, including genealogical records, colonial-era maps, and administrative documents from the French settlement period. The archive is particularly valuable for researchers investigating the connections between French noble families, the early colonial administration of Nova Scotia, and the broader network of Templar and Masonic activity in the region.
Connection to Oak Island
In Season 5, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, Charles Barkhouse, and Doug Crowell traveled to the Centre of Geographic Sciences to search rare Nova Scotia and Acadian documents. In a genealogy of the Dugua family, they discovered that a Francois de La Rochefoucauld married into the line of Pierre Dugua, the founder of the first French colony in Nova Scotia. The Rochefoucauld name had already appeared on the alleged 14th-century Templar map provided by researcher Zena Halpern, and the marriage connection placed the family directly within the administrative lineage of French Acadia.
The team also noted that Dugua's personal cartographer was Samuel Champlain, whose otherwise meticulous maps conspicuously omit Mahone Bay, a 25-by-20-mile body of water containing more than 360 islands. The omission raised the question of whether Champlain was directed to leave the area off his charts to protect something hidden on Oak Island, a theory that gained additional weight from the Rochefoucauld-Dugua family connection.
Fieldwork Notes
Visited during Season 5 by Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, Charles Barkhouse, and Doug Crowell. The team examined Acadian genealogical records and discovered the Rochefoucauld-Dugua marriage connection and the absence of Mahone Bay from Champlain's maps.
