Finding a Huguenot or Walloon Ancestor

Waloon: people who speak a French dialect and live in southern and eastern Belgium and neighboring parts of France.

Huguenot: a French Protestant of the 16th–17th centuries

The breaking out of war between France and Spain in 1635 caused a large influx of Protestant refugees into England from Picardy, Artois, Hainault and Flanders. Amiens was the capital of the Amienois in Picardy.

The Huguenots had long been persecuted in their homelands. Many families, in terror, fled for other lands after the fall of La Rochelle and Montauban. The West Indies, inviting because of its climate and fruitfulness, was becoming the refuge of many Huguenots for whom the cold region of Canada had no attractions.

Removals to these islands had been going on under the direction of a company formed at Paris in 1626, under M. D'Enantbus, who the year before had visited the island of St. Christopher in a brigantine from Dieppe. There he planted the first colony in 1627. In 1635, Martinique was occupied by a hundred old and experienced settlers from St. Christopher, including Phillippe Casier and his wife Maria Taine.

In 1640 Jesuit missionaries arrived at Martinique where there were almost a thousand French, "without mass, without priest,". Having been reluctantly admitted by the governor and the people, the Jesuits heightened the public dissensions which broke out in the islands and which grew so violent five years later, especially in Martinique, that many of the Huguenots were glad to get back to Europe. Many of them went to the Netherlands, some of them, as the Casier family of Calais, eventually finding safe haven at Harlem, New York.

Those seeking their Huguenot or Walloon ancestors may find the following helpful:

Huguenot Ships Passenger Lists
Huguenot Family Names
Huguenot Historical Overview
Huguenots to South Africa

I have written a book about one Walloon immigrant who settled in New Amsterdam (now New York City), New Netherland.

New Netherland Settlers: A Walloon in New Amsterdam:: Adriaen Vincent and his Wife Magdaleen Eloy - 2nd edition! available on Amazon

Adriaen Vincent, a Walloon from Belgium, made the perilous journey to New Netherland with his wife Magdaleen and their young family in the early 1640s. A former West Indies Company soldier, Adriaen was embarking on a new life. The family settled in the village of New Amsterdam, which would one day become the city of New York. Life could not have been easy for the couple, faced with a different culture and language. But settlers were pouring in and New Amsterdam was flourishing. Within a few years Adriaen and Magdaleen opened a tavern which catered to sailors and new arrivals. Their fortunes soon took a turn for the better and the family settled into their new life. This book contains new information on the family in the Netherlands and New Netherland, as well as details on descendants of Adriaen and Magdaleen 

DNA May Help Identify Victims of Spanish Civil War

When the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939, many civilians had disappeared - executed and buried in unmarked mass graves. Some estimates suggest that 2,000 mass graves may hold the remains of up to 150,000 victims.

Gumiel de Izán is one of the known mass graves, and a few years ago, archaeology volunteers began exhuming the bones of those buried there. A social anthropologist was present to supervise the recording of memories of elders in the nearby village. Using DNA testing it is hoped that relatives of the missing will finally have answers as to where their loved ones are buried.

Read more at  Gathering the Genetic Testimony of Spain’s Civil War Dead

Image is a screenshot from the article on Scientific American (https://www.scientificamerican.com/)

Were the Irish in America Before Columbus?

In 1520, the Spaniard Peter Martyr d'Anghiera was appointed by Carlos V to be chronicler for the new Council of the Indies. His report, founded on several weeks of interviews, was published in a book named De Orbe Novo (About the New World)


The land where the Irish were said to explore would later become Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Apparently words used by the native tribes in this area were translated using Gaelic dictionaries, giving even more credence to the notion that the Irish were there before Columbus.

Read more at Spanish documents suggest Irish arrived in America before Columbus

FamilySearch Update

FamilySearch has added more than 2.9 million indexed records and images to collections from Brazil, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Peru, Spain, and the United States. 

Notable collection updates include the 609,536 indexed images from the new Canada, Quebec, Notarial Records, 1800–1920, collection; the 240,983 images from the New Zealand, Archives New Zealand, Probate Records, 1848–1991, collection; and the 464,001 indexed records from U.S., New York, New York Passenger and Crew Lists, 1909, 1925–1957, collection. 

See FamilySearch Blog for the full list of updates.

FamilySearch Update: Collections from Brazil, Canada, England, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, and the United States

FamilySearch Adds Close to 11.1 Million Indexed Records and Images to Collections from Brazil, Canada, England, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, and the United States

FamilySearch has added close to 11.1 million indexed records and images to collections from Barbados, BillionGraves, Brazil, Canada, England, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and the United States.

Notable collection updates include the 1,703,529 indexed records from the U.S., Texas, County Tax Rolls, 1846–1910, collection; the 766,368 indexed records and images from the new Canadian Headstones, collection; and the 2,917,490 indexed records from the England, Kent, Register of Electors, 1570–1907, collection. Search these diverse collections and more than 3.5 billion other records for free at FamilySearch.org.

Update: FamilySearch Adds More Than 2.7 Million Indexed Records and Images

FamilySearch Adds More Than 2.7 Million Indexed Records and Images to Collections from Brazil, England, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, and Switzerland

FamilySearch has recently added more than 2.7 million indexed records and images from Brazil, England, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland. 

Notable collection updates include the 1,459,211 indexed records and images from the England, Derbyshire, Church of England Parish Registers, 1538-1910, collection, the 534,245 indexed records and images from the new Mexico, Aguascalientes, Civil Registration, 1859-1961, collection, and the 172,333 indexed records from the Italy, Napoli, Civil Registration (State Archive), 1809-1865, collection. 

 Search these diverse collections and more than 3.5 billion other records for free at FamilySearch.org.

DNA Results Showing Native American and East Asian Heritage

My  23andMe.com Ancestry results came in last week. I was fascinated by the sub-regional breakdown of my lineage. The chart above shows that I have 18% British and Irish, 1.4% French and German, 71.7% non-specific Northern European, 8.7% non-specific European, .1% East Asian and the rest unspecified.

What surprised me was no Native American showing for me (it is confirmed that I have Native American heritage through a Mohawk ancestor, Ots-Toch born ca 1622 in what is now New York state), and that I have a small bit of East Asian.  However it's important to note that one test isn't the final answer, especially when searching for confirmation of heritage from several generations back.

So it doesn't concern me at all that my Native American heritage doesn't show in the  23andMe.com results. The raw data from my brother's DNA test on Family Tree DNA also did not show our Native American heritage until I had it analyzed by Professor MacDonald, who is conducting his own study on DNA and has a different set of algorithms for providing results.  Then it showed my brother as having .7% Native American heritage.

And the icing on the cake is that my brother's DNA test from  23andMe.com also showed our Native American heritage at .7% (with East Asian at .1% just as mine is)

 

My brother's test from 23andMe also showed .7% Iberian which is the region of Spain and surrounding areas. We know from his raw data that he has a rare mutation which is known to have occurred when a group of Basque men went up to help build Hadrian's Wall between Scotland and England.  So that fits with the finding of Iberian heritage.

I still have a lot of reading to do to fully understand my DNA results (and my brother's) but it is an exciting and interesting adventure!

Featured Database: Passengers From Balearic Islands to Florida 1768

PASSENGERS FROM THE BALEARIC ISLANDS TO FLORIDA IN 1768 (MINORCA AND MAJORCA)

Andrew Turnbull, a Scottish-born physician and wealthy member of the East Florida Society in London which was formed in 1766, conceived a plan to bring colonists of Greek, Italian, Minorcan and Turkish origins to Florida in the hopes of cultivating the land. Great Britain had acquired Florida around 1763.

The Turnbull venture

On March 31, 1768, a fleet consisting of eight ships left Mahon, Minorca with over 1400 passengers. The fleet arrived in Gibraltar on April 3, 1768, then left Gibraltar on April 17, 1768. Of the 1403 passengers who had left Gibraltar, only 1,255 managed to reach the coast of East Florida as 148 of them perished on the high seas. Three children were born at sea: Eulalia Elquina (Alzina); Antonia Arnau; and Benito Buenaventura (unknown parents).

Four of the ships which carried some 700 immigrants, arrived in St. Augustine, Florida on June 26, 1768. The other four vessels had been carried off course by strong currents, but they eventually reached St. Augustine little by little, arriving one after the other, during the month of July, 1768.

Thanks to Researcher & Contributor Lucie Servole Myers, the names of these immigrant Minorcan settlers to Florida who sailed on the 8 ships has been published on Olive Tree Genealogy website. Lucie used several sources to reconstruct passenger names and all sources are provided online

The ships and number of passengers:

AMERICAN SOLDIER 145
BETSEY 120
CHARMING BETSEY 232
ELISABETH 190
FRIENDSHIP 198
HENRY & CAROLINA 142
HOPE 150
NEW FORTUNE 226

TOTAL: 1,403 (men, women, and children)

Interested descendants can also choose from the list of Passengers from Spain; Passengers from Greece; Passengers from Corsica; Passengers from Canary Islands; Passengers from Italy; Passengers from Balearic Islands

Minorcans to Florida 1768

Thanks to the hard work of Lucie Servole Myers, Olive Tree Genealogy has an original research project reconstructing names of colonists of Greek, Italian, Minorcan and Turkish origins to Florida in May 1768.

Eight ships sailed under the direction of Andrew Turnbull. Lucie has reconstructed the names of 431 passengers on board the 8 ships. This is a wonderful database and I owe a big thank you to Lucie for allowing OTG to publish this online for all to use.

The ships are organized in the following immigrant groups:

Passengers from Spain

Passengers from Greece

Passengers from Corsica

Passengers from Canary Islands

Passengers from Italy

Passengers from Balearic Islands

Good luck to everyone looking for an ancestor! As always, this Olive Tree database is available for free for all researchers.