Tweet
Here's a tale of unexpected breakthroughs....
I bought a booklet for a few pence on ebay long long ago early last year, a proceedings of the Huguenot Society dating from 2001. I doubted it would be of much use at all when I bought it, but it was so cheap I went ahead and bought it. I had a quick skim through it at the time, then deciding I was right it was indeed of absolutely no use to me, put it on a pile other regretted impulse buys and promptly forgot it.
Well today, while waiting for a web page to load..very slowly! (all been there I'm sure), I absent mindedly picked it up, only really half interested if I'm honest, just something to do with the hands, and started to flick through it really quite listlessly, and then all of a sudden..blow me down there was my ancestor, well at least what I'm 99% sure is my ancestor!...Name staring out at me bold as brass from the neglected pages, crying for attention!
It was from list of pupils of the French Protestant School in Westminster, or more accurately apprenticeships they had paid for for pupils of theirs who had left to start a trade.
The entry read: June 1764 Francois Bellenger apprenticed to Daniel Le Bailley, Silk Weaver.
My ancestor, 6x g grandad, Julien Francois Jacques Bellenger, was a silk weaver and was always known as 'Francois', his daughter refers to him thus in her hospital records, and in the original church records the vicar even went as far as adding the Julian and Jacques to his entries at a latter date (Which evidently caused no end of confusion and trouble to the IGI transcribers, but wont even go there!). He would have been just turned 14 then, 1764, so right age too. There is no other Francois/Francis baptised in the French or English London churches at this time either.
This is a great breakthrough for me as I'd always assumed he'd come to England after 1770, as he'd obtained a baptism copy from the parish register in France at that date, and the earliest record I have of him up till now in England was from 1774. I always wondered why he left as an adult, as by 1770's persecution had all but ended. If he left earlier as a child, this makes far more sence, as in the 1750's and 60's the Normandy authorites were vociferously enforcing the law of 'enlevement' the forced kidnapping and brainwashing of Protetsant children into the convents and Catholic institutions. I now think his family got him out to England, and he got his slip while returning to visit them, as of course by then aged 20 he was no longer in danger. I suppose with a new life built up, a trade in hand, and who knows perhaps 6xg grandmother already in the wings (they married not long after 1774) he decided to stick with his adopted homeland and returned again to England?
I bought a booklet for a few pence on ebay long long ago early last year, a proceedings of the Huguenot Society dating from 2001. I doubted it would be of much use at all when I bought it, but it was so cheap I went ahead and bought it. I had a quick skim through it at the time, then deciding I was right it was indeed of absolutely no use to me, put it on a pile other regretted impulse buys and promptly forgot it.
Well today, while waiting for a web page to load..very slowly! (all been there I'm sure), I absent mindedly picked it up, only really half interested if I'm honest, just something to do with the hands, and started to flick through it really quite listlessly, and then all of a sudden..blow me down there was my ancestor, well at least what I'm 99% sure is my ancestor!...Name staring out at me bold as brass from the neglected pages, crying for attention!
It was from list of pupils of the French Protestant School in Westminster, or more accurately apprenticeships they had paid for for pupils of theirs who had left to start a trade.
The entry read: June 1764 Francois Bellenger apprenticed to Daniel Le Bailley, Silk Weaver.
My ancestor, 6x g grandad, Julien Francois Jacques Bellenger, was a silk weaver and was always known as 'Francois', his daughter refers to him thus in her hospital records, and in the original church records the vicar even went as far as adding the Julian and Jacques to his entries at a latter date (Which evidently caused no end of confusion and trouble to the IGI transcribers, but wont even go there!). He would have been just turned 14 then, 1764, so right age too. There is no other Francois/Francis baptised in the French or English London churches at this time either.
This is a great breakthrough for me as I'd always assumed he'd come to England after 1770, as he'd obtained a baptism copy from the parish register in France at that date, and the earliest record I have of him up till now in England was from 1774. I always wondered why he left as an adult, as by 1770's persecution had all but ended. If he left earlier as a child, this makes far more sence, as in the 1750's and 60's the Normandy authorites were vociferously enforcing the law of 'enlevement' the forced kidnapping and brainwashing of Protetsant children into the convents and Catholic institutions. I now think his family got him out to England, and he got his slip while returning to visit them, as of course by then aged 20 he was no longer in danger. I suppose with a new life built up, a trade in hand, and who knows perhaps 6xg grandmother already in the wings (they married not long after 1774) he decided to stick with his adopted homeland and returned again to England?
Fantastic find!
Comment