Hello the list! I am VoorhiesAnn@AOL.com in Gulfport, MS, and I'm happy to join the list. Looks like I am the closest one to New Orleans at the moment! I will not be averse to making a few research trips to the Big Easy if anyone has specific tasks to request. Renee and I have been emailing for some months and I have told her that I would be interested in researching the DeGruy ancestry in France along with the Aufrere ancestry. The following paragraphs are from a message I recently sent her. > I am not descended from DeGruy, but from his widow's second husband DuSuau > who was also a French military officer with an aristocratic background. I > was lucky enough to contact a person in France who supplied me with the DuSuau > lineage back to the middle ages-- information apparently found in a library > in Paris. I will search through those boxes of old papers as soon as I get > unpacked again, and will see if we can make a contact in France who will help > us. There are probably DeGruy descendants there yet who are interested in the > descendants of the younger son who went off to New France and died there. > > Just some thoughts of my own first. If he was a younger son, which surely > he was or he would never have left France, then the properties and places for > which he was named (Verloin, Menil, Fouchard) would have been minor family > holdings or holdings of his mother's family. Although those place names will > add meat to the story, they should not be a distraction, and it is best to > research any DeGruy name found in France. > > While we are searching for DeGruy, please let's keep an eye out for Aufrere > and the fact that we may find the families connected, even in France. Those > aristocrats did not marry for love and were very conscious of family > connections. This Aufrere girl married not one, but two titled Frenchmen, so, even > if she was a looker, her parents must have had some real connections. I > wonder what the story is about their leaving France? I have found some Aufreres > who were Hugenots and left France for England. So first, would each one of you relate exactly what information you have found on the ancestries of both Antoine VV DeGruy and Marie Therese Aufrere? Then I will begin to contact some people I know in France. Of course, I can't promise anything, but I have had some real successes in getting information from France about my duSuau, Fagot, Capdeville, and deBlanc ancestors, as well as my Pelichet ancestors in Switzerland, and I am hopeful that I will be as lucky this time. And I have not spent money for anything but postage! We must be patient though because sometimes it takes months and even years for these investigations to produce, but when we do get results, then we will organize a trip to Paris to see the old homestead. <g> It is very pleasant to meet you all. Ann