Good Morning, Well, I've been very quiet lately but not because I haven't been busy. After making a return trip to Fort de Chartres, Fort Kaskaskia, the Pierre Menard Home and Kaskaskia Island, I made yet another trip to Illinois, this time taking a more northeasterly route. This trip was occasioned by my receiving help during the week from two historians: Carl Ekberg and Robert de Berardinis. de Berardinis gave me many citations to research and many of these were not available to me at my local library. So rather than wait forever for my Interlibrary Loan folks to come up with these many citations, I decided to drive to Illinois and "Go Fetch." So I headed to Belleville's Public Library, the oldest public library in Illinois. [I also made a side trip to the Library at Cahokia because they had a very elusive book I hadn't been able to find elsewhere; more about that later] At the Belleville library I was able to retrieve all of de Berardinis articles save one, most of his articles having been written in the Illinois State Genealogical Society Quarterly. De Berardinis' research was made from original French documents which are found in even more difficult locations for me to access: Canada, Clayton Library in Houston, Louisiana and Paris; and his articles are translations from these French originals . So working with DeBerardinis' materials were are as close as we can get to primary data found in obscure locations. I've just started working with some of these materials today and immediately I've come up with mysteries and enigmas. I'm going to include an example below. Other "installments" will come as I work with the stack of materials I have obtained. De Berardinis' first Article: The 1762 Pay Book of French Troops in Illinois found in Illinois State Genealogical Society Quarterly Vol 31, No. 4, Winter 1999 by Robert de Berardinis. The source for this material derives from: Archives colonies, D 2C [Juillet-Novembre, 1762] Library of Congress microform publication, "Louisiana Colonial Records Project," [1965] Note: "The pay book records are from the official military records, thus, these documents meet the criteria of "best record" 2 and "primary evidence"3 and required by Noel Stevenson and Elizabeth Mills. [Noel C. Stevenson, Genealogical Evidence: A Guide to the Standard of Proof Relating to the Pedigrees, Ancestry, Heirship and Family History, revised edition (Laguna HIlls, CA: Aegean Park Press, 1989) 184; 185-87. Also, for analysis of evidence see Elizabeth Mills. Evidence! Citation and Analysis for the Family Historian (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1997), pp. 44-61. The document is only one of six concerning pay records among five registers of provincial military records at the archives d'outre-mer [archives colonies] of the French archives nationales. 4 Archives colonies, D 2C, registeres 50, 51, 52, 54, and 59. [There is another register, 10, in this sub series, but it is not available except on a consultation basis, in person, at the Archives d'outre-mer in Aix-en-Provance. Descendants of French enlisted personnel In this article by deBerardinis, on page 236, There is a Pierre degruis shown as a Rifleman. He is in the Company of de Noyon In the Archives colonies, D 2C [Juillet-Novembre, 1762] Illinois 1762 Salary [for Pierre Degruis] of the troops for the months of July, August, September, October, and November was JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV SUM #.S #.S #.S #.S #.S #.S 12.15 12.15 12.15 12.15 12.15 63.15 # = livres S = sols, 20 sols = 1 livre ------------- Keep in mind that Antoine had died between July and September of 1759. So who was this Pierre Degruis who is being paid for his service? Antoine and Marie Therese Aufrere's children at this time would have been quite young; Pierre Dumini, for example, in 1762 would have only been 5 years old (if the birth date of 13 Sep 1757 [some have 15]is accurate.) Moreover Marie Therese had remarried Dusuau by this time and she, Dusuau and their family had probably moved back to St. Charles Parish. So who is this Pierre Degruis? Could our Antoine have had a brother there? Could this be a totally unrelated Degruy? Any thoughts? ---------------- Another mystery On page 240 of the same article, under the Company of Belnos, and listed under Riflemen, there is a Jean Valentin degruis Cadet. Under the same pay scale, he is listed as having received: JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV SUM #.S #.S #.S #.S #.S #.S 4.10 "." "." "." "." 4.10 Now I had Jean Baptiste Valentin's birth/bapt dates as 16 Mar 1751 and 8 May 1751. So, in 1762 he would have been only 11. Would they have allowed 11 year olds to serve in the military? What is going on here? Any ideas? This is entry #1... More will follow... But want to give you time to think about this and come up with some thoughts as to what might be going on here...based on the entries in the pay books and the tender ages of Degruy's children at this time. Rene'e