During the course of our investigation, Compendium Investigations has presented various French documents that were allegedly owned by Dr. Bill Jackson, including the “La Formule” document which was shown on The Curse of Oak Island. We have examined certain people implicated with these documents, including the mysterious Bill Jackson and Jim McGinnis. In Part 4, we’ll examine the "Oak Island Map" which, in 2016, changed the total landscape of the Oak Island mystery. But is it warranted to have had such an impact?
The Oak Island Map
In 2021, Charlotte and Daniel started collaborating on various research projects before entering into a research partnership and rebooting the The Oak Island Compendium, one of those projects was studying the Oak Island map. We will share with you part of our original findings that we discovered in December 2021 and our more recent research.
The map was first presented by Zena Halpern on The Curse of Oak Island in episode 1 of season 4, thus since it first aired, the map has been known as the “Zena Map”. Mrs. Halpern also showed the “La Formule” document in this episode. We studied the “La Formule” document in the 3rd part of this investigation, and we explained how both documents were found in two pages stuck together in a book by Emmanuel Anati. At that time Zena Halpern and Don Ruh were planning on releasing a book together but after a disagreement regarding Hollywood involvement, they released their books separately. The size of the map in the book was peculiar, as it seems to be the same size as a photo instead of a regular size piece of copy paper.
The map certainly represents Oak Island, it is in French and there are many annotations, including what appears to be the date of 1347. In the top right-hand corner, we can see a longer sentence that makes very little sense, there is the name François de La Rochefoucauld, which was a common name within the family tree. The Rochefoucauld family is a noble French family which has been established as such since the 11th century. In the same sentence there is the word Neustria which was a territory in the Kingdom of the Franks (France) in the Middle Ages. But Neustria can literally mean “New Western Land” so this theoretically could be referring to new territories in the Western World (perhaps North America). Neustria as a French territory is associated with the Carolingian and Merovingian kings of France, we cannot find any association with the Rochefoucauld name, mainly because Neustria was virtually non-existent after the Norman occupation in 1060.
When the map was first shown Charlotte noticed many grammatical problems, wrong articles, wrong prepositions, usage of an adjective instead of an adverb and etc. These mistakes made her think it wasn’t written by a French person. Masculine and feminine would not be mixed up by a native French speaker even in old-French. We also concluded that “1347” could not possibly be the date that the map was made because the date would not have been written this way in 1347. Some have suggested that the date could be a measurement, but we would think it would have been labeled as such, instead of being identified as a landing place which would denote a specific time of landing. There are numerous problems with the map having originated in the medieval time period as was explained in our original material. Here are some of Charlotte’s findings:
CETTE DESSIN: “CETTE“ is used for feminine nouns and in this case “DESSIN” is masculine.
LA TROU: “LA” meaning “the” is used for feminine nouns, but the word “TROU” is masculine.
LE BARQUE: “LE” meaning “the” is used for masculine nouns, whereas here “BARQUE” is feminine.
LES SUD INDIENS TRAVAIL TRÈS BON: This sentence is full of mistakes. The article is in plural form, but the adjective, noun and verb are all in singular form. The word “BON” is an adjective but should be an adverb. In fact, this sentence should read “LES SUDS INDIENS TRAVAILLENT TRÈS BIEN”. Also, the word Indian would not have been used in this context until the 15th century. Interestingly we see the same type of incoherence on the Nova Scotia map, which had the annotation "INUIT" (19th century word) on it, though the map is suggested as being medieval.
CHENE: Meaning “oak” would not have been written in this way in 1347. In fact, it was written "CHAISNE" at that time and evolved to "CHESNE" before becoming "CHÊNE", the latter was first recorded in the renowned French Academy dictionary in 1740.
ATTERRISSAGE: Which would translate as “landing/landing place” which was not in use in the medieval period and first appears in the French Academy dictionary in 1830, nearly 500 years after this map was allegedly made.
There are many other anachronisms on the map, which have been excused by the fact that it is supposedly a copy of an original, some suggest it could even be a 2nd or 3rd generation copy. Usually when you make a copy you don’t modify words and geography to this extent, and if you do, you also copy and present the original format. The grammar mistakes have been excused because it is supposedly an old document. Any person with the capability of writing in 1347 would have had sufficient knowledge to get the gender of articles correct, but it can’t be both. Is it an old document with blatant unnatural grammar mistakes or is it a recent modern copy with limited French vocabulary?
We’ve heard numerous arguments about why this map is genuine, the most common being that the annotations on the map correspond to actual features on Oak Island. This indeed seems to be the case, and evidence indicates this map was drawn by someone who knew the island very well. For example, someone like Jim McGinnis who had 3 boxes of documents and clippings of information and a family history involving the island. He actually wrote letters asking for various maps and requesting information concerning the history of the island which was discovered by the Compendium. After all, his name was written on the “La Formule” document which was found with the "Oak Island Map" and apparently, he also owned his own personal copy of the “La Formule”.
Any geometrical features that were special about the island could have been transferred to the Oak Island map. A feature from the map that is often talked about is the hatch. According to the 2016 book entitled “Oak Island Connection: Go Back Over 200 Years to the Mysterious Beginning” by Kerrin Margiano, also a descendant of Daniel McGinnis; “…there is a secret hatch near [Daniel McGinnis’ old cabin on Oak Island]. Send your son to find the hatch and find what’s inside. Warn them not to get lost in there.’ He did not explain where to find it, but said the entrance was just a few inches beneath the surface.” Thus, the idea of there being a hatch on the island was known by various people, like many other features that appear on the map.
Common points between Bill Jackson’s documents
As we’ve pointed out various times in this investigation there are many common points between the different French documents allegedly owned by Bill Jackson and given to Don Ruh. We’ve talked about the writing of the date, which is one of the common mistakes we have seen. There is another mistake which we have already discussed: the word DEUS which supposedly means TWO is not written correctly, at the time these documents were made it should be written DEUX. In many years of researching old documents, we have never seen it written this way.
It’s been suggested that the annotation “Triangle Deus” (the 3rd image above) meaning “Triangle Two” is actually “Triangle Dec'' meaning the “December Triangle”. Using a zoom, we can clearly see a “U” and “S”, like most of the “S” on the map it has a strange strike. There is another annotation about a triangle just under this one, which explains why it is triangle “two”.
Our colleague, Researcher Erin King has studied the Bill Jackson documents in depth and has put together many samples of handwriting. Thanks to her work and our common research we conclude that in fact some of “Bill Jackson documents” were written by the same hand. We’ll share with you some of our findings:
On the Oak Island Map, the La Formule doc and the Nova Scotia Map the “R” seems to have been written by the same hand. The Nova Scotia Map was supposedly written at least a century earlier than the others.
We also noticed that the letter N was almost always written in capital letters even when the rest of the text is in lowercase. This suggests that these docs were written by the same person which is problematic since they are all supposed to be independent of each other and not related.
Map translations
There have been various translations of the map, different versions have been presented on The Curse of Oak Island and in Don Ruh’s and Zena Halpern’s books.
This translated version of the Oak Island Map was sent to us by a person who wishes to remain anonymous. It appears to be an original translation of the Oak Island map completed by Bill Jackson to go along with the French map. It has many striking similarities with another version that was created by Don Ruh in his book. They are not identical, but they have subtle differences. We are certain that the version in Ruh’s book and the one seen above were made by the same writer due to the particularity in the writing of the letter “T” in the word BOAT (bottom left corner) which we also find in the word “NOT”. Also, other drawing and writing features on Don Ruh’s version are the same. This leaves us wondering how this can be possible. We cannot publish Don Ruh’s version for copyright reasons, but you can find it on page 316 of the Scrolls of Onteora.
Another translated version was shown to the Oak Island team in Season 4, Episode 1 on The Curse of Oak Island when Zena Halpern presented the map in 2016. What is extremely odd about this version is that it doesn’t match the translation provided by Zena in her book, which is different and more accurate. It has been poorly translated, and the initial French seems to have been badly understood, for example in the top left we can see the English word “ANGEL”; the person/people who translated this probably thought the original French annotation was “ANGE”, but it is in fact “ANSE” which means “cove” or “bay”, which makes much more sense on a map. Another interesting detail is in the translated sentence “DO YOU GO HERE WITH THE BOAT” when in fact in French it clearly says “DO NOT GO HERE WITH THE BOAT” which means the complete opposite.
The previous translation on the map brings up some of the geographical issues with it. In 1347, when the map was presumably made, Oak Island was not an island and was still connected to the mainland according to geologists. The shape of the island would be different than depicted on the Oak Island map. The sea level was lower so Apple Island would have been bigger than today and that is not reflected on the map either. Also, when navigating around Oak Island, one must be mindful of the Frog Island Shoal. It is obscured by water but very shallow and can hang up a larger watercraft. So, the warning, “DO NOT GO HERE WITH THE BOAT” applies to today’s conditions. The problem with the map is that at the time of creation, the Frog Island Shoal was visible land, an island in itself. This is not shown on the map and if it was accurate for 1347 it would have been. This points to the map being a modern forgery based on all this evidence.
The Controversy
In the book The Scrolls of Onteora, which came out in 2018, Don Ruh clearly states that during a trip to France (P49) Bill Jackson acquired the map from a member of the Rochfoucauld-Doudeauville family. Which of course reminds us of the name on the Oak Island map. In December 2018 after his book was released Don Ruh made a blog post on Scott Wolter’s blog, in which he claims that the map did not belong to Mrs Halpern, that it was his property and that she had used it without his permission.
In this same post he also described a completely different story regarding the map’s provenance. In fact, he explained that the map was a forgery that was used as bait to trick certain members of the P2 Organisation. The P2 or Propaganda Due Organisation was a masonic lodge in Italy that was involved in many political and financial scandals in the 1970”s and 1980’s.
In his post, Don Ruh justifies that the map as fake by sharing a letter allegedly written to him by Bill Jackson in 1979. The letter describes the forgeries of various items created to trick the P2 members. Don Ruh states that he didn’t remember the letter at the time that he found the map with Zena in 2015 and apparently, he did not remember it either at the time he was writing his book. Within a few months of writing his book he allegedly found this 1979 letter he states suggests that the map was a forgery.
From Don Ruh on Scott Wolter’s Blog:
“What the public needs to know that Ms. Halpern never knew, was the Oak Island map which came into my possession in 2015 was NEVER in any way connected to the Cremona Document material or the medieval Knights Templar. The Oak Island map is a fabrication, most likely created by Bill Jackson as part of an assignment by the agency Dr. Jackson worked for to intentionally set up a bad guy associated with the P2 scandal in the late 1970’s. Shortly after I discovered the Oak Island map hidden within the pages of a book by Bill in 2015, I showed the map to Ms. Halpern who immediately assumed it was connected to the Cremona Document story. At the time, even I was unclear of the map’s association to anything until I recently found the letter below in my voluminous records that put the Oak Island map into proper context. My only involvement in the operation was to carve the symbols on a swagger stick as directed by Bill Jackson. The redacted portions in the letter are to protect persons involved in the P2 matter that are still living.”
Which is true regarding Ruh’s story, was the map given to Bill Jackson by a Rochefoucauld family member or did Bill Jackson and his Spartan Agency acolytes create the map? With all the details that Ruh seems to remember, it’s surprising that he forgot about the map being fake. Especially when Don Ruh has been described as having a photographic memory. It’s even more surprising that he made up Jackson’s meeting with a Rochefoucauld out of thin air. In either case it suggests deception. It also confirms our findings for Part 4 that the Oak Island map is a forgery. What does that say about the other documents associated with it?
Why did Don Ruh declare the map was a fake and that he forged a historical artifact thus publicly admitting being associated with forgeries? What does that say about the other artifacts that are in Ruh’s possession that he claims are real? Did he want to discredit Zena because she had used the documents against his wishes? Or could it be to dissociate himself with the Oak Island map specifically because many people at the time pointed out the problems with it and suggested it was a fake? Which would not help him promote his upcoming work on the Cremona document. Which would also explain why he didn’t claim the Nova Scotia map and La Formule were fake as well. Compendium Investigations concludes that all three documents are modern forgeries created by the same person or group of people.
Please join us next week for the final part of our series. We will be analysing the background and history of Zena Halpern, Don Ruh and those associated with him to reveal the answers to our remaining questions.
Bonne journée de la part du Compendium! - Good day from the Compendium!