Olive Tree Genealogy is continuing a new Alphabet Genealogy series
of blog posts. I'm not following the usual way of going A-Z surnames.
Instead I will create a one word "tag". Then I will share an ancestor (mine, my husband's, an
inlaw's or one of my children's) who fits the tagToday's letter is F. Do you have a French ancestor in your lineage? I do. In fact I have several.
Sophia De Roche was born in France 21 May 1748. Jacob Burkholder (a Mennonnite born in Switzerland) and Sophia (a French Huguenot) fled religious persecution in Switzerland to come to Pennsylvania in 1765 on the ship Myrtilla.
Jacob and Sophia Burkholder were the first settlers in Hamilton Ontario Canada on land called the Burkholder Settlement. A monument to them was erected in 1949. Jacob filed a petition for land where he states arrived July 1794, applied for land 7 August 1794.
A few of my other French ancestors were:
David Demarest
David de Maire, [Demarest] from Picardy, and Wife and four children 18, 12, 6, 1 yr od were recorded on the ship Bonte Koe arriving in New Netherland (New York) in 1663
Philippe Casier
Philippe Casier (my 10th great-grandfather) of Calais France, is first mentioned in the Huguenot settlement of Martinique in the French West Indies. In 1635 a party of old and experienced settlers had gone to Martinique from the neighbouring island of St. Christopher, which had been settled by French Huguenots in 1627. In 1645, Philippe Casier and others left the island and returned to Europe. Casier went first to Calais, then to Sluis, Flanders where his daughter Hester was born. Some time after 1652, Philippe and his family moved to Mannheim in the Lower Palatinate of Germany, along with other Huguenots and Walloon Protestants.
David Uziele
David Uzille was from Calais but his family came originally from near La Moussaye (south of St. Malo) in lower Brittany. He was a farmer, born about 1635. He married Marie Magdalina, the eldest daughter of Philippe Casier from Calais, before 1659. David Usilie, as he was recorded, emigrated from Calais on the ship the Gilded Otter in 1660
Simeon LeRoy dit Audy
Simeon LeRoy dit Audy was born in 1640 in Creance, Normandy, France. About 1681 or 1682 Simeon and his wife took some of their family to Kingston,New York. Nine of their eleven children were recorded in Canada. Several of the sons began using the surname Larroway. My branch were Loyalists arriving in Upper Canada during the American Revolution
Jacques Hertel
Jacques was the father of Ots-Toch, the Mohawk woman who married Cornelis Van Slyke in New Netherland (present day New York)
and more!
Was this the Hertel who had a big family in Quebec around Trois Rivieres ? My ancestor too if so .
ReplyDeleteMany years ago I discovered that my third great grandfather (Henry Govin/Henri Gauvin) was French and born in Quebec in the late 18th century. However, I didn’t know where he was born or who his parents were. I figured if I ever did I’d find his roots went back to New France. And that’s exactly what happened when I discovered this. It took me one memorable weekend to get 80-90% of his ancestry and the next week or two to get the rest all to New France.
ReplyDeleteOne of my French ancestors were Levesque, which got me wondering if I was distantly related to Rene. I was. In fact I’m distantly related to about 90 or 95% of those who are of French Canadian descent among them my French Canadian wife.
Thanks to my French ancestry I’m celebrating two back to back 400 year anniversaries. Last year marked the 400th anniversary of Zacharie Cloutier and his father Denis coming to New France just for a season to do work as laborers. (Zacharie returned in 1634 and his wife and family came to New France in 1636.) And this year marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of my Mayflower ancestors: Brewsters and Chiltons to New England.
What a great story Peter. I wish I had more French-Canadian ancestors. They are a unique group of immigrants from France.
ReplyDeleteBernie. Yes, my ancestor Jacques Hertel lived in Trois Rivieres. Jacques was one of Samuel de Champlain (The Father of Canda)'s interpretors, brought to New France (Quebec) in 1613
ReplyDeleteHe fathered Ots-toch but was married to a young French gal and sired other legitimate children in New France