From a book about Acadia

 

This is written in French but it would be a good information to share as this could very well be the father of Magdeleine Dedam or his father. I will have to find out. What peaked my interest is that they say in this book that Denis Dedam was chief of Nipisiquit (Bathust). I was told as a teenager that John Young was married to the chief’s daughter. 

In his thesis Ethnogenese des premiers metis canadiens (1601-1763), Denis Jean has a discussion of the origin of the Desdames surname in Eastern Canada. he explains that in 1635 employees (and two missionaries) arrived in Miscou when a permanent fishing post was established there by the Compagnie de Miscou. The Compagnie de Miscou was part of the Company of One Hundred Associates. A certain Thierry Desdames was named Captain and he became the progenitor of the Metis Dedams. The Dedam  surname appears in several Gaspe records, and in particular, Jean states that the surname was appearing regularly in civil records after the Restigouche census of 1765. An interesting note (still from Denis Jean) is that 25 years earlier, in 1741/1742, a certain Denis Dedam of the Gaspe – received a valuable gold-embroidered robe from the King. Denis Dedam was described as a saqamaw. My notes – a saqamaw is a chief or commander, and the king in question  would have been Louis XV.