Trying to find records of "La Corneille" a French Corvette

[manukarik]

Have checked for births of the deserters between 1830 and 1840 in Finistère, including variations in names. Not come up with anything yet. At one stage, wondered about a Charles Francès, but eliminated him due to date of birth.

Will look again later when at home.

[grahamd15]

Not sure that they are interchangeable.

I'm basing my suspicion that they are interchangeable on these articles:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13064305?searchTerm=Corneille - here it is written as Corneille with a Captain Levegue

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/28624905?searchTerm=Corneille - this article says the Corneille, a French frigate, arrived in Auckland from Sydney on the 29 December

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZ18620111.2.4?end_date=31-01-1862&items_per_page=100&query=Cornelie&snippet=true&start_date=20-12-1861 - this NZ writes it "La Cornelie" under Captain Leveque

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DSC18620110.2.4.2?end_date=31-01-1862&items_per_page=100&query=Corneille&snippet=true&start_date=20-12-1861 - this NZ paper writes it "La Corneille" and departing the same day as above

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/HBT18620116.2.3?end_date=31-01-1862&items_per_page=100&query=Corneille&snippet=true&start_date=20-12-1861 - this article says that "La Corneille" under Captain L'eveque salied from Sydney for NZ on the 18th December

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60481548?searchTerm=Corneille - this confirms a departure of a Corneille on the 18th for NZ

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60483562?searchTerm=Cornelie - this says a "Cornelie" under Levique arrived in Sydney on the 20th November arrived from Port de France (now Noumea, New Caledonia)

[grahamd15]

Have checked for births of the deserters between 1830 and 1840 in Finistère, including variations in names. Not come up with anything yet. At one stage, wondered about a Charles Francès, but eliminated him due to date of birth.

Will look again later when at home.

Thank you very much for checking them out!

[jorose]

Any hints in his marriage certificate as to parents' names?

https://french-genealogy.typepad.com/genealogie/2022/11/french-seamens-records-digitizing-project-an-update.html
 - the French defense site isn't working for me right now but it seems there are some records online if not fully indexed.

[grahamd15]

Any hints in his marriage certificate as to parents' names?

On his marriage certificate it was recorded that Charles' father was John Franks who worked as a baker. His mother is listed as unknown.

[manukarik]

Quite a few family trees have Charles Franks as born in Brest on 6 December 1839 with father Johann Jacob Frank (born in Speyer, Bavaria) and mother Maria Sybilla Heintz. Johann is of course German for John, so partly ties in with you knowing his father was called John.

I can't find a Charles William P Franks born in December in Brest. Have tried various permutations including French variants of name.

Do you know for sure that your Charles is a deserter from the French Navy or are you just trying to work out how he got to Australia? There are lot of other migration records for people called Charles Franks. Too common a name to be sure of any of them, I'm afraid.

[grahamd15]

Quite a few family trees have Charles Franks as born in Brest on 6 December 1839 with father Johann Jacob Frank (born in Speyer, Bavaria) and mother Maria Sybilla Heintz. Johann is of course German for John, so partly ties in with you knowing his father was called John.

Unfortunately that began with me. Charles' parents being Johann and Maria was a theory I had a while ago which I added to my tree so I could fill it out. Other people began copying it to their trees despite it only being a theory, so now it is present in many trees.

I can't find a Charles William P Franks born in December in Brest. Have tried various permutations including French variants of name.

Charles William P Franks came from an online cemetery register - I contacted the cemetery directly and they found that the register had been incorrectly transcribed. Charles Franks was what was in the register and "William P" part of the entry in the next register.

In saying that, Charles was referred to as Charles John Franks in his wife's death certificate - their son-in-law was informant.

Do you know for sure that your Charles is a deserter from the French Navy or are you just trying to work out how he got to Australia? There are lot of other migration records for people called Charles Franks. Too common a name to be sure of any of them, I'm afraid.

The family story is only that he jumped ship - it was never specified whether that be a Navy ship or a passenger ship. The Corneille fits as it comes from his own account in his naturalisation application. I've had a look at passenger ships that arrived in the 1860 - 1865 period but none have a name that resemble "Corneille".

There was a ship that arrived in 1862 called "Alfred the Great", three men deserted at Sydney - but I believe from the newspaper articles that they were apprehended.
They were:

Charles Frank, 25 from Lisbon
Manuel Domingo, Portugal
Francis Hanz (Also written Frank Hans), 22 from France

I think potentially Charles Frank or Francis Hanz could be my Charles Franks.

Unfortunately, I do think that for the most part these will only remain theories unless I get a DNA match that links to that side.

[manukarik]

Thanks for clarifying. I, as I'm sure you do, would love to get to the bottom of this. If he did desert, or jump ship, it is possible that he covered his tracks and changed his date and place of birth. Of course that makes it so much more difficult to find him!

Keep us updated and let us know if you find any more leads that could help us track him down.

[shanreagh]

A related thread here

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=889052.0