Good Morning All, I've been looking through my Louisiana: An Illustrated History by C. E. Richard this morning and I came across this quote: "Pierre Le Moyne, sieur d'Iberville, was thirty-seven years old when he led four ships and two hundred men from France to the shores of tghe Gulf of Mexico. His brother, Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, sieur de Bienville, was only eighteen.".... And that got me thinking about the DeGruy, Degruy, de Gruy, De Gruy, Degruys, Degruise, De Gruyse ; DeGruis ; De Gruis e ; De Gruysverloin ; Berloin ; DeGruys ; DeGruis ; Duffouchar DeGruys, [and all other seemingly infinite variations]; along with Dufouchar, Dufouchard, Duminy, Dumenil [more infinite variations, spellings]..... and wondering, how are we ever going to make sense of all this.... and we haven't even begun to consider Verloin.... [and how Do you pronounce that..? Verloin [like pork loin] or Verl lwhenh.......????? I wish I could "beam up, beam back/forward" someone from the 1700's and have them instruct us on pronunciation and meaning. When I first started to focus on my De Gruy line, I asked various genealogy email-pen pals this question about the recurring Verloin/Dufouchar/Dumini names in conjunction with De Gruy and I got a variety of responses.... So for your edification, and because this list has been so very quiet for awhile, I'm going to include them here [keeping in mind that when my computer crashed some time back, I'm sure I lost a lot of their responses.]. Here are a few of the comments I received in answer to my queries: We'll start with two responses from Stanley [omitting last names of those who are not active on our list] 1) >Renee, > >I've solved the mystery re Dufouchar[d]. Antoine Valentin De Gruy >Verloin's TITLE was Sieur Dumenil-Fouchard from France. > >He was born about 1717 and died abt 1759 [right after being promoted to >Captain]. He served in the Illinois Region. His widow, who was from the >German Coast, married Joseph Dussault [several spellings] de la Croix in >1760 who was another military officer from France. 2) Renee, Sieur is a Title with roughly the same meaning as Sir for knighted persons in England. Antoine's father was the Mayor of Paris. Dumenil and Fouchard are surnames and locations. One is the Sieur of something like an Earl. The family name for the Earl of Lauderdale in England is Maitland. Lauderdale was a region. St. Louis was founded in 1764 and many also went to New Orleans. Chatillon was another Title that probably married into the Demenil line and created the double surname. Where was your grandfather born? Who was his wife? Stanley ....... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Now Stanley's answer made me think about a mansion in St. Louis and I wrote to him: "PS I was really curious about that Sieur Dumenil-Fourchard... because here in St. Louis there is the Chatillon-DeMenil Mansion": "OVERVIEW -- The Mansion was built in two sections by families with very different lifestyles. Henri Chatillion built the first portion, a four-room brick structure, in 1848. He was a guide and a hunter for the American Fur Company of St. Louis in the 1840's before settling permanently in the area with his second wife, Odile Delor Lux. -- Three generations of the DeMenil family occupied the home until 1929. " http://stlouis.missouri.org/501c/house-museum/#demenil ------------- I'm just throwing this in because there are a lot of New Orleans/St. Louis connections. Kaskaskia is just down the road, as is Fort de Chartres.... all connected with our De Gruys. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Here's one from Audrey: >I haven't done any work on the Verloin De Gruy family but in Lafaourche >Parish (where I live) it is known as Degruise. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From Shiela Phil ... forwarded your message about the DeGruys family to me since I live near New Orleans. In your message you asked why one branch had the middle name of Dufouchar(d) and the other Verloin. First of all, I'd like to let you know that I am not related to this family and do not have any extensive information on the family. I went to the local library in a suburb of New Orleans and looked in the Archdiocese of New Orleans books which (if you aren't familiar with them) are books being published by the Catholic Church of their marriage, death, and baptism records. In there I found that the name is listed as DUFOUCHARD DEGRUYS and VEROLIN DEGRUYS. The Dufourchard and Verolin are not "middle names". There are many family especially in the New Orleans area who seem to have added additional names to their original surnames. In your DeGruys family, it seems to have been done to distinguish one branch of the family from another branch. There is an Antoine o DeGruys who is listed as a native of Illinois who married a Henriette Laysard who is listed as a native of the Port of Las Arcas (Arkansas). Antoine probably moved to Illinois for a while before coming or returning to New Orleans. He and his descendants seem to have added the Dufourchard to the DeGruys name . Another branch of the family remained in or came to Louisiana and lived in the St. Charles and St. James area which is to the north or maybe the northwest of New Orleans. Joseph Verolin DeGruys seems to be the first of this branch of the family which added Verolin to the DeGruys name. By the way, the name is mentioned several times in Conrad's books which he published on the acts in those parishes but there's no additional hint of why one child added Verolin to his name. I hope this helps you understand why there seems to be two different names in your family who can be traced back to common parents. Sheila ... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From Jerry, Unfortunately, I do not have the parents of Jean Baptist Antoine Valentin Verloin de Gruy, born about 1720 in Paris, France, died July 1759 in Kaskaskia, Illinois. He was married to Marie Therese d'Aufrere, born December 29, 1728 in Dauphine, Alpes De Haute, France. Marie Therese died Aft. December 17, 1792. They were married about 1745 in New Orleans. Jean Baptiste Antoine Valentin Verloin de Gruy is a 5th and 6th great-grandfather of my wife, Karen Diane Delahoussaye. His full name was Jean Baptiste Antoine Valentin, Ecuyer, Verloin De Gruy, Lord Dumenil Fouchard, Duke of France, Ecuyer, de la Folie. He was described as a "native of Paris" and a "native of Versailles." I take that to mean that he was born in the palace of Versailles. I have to admit, I have not focused on finding his parents, but I'm sure they would reveal a fascinating story. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ok.... well I think there were more... may have lost them during my crash.... but if I find any, I'll send separately. Here's a question.... if these names really did signify lordships or some other category of dignitary, why don't they show up on websites or in articles on websites? I spent a long time on line today searching out items like: Lord Dumenil Fouchard, etc... and other than bring up some individual names or genealogy websites, I came up fairly empty handed. Any ideas on this? Another thing I've been working on are those websites. Rather than wait till they are complete... which may be never.... I will send them on soon and we can all keep adding to them. Renee