Sarah Chevalier bn 1815 - Huguenot Parentage

[ChrisO]

Hi
I wouldn't say I am exactly a beginner but I feel that I have achieved little in the past 20 years in my efforts to locate my ancestor Sarah Chevalier bn 1814/1815 and was wondering if someone could advise me on where to look next for her birth. 

Factual evidence confirms Sarah was born 1814-1815.  The only confirmed paper trail I can find of Sarah was when she had an illegitimate son named William Dowling Chevalier in March 1839 at Queen Charlotte's Lying In Hospital, St Marylebone.  His baptism was recorded at Dulwich College 3 months later, where Sarah appears to have been living with a family named Kateley who also raised William.  According to hospital records, Sarah was living at 4 Charlotte's Court, Redcross St, St Giles Cripplegate prior to her son's birth.  The only appropriate Sarah on the 1841 census was a servant at Cumming Place, St James, Clerkenwell but she was not born in the county.

The anectodal evidence indicates that Sarah was the daughter of a Huguenot family (possibly weavers but not confirmed).  In later years, her son William would tell his children stories of how Sarah's mother was brought up in the French countryside.  This would put her mother's birth probably around 1780 (or slightly later).    So it is possible that her mother came into England post Revolution, but prior to the Napoleonic Wars.  William also spoke French very well.

I cannot locate any other reference to this particular Sarah and have discounted all other Sarah Chevaliers found in conventional records.  Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Regards
Chris

[Luzzu]

Hi Chris,

I wonder if there is anything on these links that might be able to help you.

http://www.huguenotsociety.org.uk/family.html

http://www.rootschat.com/links/099e/

Luzzu

[Jeuel]

The Huguenots were expelled from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, over 100 years before the French revolution.

William's stories about his maternal grandmother might be true or they might be fanciful.  You haven't had them at first hand either.

It's also possible that Sarah's surname Chevalier was  a married name and she was born with a different one.

I'm also suspecting that Dowling, William's middle name, is probably his father's name.

Have you looked at other Chevaliers in the census to see if you can find a general area of France where they come from?

[richarde1979]

The last great wave of Huguenots to come to Britian was in the 1750's. Persecution all but stopped after 1760. The last pastor executed in France was in 1762. However the restoration of some civil status did not come until  25 years after this, and a very small amount of refugees did come, particularly from the Cambresis area where there was a particularly vociferous Roman Catholic civil authority, in dispute with their Protestant population. The latest refugee I have personally come across was 1782. So if she was born as late as 1780, it does seem fairly unlikely she was a Huguenot, or religious refugee, more likely if she fled, she fled during or because of the French revolution.