Research by the Association of Haitian Genealogists suggests that Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the founder of independent Haiti, was born on July 25, not on September 20, the date officially celebrated, member Didier Gilles told Radio Télé Métropole.

Gilles cites marriage and death records from the period and two 1806 articles in the Gazette politique et économique d'Haïti about celebrations of the emperor's birthday. He says no private or official document supports September 20, which he says some analysts chose around the centenary of independence.

The records also show that Dessalines was a créole, born enslaved in Saint-Domingue, and that, like many freed people, he took the surname of his master, Janvier Dessalines, owner of the Petit Cormier estate in the parish of Grande-Rivière-du-Nord. Jean-Jacques, his sister Anne and their mother Marie Françoise were enslaved on that estate.

The date of his death at Pont-Rouge, October 17, 1806, is not disputed. The association, which has digitized the National Archives database since 2000 and linked more than 104,000 people in family trees without state funding, plans to put many old records online. The report did not include reactions from other historians.