> Hello, Celine! > > I'm not sure how these lists thread, so I hope this gets connected to your > post. > > neil.johnson@acsalaska.net writes: > > >> I used to think the spelling Degruise was due to the fact the the >> recorder >> of a particular document was Spanish, but that's just a hunch. >> > > I did a search for DeGruy names in Louisiana and about ten other states and > I was surprised to find that after DeGruy (or deGruy) the second most popular > spelling by far is DeGruise. I had thought it would be DeGruys or DeGruis > because I have seen that so often in the old St. Charles records. I had > always assumed that DeGruise was an anglosized version of the pronunciation of > deGruys which I thought was the original French spelling. As you know, in > French the final s would not be pronounced, so that deGruy or deGruys or deGruis > would all be pronounced the same, and people were very careless about > spelling. Any English speaker coming along, however, would see that name written > and pronounce it duh-greeze (br-r-r-r-r! shudder! <g>) and then write that > pronunciation as DeGruise. Is that how the DeGruise folks pronounce it in New > Orleans? > > Of course, I just made those assumptions off the top of my head without any > research whatsoever because deGruys is not one of my family names (except as > the first husband of my Aufrere ancestress). Now you have caused me to think > about this! I would have to look at all the original handwritten records, > knowing the native language of the writer, and tally the spellings of the name > in order to evaluate your Spanish theory. > > If we had some people from New Orleans on this list, we could ask them to > check to be sure that such a linguistic analysis of the name in Louisiana does > not already exist. Sounds like a great master's dissertation to me and it > may just be waiting, leatherbound, in the modern languages section of the > Tulane library! I will put that on my library list for my next trip to the city. > > Ann > > P.S. Do you know an Oscar DeGruy in Anchorage? > >

Hello - In actuality, some of the de Gruy line married members of a noble Spanish family - Fazende - which makes some of us part Spanish. I found references to the Aufrere family connected with the de Gruy family in one of my reference books. It speaks specifically of New Orleans and Louisiana history and focuses on a specific Spanish family, the Bouligny family. At least one de Gruy married a Bouligny girl. I will look it up in the book and get that part back to you all. In the meantime, the book is "A History of the Bouligny Family and Allied Families," by Fontaine Martin, published by the Center for Louisiana Studies/ University of Southwestern Louisiana. Another book that is filled with interesting information is "The French Thorn" by Robert S. Waddle. It covers a specific era of 1682-1762. The first book I listed is filled with info about land ownership. It seems the de Gruy family held a great deal of plantation land, but rarely alone. Often it was owned in partnership with other families, such as the Boulignys and the Fazendes, into whose families they married, sealing, as it were, the land contracts. That way one had the additional resources to maintain & develop the land, but it really never leaves the family entirely. One more good reference book is "A Guide to Louisiana History" by Cummins & Jeansonne. It gives a wonderful glossary of dates and events that help in determining which generation one might be reading about. As far as pronunciations of our name - I do think the different language backgrounds of the recorders of documents had something to do with the variety of spellings. For instance, Fazende is Spanish, therefore the name would end with a long a sound - a Marie Alix Fazende is my great great grandmother and I've noticed our family pronounces the name in a very French manner, saying the hard d, but not pronouncing the e - as in Fazend(e). Much to my cousin David Perrin's, and my mother's consternation, I pronounce it the Spanish way. The importance of the Fazende family connection is not only in the direct line for some of us, but also in the land the families owned and in that Fazende became very important in the early New Orleans government. The key name to research here would be Jacques Fazende. I've focused so much on the de Gruy line that I haven't done much with either the Fazende nor the Foucher lines. Also, I must correct something I wrote earlier. I mentioned that the Foucher brothers came to Louisiana with their cousin d'Iberville. Remember, I'm doing this from memory right now as I can't seem to access my files. Anyway - they came to Louisiana with d'Iberville's brother Bienville.(Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville)in the very end of the 17th century, or the very beginning of the 18th (1701-1718). As it was their sister, Felicite (Felicie) Foucher de Circe who married the senior Francois Verloin de Gruy, I have been trying to get the dates of actual events and that has been extremely difficult, if not impossible. I'm having trouble getting the dates to jive. These are the holes in my research that I'm hoping you all will be able to help with. And I am so impressed that there is a de Gruy in Alaska. I personally had not heard of one, but I'm surprised at the number of de Gruy family living outside the immediate South. Shelley -----Original Message----- From: VoorhiesAnn@aol.com [mailto:VoorhiesAnn@aol.com] Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 12:14 AM To: DEGRUY-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: Degruy names and spellings > Hello, Celine! > > I'm not sure how these lists thread, so I hope this gets connected to your > post. > > neil.johnson@acsalaska.net writes: > > >> I used to think the spelling Degruise was due to the fact the the >> recorder >> of a particular document was Spanish, but that's just a hunch. >> > > I did a search for DeGruy names in Louisiana and about ten other states and > I was surprised to find that after DeGruy (or deGruy) the second most popular > spelling by far is DeGruise. I had thought it would be DeGruys or DeGruis > because I have seen that so often in the old St. Charles records. I had > always assumed that DeGruise was an anglosized version of the pronunciation of > deGruys which I thought was the original French spelling. As you know, in > French the final s would not be pronounced, so that deGruy or deGruys or deGruis > would all be pronounced the same, and people were very careless about > spelling. Any English speaker coming along, however, would see that name written > and pronounce it duh-greeze (br-r-r-r-r! shudder! <g>) and then write that > pronunciation as DeGruise. Is that how the DeGruise folks pronounce it in New > Orleans? > > Of course, I just made those assumptions off the top of my head without any > research whatsoever because deGruys is not one of my family names (except as > the first husband of my Aufrere ancestress). Now you have caused me to think > about this! I would have to look at all the original handwritten records, > knowing the native language of the writer, and tally the spellings of the name > in order to evaluate your Spanish theory. > > If we had some people from New Orleans on this list, we could ask them to > check to be sure that such a linguistic analysis of the name in Louisiana does > not already exist. Sounds like a great master's dissertation to me and it > may just be waiting, leatherbound, in the modern languages section of the > Tulane library! I will put that on my library list for my next trip to the city. > > Ann > > P.S. Do you know an Oscar DeGruy in Anchorage? > > ============================== Gain access to over two billion names including the new Immigration Collection with an Ancestry.com free trial. Click to learn more. http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4930&sourceid=1237