Hi HALE39
Thanks for the comprehensive update.
You mention Peter Boileau and his wife Elisabeth; It was Lis who wrote to me in 1996 and got me started in family history. I had already created a tree going back to my Great Grand Parents by talking to my relatives. Lis had researched her husband’s Liverpool Boileau’s back to Charles and was able to link in to my Coventry Boileau’s. This was early internet days so all of our research was carried out in record offices and by purchasing BDM certificates.
I have been looking for information on Charles ever since. I spent many hours going through Immigration records at the PRO in Kew and Alien Returns in The London Metropolitan Archive but have not managed to find any record earlier than his marriage to Sarah Ann Thompson in 1836.
I thought that there may be a link to the other Boileau’s in London in the 1840’s but most of these are descended from the Huguenot Charles Boileau who fled to England in the 1690’s. There are two or three other Boileau families that have moved from France to England since then but tracing their parent’s back in France is proving just as difficult as for Charles. I have always thought that there could be a link to the Eugene Boileau (Artist/Engraver) that Jennifer mentions but I have found nothing so far. I had provisionally penciled in Eugene father's name as Etienne Marie Boileau but I cannot remember where that came from!! I have ordered the marriage certificate for confirmation.
There is also a William Thompson who was interred in Charles Boileau’s grave in 1904 aged 83 (see
http://www.toxtethparkcemetery.co.uk/dbase/grave.php?grave=325§ion=A)
I assumed that he was related to Charles Boileau’s wife but this William was born in Shetland and I cannot find anything that links him to Sarah’s father the Tin Plate Worker in London.
I have also checked some of the French genealogy websites on the internet but my schoolboy French is very rusty and I find it a bit of a struggle. There used to be an Anglo French Family History Society that had some very useful guides on researching French ancestors but it appears to have folded and the website as now been taken down.
I will keep looking and if I find anything useful will post back to this forum.
Regards,
Steve
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