BBC "Who Do You Think You Are?" Derek Jacobi (WDYTYA Series 12 Episode 3)

[StevieSteve]

Some you wont know

You're not wrong there!!

including those by Brian Blessed and Patrick Stewart.

Even Biggins

Foirtunately, not for very long

[nanny jan]

Before the thread goes off topic............this might interest those with Huguenot ancestry:

http://www.huguenotsofspitalfields.org/

[Mowsehowse]

Before the thread goes off topic............this might interest those with Huguenot ancestry:

http://www.huguenotsofspitalfields.org/ 

Thank you for that NannyJan; I just had a quick look around. I must visit the fan museum in Greenwich one of these days.

[nospringchicken]

A bit of a disingenuous episode - but hey he's an actor and a jolly good one!

The De La Plagne genealogy is charted at http://bit.ly/1F7C8wP The Greffier role appears to have been inherited from his father Paul in the wine region.

One major thing the programme left out is that Joseph's brother Alexandre also settled in London, so he was not alone. This seems a huge omission.

So Joseph 'couldn't get enough evidence' so shopped around and went on the attack in the Court Of Chancery where it was 'one person's word against another' and hearsay accepted without evidence. That was skipped over quickly!

Inclined to think there may be a grain of truth in the woman's (or more likely the woman's family and its male line) story. Her family may have been one of the contacts on the outside talked about earlier.

Agree about the possibilities of Joseph and Salome's son ... Born nine months after the marriage and he dies eight months after. The godfather thing ... Weren't godfathers sometimes the real father, although of course there may have been more than one godfather, so if it was that it wasn't necessarily the Duke but one of his set.

Strange how the silk weaving factories were introduced while of course it was pertinent to the Huguenots but not to Joseph who had a well documented inherited Bordeaux Guyenne  feudal position ... (Guyenne btw had passed between English and French kings a few times) Wonder whether Joseph was involved in the financing of this trade and got revenue from it? Just a thought. And guess just because Manze (or to be genealogically accurate Manze and Cooke) was introduced doesn't mean to say the de la Plagnes financed the eel pie and mash business unless it turns out the LaPlagne family married into the Manze or Cooke families!

MAJOR UPDATE: This may be an ENORMOUS coincidence but it turns out, if it is verified, the original surname of the De La Bastide family into which Joseph De La Plagne married was De Jacques or JACOBI!!! http://bit.ly/1iaAt4A And nobody thought to put that in the programme?!!! The pies and mash are on Derek! Hehe!

[DavidG02]

I had another question on last names and beginnings , but after my Jane Seymour fiasco , I had planned to keep my head low 

But its my understand that Jacobi/Jacob , not only biblical , but can be a reference to James V11 and the Jacobite Rebellion

A lot of Catholics etc left for France and some may have indicated their allegiance through names. ie Jacobi. Did this get a mention?

[nospringchicken]

Well of course Jacobus is Latin for James or Jack, although in the case of Jacobi in Derek Jacobi and de la Bastide (whom I'm assuming were Catholic), the surname was De Jacques - according to the link on the site http://bit.ly/1iaAt4A a de la Bastide is head of the judiciary in Trinidad if the site refers to current times. Doubtless many an aristocrat eyed the throne or even considered a feudal Republic with them at the head - if they could get the finance!

I was about to correct your James VII to III but then I remembered Scotland of course! That would have been a gross error on my part! It didn't get a mention, to answer your question - the Jacobi family were dismissed in a phrase as 'German bootmakers'.

If the De La Bastide, De Jacques, De la Plagne connection is correct, interesting that Derek Jacobi's parents hundreds of years later may have made what amounts to  a dynastic marriage - unless they were milling around the community of French  community descendants and it was a coincidence which can sometimes happen.

UPDATE: Derek Jacobi's German family came from Hoexter (Höxter) North Rhine Westphalia http://bit.ly/1JDXszr which was a "villa regia" in the time of Charlemagne which may well fit with the De La Bastide/De Jacques family. There are Christian Jacobi families still in Hoexter.

It is slightly confused in that it appears there was a Jewish Jacobi family (who probably adopted the surname around the 1700s/early 1800s when Jews were told to adopt surnames) in Fürstenau/Fuerstenau, Hoexter.

 Obviously the father or grandfather's name may have been Jacob hence Jacobi but sometimes Christian families did allow Jewish families to take their surnames for a variety of reasons. There is the variation of Jacoby.    http://bit.ly/1KUr5cg http://bit.ly/1EsymDp

[Mowsehowse]

Great work Nospringchicken
The BBC always dumb everything down these days, and the programme is surely aimed to be an entertainment, they probably do not expect it to be picked to bits by genealogy fanatics.

Mr Jacobi did dismiss his German side out of hand - definitely preferred we look at his current home life than his German ancestors, and if he suspects they may have been Jewish that might be the reason why!  Please do not start screaming at me, I have Jewish heritage.  Out, loud and proud. 

[nospringchicken]

Hi Mowsehowse, he doesn't necessarily have Jewish ancestry as you know but ... With so much financially and status-wise concentrated on having an eldest son whether in the nobility or trade guilds, there may be a hidden history ... But one has to be extremely cautious - it's an interesting thought but nothing more without evidence.

The Huguenot/Nominal Catholicism is interesting too - a little like the conversos who became New Christians, many of whom ended up in Bordeaux from Spain and Portugal. 

In the mid to late 1500s Louis XIV did grant a limited residence to Jews on Guyenne so Joseph may have been involved in collecting money from them at the very least. So Guyenne had a special status as regards Jews.

Jews were also involved in the manufacture and dyeing of silk, for example, in Italy. But all this is bye the bye and establishment of a Jacobi- De La Plagne link before Deeek Jacobi's parents' marriage seems a much better bet.

[Mowsehowse]

Really fascinating.

You obviously have a deep, deep knowledge.

Better watch out, you will be getting begging letters for help!!