A Manitoba person who transfers at birth receives Métis citizenship

WINNIPEG –

Transmigrated at birth and raised for more than 60 years without knowledge of her Aboriginal heritage, the Manitoba native says she felt a sense of belonging after becoming Métis.

“My identity is something I lost a long time ago,” Edward Ambrose said in a press release.

“I'm 68 years old now, so being welcomed into the Red River Métis family really touches my heart.”

Ambrose received his Manitoba Métis Federation citizenship card in Winnipeg on Tuesday.

He was accompanied by his daughter Eileen and her biological sister Leona.

“I'm proud to be with my family and it feels very powerful and meaningful to receive my card,” said Ambrose.

“I've always loved my other family too, but I feel like I've always belonged here.”

David Chartrand, president of the Manitoba Métis Federation, said the citizenship card won't change the situation, but it will allow Ambrose to look forward to a future with his people.

“I know our community will embrace it and we will help Edward and his daughter Eileen make up for lost time. We will introduce them to our values, our culture, our music and our people,” Chartrand said. news release.

“Much love and acceptance awaits Edward and his daughter, and I look forward to seeing them thrive.”

Ambrose was born in 1955 at the Arborg Community Hospital, north of Winnipeg, on the same day as another baby, Richard Boveys. Somehow the babies were sent home with the wrong families.

Babies became children, they became men, married, had children of their own. For decades, they didn't know each other or the piece of the puzzle that bound the two people together.

Ambrose grew up in a Ukrainian family and said he has fond memories of growing up in Rembrandt, a farming community south of Arborg. But both his mother and father died when he was 12 years old. Ambrose was intermingled among his relatives and was given to a foster family who adopted him.

Another person said Beauvais' father died when he was young, and his mother struggled to raise him and his siblings in St. Laurent, a historic Métis community on the shores of Lake Manitoba. He was sent to a residential day school, picked on because he was local, and was removed from his family and placed in foster homes.

He eventually became a commercial fisherman and moved to British Columbia.

The truth that the two were sent home to the wrong families was discovered years ago through ancestral collections at home. It changed both men's lives as they tried to navigate their past and what it meant for their future.

For Ambrose, the reality of what happened set him on a path to explore his indigenous identity.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on February 14, 2024.

— Kelly Geraldine Malone of Saskatoon