Hi, Hope this isn't a repeat. Frank is trying to send the following message of introduction to the list but it doesn't seem to be coming through. So I'm trying for him. Sorry if you're getting this twice. --------------------------- Subject: Lots of miscellaneous stuff from new list member From: WmFMcFarland@aol.com Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 22:45:48 EDT To: degruy-l@rootsweb.com Bonjour to all members, I'm new to the list and am forwarding my e-mail that I sent Renee ---- lots of miscellaneous and somewhat personal stuff in this first posting, by way of introduction. Anyway, I'm happy to be sharing all the information on the DeGruy famille and have really learned a lot from all your posts. I hope I can add a little to the research effort. Please forgive my typos (which I see but don't know how to edit) and rambling in this first post. Frank McFarland ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: Re: Fwd: Ekberg article...and miscl From: "R. Hotard, Degruy List Administrator [Please do not send me anonymous, forwarded, chain emails. Thank you.]" <degruylist@earthlink.net> Date: Mon, 08 Aug 2005 17:18:26 -0500 To: WmFMcFarland@aol.com This is a fabulous email. Can't you send it to Degruy-L@rootsweb.com... introducing yourself as a new list member? I know they would all so very much love to hear from you and to read this. I feel "selfish" keeping things like this to myself!!! :-) Your wife is connected through so many names! On our Degruy website we have a couple of hundred birth, marriage and death records.... many of her names are there. Thanks Renee WmFMcFarland@aol.com wrote: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: Re: Ekberg article...and miscl From: WmFMcFarland@aol.com Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 17:33:55 EDT To: WmFMcFarland@aol.com To: WmFMcFarland@aol.com Renee, I'm in Bryan/College Station, Texas, home of Texas A&M University. I was born in Texas but went to graduate school at Tulane and lived in New Orleans for three years. I taught economics 1/2 time at UNO my last year in New Orleans and someitmes wish I had taken the full-time (Asst. Prof.) job that they offered me so I could have stayed in New Orleans longer. My younger brother just retired from being Dean of Business at Tulane for 17 years and will stay on in another capacity. I fondly remember teaching an economics principles class at UNO with almost a full class of pretty French/Cajun girls (some guys too), many of whom where just taking summer classes and went to college elsewhere. I remember getting lots of snickers and giggles the first day of class from my pronunciation of various French surnames. Those Cajuns were very good students, by the way! That was an 8:00 A.M. summer class --- maybe the smart, good-looking ones liked to get an early start! My wife was born in New Iberia and is 1/2 La. French. (Her mom was the first of her line to marry "out of the French tradition" --- married a guy who worked in the Atchafalaya Basin and environs exploring for oil for Shell Oil. Anyway, my wife grew up in Houston. Some of my wife's ancestors include DeGruy,Aufrere, Boutte, Meyer, Mestayer, Decuir, Dauterive, Montaut de Momberaut, Grondel, Latille, Darby, Hebert, Fuselier, Charbonnet, Rougeau, Pain, Prevost, Ozenne, Roman, Bonin, Bodin, Broussard, Legue, Thibodeaux, LeBlanc, LeMarie, Viel, Pellerin, Comeaux, Corbin-Bachemin, Trepagnier, DuTisne (early explorer, officer) etc. etc. She has a large number of military officers as ancestors, many of whom were commandants of various forts/posts during their careers, and many married daughters of other officers. Needless to say, many of those are quite interesting and, what's more, you can find information on them ----- as opposed to many of my ancestors for which I can find so little. I think I mentioned that my wife's ancestor was Marie-Therese DeGruy who married Francois Cezar Boutte. It was a double wedding two DeGruy girls marrying Boutte men, July 12, 1778 (at St. Martin de Tours Church, if I remember correctly. The Bouttes were in the Mobile area untile the English took over after the French and Indian War. My wife has three Marie-Thereses in a row, Aufrere, DeGruy, and Boutte. I wish there had been a law or tradition in the English colonies requiring birth records like those of the French!!! One marriage record and with 6 fullnames + where they came from, in many cases! Sorry I keep writing such long e-mails. Anyway, it's SO nice to find so many people sharing info. on the DeGruy family ---- a family that caused me much trouble (research-wise) many years ago. Frank McFarland P.S. Maybe the Jean-Baptiste name was given to Antoine Valentin when he was baptized as a Saint's name. I've run across some French ancestors who had a long complicated name and then you'd find them listed as just plain "Joseph Dauterive" (Jean Antoine Bernard Dauterive) --- and that's really simple compared to his wife's name, which is almost, but not quite, as complicated as Antoine Valentin's name. The "Ecuyer" in Antoine Valentin's name/title apparently would translate to "squire" or "chatelain" or something along that line in English.