Huguenot or not Huguenot

[cocksie]

Before asking any Huguenot related questions I, like others researching this MENERE family, need to establish where Joseph was baptized - somewhere between 1770 and 1781(60 in 1841 census yet 77 when died in 1847). I can track Joseph, his wife and children back to his alleged marriage in 1809. But there are some odd bits of info which can't be traced and or conclusively connected being:
 1. Joseph's sons death notice in 1861 stating he was son of "late lieutenant Joseph MENERE"
2. Letter from Joseph's grand daughter to her nephew in 1918 also stating Joseph was a lieutenant and that the MENERE family were Huguenots who arrived in England in 1700s. She states there were only 3 children. Nearly All other info in this letter has been proved to be correct.
3. Plus I may have found 2 more children baptized to Joseph and Sarah. Place of baptisms fit but dates do not and no further evidence of them can be found. Leads me to wonder - did they die OR are there 2 josephs and sarahs floating around?

All census info, bcs, mcs, dcs regarding Joseph list him as a servant or valet. If he was in military it was before 1809 and I can't find it

I will google to see what type of info is in the CDs before harrassing you!
Thanks for the offer
Cocksie

[farmeroman]

I will google to see what type of info is in the CDs before harrassing you!
Thanks for the offer
Cocksie

No problem. The CDs contain normal parish record entries for baptisms and marriages with the added bonus of the names of Godparents in many cases.

[farmeroman]

I've just carried out a search of all of my Huguenot CDs and there are quite a few occurrences of Menier. Here's a few examples from the French Church Threadneedle Street:

MENIER, Jonas, fils de feu Oliuier, natif de Lisle Dorny, et Elizabeth, fille de Clement de La
Fontaine, natifue de Londre. Janv. 28 1610.

MENIER, Madelaine, fille de Jonas M., et d'Elisabette Des Fontainne. Tdm. Andrieu
Dieurpart, Anne Mennier, femme de Pierre Myquel, Isabeau, femrne de Clement de
La Fontaine. Nov. 4 1610.

MENIER, Jonas, fils de Jonos [sic] M. Tim,. Jonas Fontaine, Susanne, svesue [sic] de feu Daniel
Mercier. Sept. 10 1626.

MENIER, Jenne, fille de Jonas M. Tdm. Mr Le Seueur, Jenne Fonteynne, Mary Picart. Mars 2 1628.

[cocksie]

Ohhhh .... so incredibly interesting but I can't make the leap back that far yet!  Still looking for the baptism of Joseph Menier (and a multitude of spellings) somewhere between 1770 and 1781.

If I can find this and work backwards I might meet up with some of the people you have listed in the 1600s.  Just a century or so to go.

I may well be chasing you down in the future!

Thank you for looking and posting
Jenny

[gingertrixy]

Hi   I am also dealing with Huguenot and Wallons.   I have traced my family to Bethnal green to start with.   From here I used family stories and little bits of family chatter to broaden my horizons.

The reason?   Well the reason was the family believed that they were the Noble St John's and thought they had ties to the Lydiard Tregoze side of them.  Through much and many months research I found this simply not the way it was.

Through a little untold story on the family, one of my great grandfathers,  was always called the 'Little frenchman'.  Now i had this in my mind and I didnt even link it when I found the family name of a person, whom was Married as St John, BUT, on re looking at the marriage I saw that they married in the french Chapel in London..  the other fact was the brides name..  after researching I found looking at research alone,  I traced them to Canterbury all of a sudden everything clicked together.. births baptisms marriages - After getting the Canterbury CD from the Huguenot Society, I patiently went through the records and there they all were.. I have now moved Above 1712, and found my 9th Great Grandfather - 

When searching through the CD I found him in the registers and from this I found his 2nd marriage, which also told me from whence he had came to Canterbury in the UK.  I am now in France - North of France - researching for Him and his mother and father..  with the greatest of difficulty through language...  I have found that the area he was in Mouvaux, Lille, was a Protestant area, besides all this it was on the border with Belguim and the Netherlands, which part of were once Dutch, which leads to the other side of Huguenots the Walloons..

The point?   The  Huguenot Society has a lot of info, that I wish I could get all of it -  but I do have now the, Canterbury CD and the Threadneedle street CD -  all have been so helpful thus far.

Also Spellings...   WOW -  this can cause such confusion -  it helps to have a notebook to hand to see the difference in these.  My family are actually St Jean ( English - St John)  BUT there are several variations on the spellings if this simple name.   I have Monnier which is also spelt differently, as well as Hagnere, or hangnery,  Le sedt, Sedt -   all these can cause much confusion.   

The ;De St Jean's; as their name was - started to change in 1712ish when the younger children decided to be more in keeping with the English, their choice of religion also started to change as well which I have noted  - 

In the end I have arrived at between C1600 - C1613 - where I know more or less my 9th Great grandfather was born.   His 1st marriage was around C1628 when he had his 1st child in C1629.

The Younger 'De  St Jean's' moved to Spitalfeilds in the late 1680's - and were around that area and Bethnal Green..  Even today I can tell you that the majority of the family have either stayed in and around London and also Canterbury  Kent..  How strange is that!!

I can give links to sites I have found to help with research...  and  if anyone can help me I would also be grateful of help and pointers...

sj

[brianofcava]

Hallo, gingertrixy. I am considering getting the HugSoc CD for the Canterbury Huguenots - I take it that you found it useful. And I also have Sedt (Corneille and his 10 children) in my direct ancestral line, so would be interested in a private discussion about the descent from Sedt through Despaigne, Messman, Ranshall, Wrench, White, Wilson to Millo, and, of course, about the lineage further back from Corneille himself.
For origins of Protestants in Northern France I strongly recommend the Jean-Paul & Chantal free website, which you can find at: http://www.roelly.org/~pro_picards/prop/index.html - let me know if you need any help with it.

[cemetery friends]

Some C of E churches permitted dual services eg the crypt at Canterbury Cathedral and St Andrew Plymouth had late night services for Huguenots with their own pastor. At St Andrew's they conducted their own baptisms and these were recorded in the back of the C of E registers. St Julien the French Church in Southampton became part of the established C of E  in its administration. It is owned by Queen's College Oxford and unusually comes under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York.

There were many ports where Huguenots arrived including Falmouth, Exeter [Topsham], Bideford, Barnstaple, Plymouth [especially East Stonehouse], Rye, Dover, Folkstone, Bristol, London, Essex and East Anglia. Many families in Devon are of Huguenot stock it is estimated that after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes that Devon's population increased between 10 -20%.

Some headed directly to Dublin whilst others travelled from the south coast ports to the north west as a place of departure often using Chesterfield as a gathering point.

In many instances instead of using boys names associated with the Norman French kings [William, Richard, John, Henry] families chose "strong" biblical names such as Bartholomew [Nathaniel], Samson, Sampson, Francis, Hercules [Argulus], Matthew, Ezekiel etc

The use of alias names in church registers and later other documents such as leases and land transfers was common but the practice varies from location to location. Some alias names were perhaps the Anglo Saxon interpretation Boncouer in the Plymouth area became Bunker, Colligne in the same area became Collings, Touseau became Tozer. In other cases there does not seem to be a defined link in the use of an alternate surname. Possibly not sure if they would eventually return to France they wanted to flag up a family name to help to establish a claim to property etc. Another view was they used the name of the family who offered shelter or support more or less as a mark of respect. Additionally many guilds particularly in the City of London and large towns prevented those who had not been apprenticed from entering skilled trades and possibly the use of a master craftsman's name gave some form of approval.

 The original poster was seeking the name of the vessel, this is very highly unlikely as many arrived in small sailed ships, some refugees were hidden in casks or under sails stored on deck.

The Huguenot Society of Britain and Ireland now has its research centre at TNA at Kew, an appointment is necessary. The Society has published several sets of church registers sometimes the volume has strange bedfellows. The East Stonehouse [Plymouth] the Walloon Southampton. Bristol and Thorpe Le Soken registers are contained in one single volume or CD.

Between 40/50,000 arrived in England, 10,000 in Ireland, 10,000 to North America and 400 to the Cape of Good Hope.

[Arranroots]

Every time I see a notification for this topic I think it should be entitled Huguenot or HugueNOT!

Sorry, just my sense of humour - it's a fascinating subject.

Kind regards, Arranroots

[Mike in Cumbria]

Every time I see a notification for this topic I think it should be entitled Huguenot or HugueNOT!

Sorry, just my sense of humour - it's a fascinating subject.

Kind regards, Arranroots

I'm afraid my brain does the same thing too. Or possible just shorten it to Hugueornot.