An update on where I am so far: Research has led me to discovering at last where in France some of my Huguenot ancestors came from. Although I set out to locate the Hobler family in France, I have found that they intermarried in Switzerland with other families whose notarial records show that they all so far came from the Nettancourt, Conde-en-Barrois areas, Meuse, France in the late 1600's. It seems that there may have been a group of families who left the same area at the same time (in the 1680's) and settled in Morges, Canton of Vaud, Switzerland. Can someone please tell me if it was usual for groups of family members from the same area to flee together or to relocate at the same place? With much help from John McCoy, I have traced the Hoblers (Hublers, Oubliers) back to around 1640 in Biel (Bienne) and Twann (Douanne) in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland and also to Basel but not yet to France. Other family names are: HENRION (b. 1660 Velaines?, Meuse; married Nettancourt, Meuse; died Morges, Vaud, Switzerland) CLAUDON (b. 1656 Conde-en-Barrois, Meuse; married Nettancourt, Meuse; died Morges, Vaud, Switzerland) CAPT (b about 1660-1670 Conde-en-Barrois, Meuse; married about 1694, Morges, Vaud, Switzerland ) Records for the following are all from Morges: GIRAUD SIMON BUVELOT COTTAUX SIMONNEAU Liisa Hobler _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Listers -- Anyone tried to access the list archives lately? If so, you will know that they are not working. This has been the case since the Rootsweb "scheduled downtime" a week ago. According to the Rootsweb Listmaster, it's because of -- >Hardware problems with the archive boxes: they're working on it as fast as >they can. Archives boxes?? I have no idea what this means but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Maybe you can all do the same <g>. The Rootsweb site (www.rootsweb.com) was also down until a couple of days ago but is now accessible. I understand all their features are not, however, eg. GenConnect. Sounds like the downtime which was supposed to last "about twenty four hours" is taking a bit longer to get completely back to normal. Andrea

Ooops, just a couple of slips I made in my previous message on this same subject. In item 1) when I suggested searching the IGI for TOUZEAU, I neglected to mention that a region also has to be selected -- in this case, British Isles > England > Devon (optional, I think). You could also try leaving out the county altogether so that the whole of England is searched and see what you get. Bear in mind that these records on the IGI -- even though they are taken from the French church records published by the Hug. Society of Ldn. -- really are just the "barest bones" of those records. The actual records themselves contain much more detail and information than is on the IGI. For example, a baptism record on the IGI contains only the date, location, name of child and the parents. In the actual records, you would likely get names of godparents, and perhaps grandparents. Similarly, an IGI marriage record has just the date, location, name of bride/groom. In the church records, there may be many more details included such as: names of witnesses, friends, parents, siblings or other relatives, etc. In item 4), the very last sentence, ie. ".....St. Andrew was probably a parish (ie. C of E) church which was heavily attended.", I should have added at the end of that sentence: "by Huguenots". If I've made any other stumbles, let me know. Andrea

Hello to all on the list -- This is in response to Lyn <lfaughey@ozemail.com.au> who posted on 21 Feb about her TOUZEAU surname in Plymouth, ENG c1770s. Naturally, Lyn wants to trace back farther. May I offer the following suggestions? Hopefully, they may provide more information about where to look and/or make inquiries? 1) Have you searched the records of the French Church at Plymouth? The Huguenot Society of London has published these records in Vol. 20 of their Quarto series. If you can't find this volume on the shelves of a major library or archives near you, it has been filmed by the LDS church on film # 0962137. Also, the records of this church should be on the IGI (as are all of those French Church records published by the Hug. Soc. of London). Go to the LDS website at www.familysearch.org. Select Search for Ancestors, then select IGI (International Genealogical Index), then type in the name TOUZEAU and see what comes up. 2) Since your Jacques TOUZEAU was apparently a clergyman, I wonder if the Hug. Society of London would know of him? Try contacting the Huguenot Library Librarian, Stephen Massil, at s.massil@ucl.ac.uk. The website for the Society is at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/huguenot.htm. 3) For information about the Huguenot settlement in Devon, go to: http://millenium.fortunecity.com/falmouth/566/devhugs1.htm. This includes links to further information. There is also a list of Devon Huguenot Surnames at http://millennium.fortunecity.com/falmouth/566/devhugs2.htm#Topofpage. It isn't a very long list but there is an invitation there for anyone researching other Huguenot names in Devon to contribute them to the surname list. I would recommend adding your TOUZEAU to it (as well as to HWE Surnames List on our website, by the way <g>). 4) The GENUKI site at http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/genuki/DEV/Plymouth/ has all kinds of general information about Plymouth. For example, the records for the Huguenot Church at Plymouth are listed as follows: Registers for 1733-78, 1791-1807 (C), 1734, 1740 (M), 1733-34 (B) with a PRO (Public Record Office) reference: RG 4/4623. Note that this church is cross-referenced to another church, that of Plymouth St Andrew, so it might be a good idea to search those records for further information. I am guessing but St. Andrew was probably a parish (ie. C of E) church which was heavily attended. 5) Don't forget to put surnames TOUZEAU and REPARON into any one of the genealogical search engines to see if you get any results. Such search engines can be found on the list website (http://www.island.net/~andreav/index.html) in the Beyond the Basics section (look for heading Search Engines). I hope this has been helpful not only to Lyn but to anyone else who is in a similar situation re: their research. Andrea

Tom and others, >From my research, there are at least three branches of the La Force family. I do not know if they are related, perhaps, much further back in history. Some of the La Forces were in the Northeast part of France along the Border in the area that kept changing political hands. Many of them remained Catholic. Ann and Barbara, two La Force sister emigres to VA in 1700 were of this family. The House of Beaupoil was mainly in the Department of Anjou. Towns in France named La Force are is the present Department of Aude, one in Artois (mentioned in the Three Musketeers) and one on the Dordogne River. One of the infamous prisons of the French Revolution was La Force. This Chateau was built by Charles I, King of Naples and Sicily and was the residence of the Ducs de La Force in the 16th Century. During the Revolution, Armand Louis de Gontau, Duc de Lauzun de La Force led a unit of 300 Legionaires out from Lebanon CT to assist Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, the Comte Dontien de Romchambeau and the other American forces to surround Cornwallis in the Battle of Yorktown. I don't know if this La Force remained in the Colonies or if he returned to France. Other La Forces were in the heart and South of France. Of these branches were the Lauzuns, the Castlenaus and the Beaupoils. Richelieu had a nephew who was a La Force but I am not sure how. Lauzuns were the major La Force settlers in Canada, parts of New England and the Gulf Coast of the US. These La Forces were associated with the House of Bourbon through the marriage of Antoine de Lauzun de La Force to Marie Louise de Monpensier daughter of Gaston de Bourbon who was at one time next in line to the throne of France. An Antoine de Lauzun de La Force, perhaps the same one, fought in Ireland in the time of William and Mary. The Main and most famous La Force line in the South of France is that of the House of Caumont de La Force among who were the Dukes de La Force. Castlenaus were intermarried into the House of Caumont. This is my line of La Forces. They came from the area in Guyenne around Albi and Cahors. The VA La Forces are mainly descended from Renald Rene de Castlenau de Caumont de La Force from Guyenne, France ca 1680-1690.

New to this list....I am searching for the FORCE surname. Family stories tell me that was originally La Force and that we are related to the owners of the La Force castle in France. As far back as anyone in Canada and the US can go on our line is to Noah FORCE born 1768 married to Mary BEEMER in 1787 in Deckert, New Jersey USA. They moved to Canada 1812. In the Ontario census it says that Noah's grandson, Francis Force was a German farmer....but we know that he was born in the USA. All researching has stopped at Noah, no one can go any further back than him. If anyone has an idea as to where to go it would certainly be appreciated. Thank you, Tom

Hello -- (Once again, listers, I find that I must apologize for the length of this post. So sorry.) On 27 Feb, Louise <LouiseinDayton@webtv.net> posted about a URL she had been given (ie. http://www.genealogy.tm.fr/acte.htm) where she could apparently get info about her FUGARD/FEUGARDE surname in France. This site, in French only, apparently lists records between 1539-1891. I am making the following comments not only for Louise, who does not speak French and who asked for some input, but for anyone else who might be interested in accessing this site. Louise (and others), I had a quick look at this site -- it claims to have access to over 25 million records ("actes"). But it seems to me, from the admittedly very cursory look that I had -- and I could be wrong in my interpretation -- that the actual access to the records themselves is not available unless one pays fees (look for the word "tarif") to something called Minitel in France. However, here's what you can do on the site before you get to the part about fees. On the Home Page, you type in the surname you are interested in (you must use no accents, but spaces, apostrophes and hyphens are permitted). Then click on the "Valider" button which is on the right. You will then be presented with a list of numbered "départements" (regions) where the surname occurs and you will also be shown the number of records in which that name appears. Click on the number of a particular département and you will get another list, telling you the following -- * where each particular record is kept (column headed: Sources) * what type of record it is, ie. birth, marriage, death (column headed: Types d'Actes) * how many records there are in which the surname is mentioned (column headed: Nombre d'actes) * a reference number/word which appears to be for the purpose of accessing the actual information through Minitel (column headed: Accés Minitel). For example, when I typed in the name FUGARD, I got the following information, in French (to which I have added details in English so it is more easily understood) -- 1) One record at Cercle Généalogique et Héraldique du Bourbonnais. Type of record: Acte(s) de mariage, nom de l'épouse (marriage record, name of wife). 2) One record at Salon Généalogique de Vichy et du Centre. Type of record: Acte(s) de mariage, nom de l'épouse (marriage record, name of wife). 3) One record at Salon Généalogique de Vichy et du Centre. Type of record: Acte(s) de mariage, nom de l'époux (marriage record, name of husband). 4) Three records at Salon Généalogique de Vichy et du Centre. Type of record: Acte(s) de naissance, nom du sujet (birth, name of that person). 5) One record at Salon Généalogique de Vichy et du Centre. Type of record: Acte(s) de décès, nom du défunt (death record, name of deceased). 6) One record at Cercle Généalogique de Rouen. Type of record: Acte(s) de mariage, nom de l'époux (marriage record, name of husband). Notice that no dates are mentioned in this informations so these records could be any time between 1539 and 1891. In all above cases, in the column which is headed "Accés Minitel", the reference given was 3617 GENEALOGY which I think you must use in order to actually get the contents of these records but -- I think -- only after joining Minitel. This is as far as I investigated this site so I know nothing further (about costs, etc). I also typed in the FEUGARDE spelling and I got the following statement telling me that there were no records in their dateabase for this name -- ie. "Le nom Feugarde n'est pas référencé dans notre base." So, be aware that this appears to be a "fee for service" site. Only you can judge whether or not this is worthwhile. Also be aware that there are many free sites which you can use to try to access information. It might be a good idea to try them first. For example, the list website (at http://www.island.net/~andreav/index.html) details such free sites under the heading Search Engines which is in the Beyond the Basics section. I hope this has answered some questions. If not, let me know. Or ask for clarification on the list -- maybe other subscribers have comments about this? Andrea

Hi Everyone, As many of you may know the church in Leiden, Netherlands is about to be demolished by the government. This church has ties with the Huguenots, and the Pilgrims. The United Church of Christ denomination, of which I am a member of, is protesting the move to demolish this church. Our official web site has for the past several weeks, carried the story. You can access the site at: http://www.ucc.org/ <A HREF="http://www.ucc.org/">United Church of Christ official WEB site</A> Please visit the site, and follow the link. If the government of the Netherlands gets enough letters, they may decide to stop its destruction. Please take a few moments and visit the UCC site, your letters could help save this Historic church and they would be gratefully appreciated. Thanks Karen JENTER Michigan USA

----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert W Fay" <madgrad77@clsurf.com> To: <HUGUENOTS-WALLOONS-EUROPE-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2001 6:49 PM Subject: Re: [HWE] Protestant exiles from France - Great Britian | I would be interested in obtaining a copy of the article on the Huguenots of | Chatellerault and submitting it to the Fay surname list for translation, providing both | the author and the publisher agree. A translation could be republished here under the | AUP of Rootsweb. A couple of list members within the last two months have | translated from French a genealogy of the house of Chatellerault in the 9th through | the 12th century, and a records of a marriage from the Tour de Maubourg Fay's in the | 17th century. I am the list administrator of that list. "snip" Thanks for your kind offer which I will take on board. At present the only article I have concerns the Huguenots from Saumur. I have only recently received the letter from Jean-Luc Tulot and was seeking reaction from the list before trying to obtain the other references. From the responses received it is clearly worth pursuing and this I will now do. I know that the bibliotheque in Paris have copies and these can be obtained at a cost of about £10/$16 each. As Jean-Luc has suggested they be translated I am hoping he can provide the copies for free. I will then have to clear any copyright problems with the publishers. I already have the authors permission. As you will realise this will take a little while and will keep you informed. Roy

<snip> As you will realise this will take a little while and will keep you informed. <snip> Thanks Roy, Time is not a problem, as this issue has been worked on for many years, and lack of documents and translation are the more usual issues. So if and whenever the documents can be obtained is fine. Reasonable charges are normal. Thanks, Bob Fay

Listers -- If you change your e-mail address and would like your HWE mail to be sent to that new location, here's what to do. Posting a message to the list will not produce the desired results. 1) Using your old e-mail address, unsubscribe yourself from the list. 2) Using your new e-mail address, re-subscribe yourself to the list again. Voila! It's done! If you are unsure how to do either 1) or 2) above, please go to the list website at http://www.island.net/~andreav/index.html where you will find complete instructions for unsubscribing/subscribing in The Basics section. Andrea (momentarily list concierge)

I am looking for information on the French origin of the TONNELIER family in Yorkshire or other parts of England in the 1600-1750 time frame. A Lt. Thomas Tunnell served for Lord Baltimore in Maryland in the mid 1600s. I am also looking for info on the French origin of the BRASSIER/BRAZIER family in the Isle of Thanet, Kent, England, from the 1500-1700 time frame. A Robert Brassier was in Norfolk Co., Virginia, early in the 1600s. His son, Benois/Benoit was granted Letters of Denization by Lord Baltimore in Maryland in the 1660s. He served as a Justice of the Peace before his death in the late 1660s. Robert Brassier, and his son-in-law Maureen Duvall, appear to be ancestors of US Vice President Richard Cheney Thanks, Steven C. Perkins Steven C. Perkins sperkins@rci.rutgers.edu http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~scperkins/ http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~sperkins/hdtv.html

Please note my new Email address and keep the letters coming my way. BPBallyhoo@home.com from old address of BPBallyhoo@AOL.com Thank you Betty

Dear Andrea -- Finally -- I have some information to impart instead of just lurking. Re your mention of Amos in Kent, England. It may well be that Mr. Amos was not a Huguenot -- or French -- and just married into a French/Huguenot line. However, he may have been Mssr. Amice in France -- which is a line I am looking at. As both a personal name and a surname, I have frequently found Amos interchangeable with Amice. dynda andrews dynalan@aol.com.

My grandfather, William John Fugard was born in Bessbrook, Co. Armagh in 1870 and his birth was registered in the nearest Poor Law Union of Newry, which is in Co. Down. In 1890 he came to Chicago, Illinois in the USA and changed the family name to Feugarde. Since I was told as a child by my mother that the name means "fire guard" in French, and that the family originally were French Huguenots, I contacted a French list to enquire. I was told the name FUGARD and FEUGARD(no e) were found in France between 1539-1891. I was given the URL but cannot read French and do not know where to go from here. http://www.genealogy.tm.fr/acte.htm Any suggestions will be most appreciated. Louise

I have been trying to track an ancestor who was a prisoner and was deported to Martinique. I have been using the questions and answer columns of a French publication entitled Généalogie et Histoire de la Caraibe which has been very productive. One answer which I reproduce below is very interesting. " The protestants shipwrecked in 1687 were on a ship commanded by Captain Peysonnel. At the time several ships full of protestants were sent to Martinique, most of them took the opportunity to sail off to the British West Indies and thence to England or New England." I am proposing to investigate this further and try and find passenger lists or other information but before so doing wonder if this has already been done. Can anybody provide any information?

You may recall that some time ago I came across a publication concerning a Huguenot colony in Sunbury and was seeking permission to publish extracts on the web. This was published by the Centre de Généalogie Protestante and written by Jean-Luc Tulot. I am still awaiting a decision from them but have obtained the authors permission. I am now in regular communication with Jean-Luc and I set out below an extract from his last letter which may be of interest to some of you. This by the way is a translation as he does not speak English:- "Personally I have no problems with your publishing extracts of my article on the Sunbury Huguenots on the web. Please in any case get permission from the SHPF ( this I have referred to above, Roy). I would point out that that article is not the only one I have published .......... on the Huguenots who sought asylum in Great Britain.......I have written on Huguenots from Brittany, Saumur, Loudun, Chatellerault, Poitiers, Blois, Mer and Marchenoir. Unfortunately these articles did not elicit much response. The language barrier has a lot to do with it. You ought to translate them into English" This is a fantastic opportunity to obtain masses of information researched both in France and the UK. I am not a French speaker but wonder if there is sufficient resources within our ranks to undertake the translation. I have already obtained the article entitled "Huguenots de Saumur, Refugies en Grande Bretagne" and it comprises 24 A4 sheets. I would be prepared to undertake the translation of this document, are there any other takers? Roy

<snip> This was published by the Centre de Généalogie Protestante and written by Jean-Luc Tulot. <snip> I would point out that that article is not the only one I have published .......... on the Huguenots who sought asylum in Great Britain.......I have written on Huguenots from Brittany, Saumur, Loudun, Chatellerault, Poitiers, Blois, Mer and Marchenoir <snip> Roy, I would be interested in obtaining a copy of the article on the Huguenots of Chatellerault and submitting it to the Fay surname list for translation, providing both the author and the publisher agree. A translation could be republished here under the AUP of Rootsweb. A couple of list members within the last two months have translated from French a genealogy of the house of Chatellerault in the 9th through the 12th century, and a records of a marriage from the Tour de Maubourg Fay's in the 17th century. I am the list administrator of that list. The Fays of 13th century Ireland and down through the present day are known to be descendants of Aimeri I of Chatellerault and Dangeresse via their son, Ralph de Fay(Latin form) or Raoul of Faye (French form) and the genealogies of that family are well known as a granddaughter is Eleanor of Aquitaine, and there are numerous other well recorded nobility in the descendants with at least some of the Fay descendants in Rochelle. The current Fay's of Hampshire, England were researched by a family member in the 1920's and the verbal results of that research indicate that they fled Rochelle in the 1600's I believe, as part of the protestant exodus. None of this is written down however. In addition, many of the Fay's of North America and perhaps Germany have oral traditions that include Huguenot refugees, but that is not documented either. There are Fay family researchers actively pursuing research in this area as it has been a mystery for at least 102 years and probably much, much longer. Perhaps some may note my recent questions on the Cathar-Huguenot connection, and it is related to the history given above and also to a difficult (or perhaps impossible) to obtain book by F Daniel Fay which tells of the persecution of the Fay's at the hands of the Inquisitors in the 13th century in Languedoc. So it would be fair to say, that a number of my subscribers are actively researching Chatellerault and the Huguenots, and a mysterious gap in family history from about 1200-1650, and the report you mentioned may be very helpful in resolving some of that mystery. So what would I have to do to proceed with this translation? Bob Fay

Hello everyone -- (Apologies in advance for the length of this post. I hope, however, it gives some helpful information to anyone who's not sure how to go about researching possible Huguenot connection in England.) This is a response to a post from Eunice <eunice@cubbage.freeserve.co.uk> on 21 Feb re: her FLEET ancestors of Weedon, Buckinghamshire, ENG. A family story told to her suggests the name was once VAN FLEET (Holland > England) and Eunice would like to know how to go about proving/disproving this story. Eunice, the family story you've been told may be true or may have at least a grain of truth in it. These things tend to get edited and changed a bit as they are passed on verbally to family members through many years. Just a quick story of my own to illustrate this point. Recently, I was contacted by a researcher about a name we are both interested in which is AMOS (my maternal great grandmother's surname). The area is Canterbury, Kent, ENG. The researcher told me that there was a story in her family that her AMOS ancestors were Huguenots who fled from France. I was skeptical about this story because I had never learned of any connection of AMOS to Huguenots in spite of my 15 years of researching this name in East Kent. I felt sure the Huguenot connection, if there was one, was from another surname which had married into the AMOS line. After digging around in all my own accumulated AMOS information, I found the Huguenot connection -- it was through the marriage of a John AMOS to Phebe LANSELL in Canterbury in 1746. LANSELL is a name which pops up among French Protestant records in Canterbury and elsewhere in England. So, you can see that this story was true up to a point -- there were indeed Huguenot connections to in this AMOS family but they began through the LANSELL surname, not AMOS. Anyway, back to Eunice's particular situation. I can only repeat what I think I have said before on the list to researchers who are attempting to determine a Huguenot connection in their family tree. That is, there is no way to determine this connection except by research back through the generations until you can, hopefully, connect your family line to individuals mentioned in French Protestant records. Begin with the earliest ancestor you know of and the location where you know they lived. Search the records of that time period and location for any mention of them or related families. For example, Eunice, if Weedon is the earliest location you know of, begin searching there. If you find nothing, work outwards gradually into surrounding parishes to see if they are to be found in nearby areas (people often tended not to move very far in past centuries). Eunice, you didn't mention a time period but if dates are fairly recent (post 1837), you have the advantage of the UK civil registration indexes for births, deaths and marriages which can lead you to valuable information on birth, marriage or death certificates. Before 1837, there are the parish registers which list baptisms, marriages and burials. There is no central index for these registers so you must have a parish in mind where you can start looking. If you are looking later in the 19th century, there are the censuses (every ten years between 1841 and 1891). However, you have to know of a specific location to start looking because the only one that has been fully indexed for the whole country is the 1881. I'd also recommend going to the GENUKI site (www.genuki.org) -- that's Genealogy in the UK and Ireland -- and go to the section on Buckinghamshire to see if there is anything there which can help you. For example, there may be information on how to join the Buckinghamshire Family History Society (FHS) and there may be a surnames list for Buckinghamshire. Also, it might be a good idea to join a Buckinghamshire mailing list and post a query there. To find out about such a mailing list, please go to our list website at http://www.island.net/~andreav/index.html and look for the heading Other Mailing Lists in the Beyond the Basics section. Lastly, don't forget to check on the LDS site (at www.familysearch.org) in the IGI to see if you can find any valuable clues there about your (VAN) FLEETs. This won't give you complete information but might tell you where else to look for this surname in Buckinghamshire. Anyone else got further advice to offer Eunice or others in a similar situation? Andrea

Fellow listers -- When you are sending a message to the list, it is unnecessary to send me a separate copy or to "cc" a copy of that message to me. I am a subscriber just like all the rest of you. That means that I get a copy of each list post -- in fact, I get **two** copies because I am subscribed in both list mode and digest mode (most list admins do this, so we can make sure that everything is working fine in both modes). If you send me yet another copy, this means I get **three** copies of each list post. So save yourself some time and energy, everyone. I do read each and every message that is posted to the list so I will see the one that you've sent. If you feel you need further attention from me, please contact me off-list. I'm sometimes a bit slow at responding because messages tend to get lost in my "stack" of mail -- feel free to give me a nudge if that's the case! Andrea