Roger Stange asked Feb. 2nd for GIRARD family in Magdeburg and wether they were Huguenots. Short answer is yes! I looked the name up in a book: Geschichte der franzoesischen Kolonie in Brandenburg-Preussen = Historie of the French colony in Brandenburg-Prussia, by Dr. Eduard MURET, printed in Berlin 1885 (all printed in Fraktur and of course in German). There must have been quite a lot of GIRARD families. The name is among the list of French colonists from 1700 in Magdeburg, the French colony there had 1282 members at that time. I also found GIRARDs in the name lists of Berlin, Burg in duchy of Magdeburg, Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland), Farankfurt/Oder, Stargard, Wesel and Schwedt. A Girard in Berlin was in silk business, another had to do with leather production, in the town of Bernau there was a judge with the name GIRARD. All this information are for the time around 1700. To find out more about the GIRARDs of Magdeburg, you have to look for the churchbooks of the FRENCH REFORMED CHURCH of that city. They were usually not members of the evangelical lutheran church or the German reformed church but had there own parish. The German Huguenot Society (Deutscher Hugenotten Verein) in Bad Karlshafen might have information were those churchbooks are kept today. I hope this is of some help. Ina Friling