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

[joger]

http://www.mariusbarnumerique.fr/component/hikashop/product/176281-a11316-cornelie%20corvette%20%20france%201849-1879
a photograph of the corvette la Cornélie

http://www.dossiersmarine.fr/c-c1-a.htm
details about la Cornelie

CV Leveque = capitaine de vaisseau = captain Leveque
You are looking for the Corvette La Cornelie , not La Corneille ( typing mistake I think)

[grahamd15]

That's a great find joger, thank you!

I agree I think Australian newspaper mistyped La Cornelie as Corneille.

Do you know if there are any crewlists available online for French naval ships?

[joger]

Could be possible at the Service Historique de la Defense but I haven't been able to access it the last days though I'm in France.
I' ll try again.

I tried to find your Charles Franck ( name which is probably not the right one) in Brest  births registers without success but I found some families called Le Franc ( found no Charles though).

[joger]

The SHD Brest gave this :

[joger]

Sorry , the SHD Vincennes  gave this

[joger]

So if Charles enlisted in Brest he should be found at SHD Brest in the Roles d'équipage  des batiments de guerre ( 1693-1961) in the sous-série 4E, but the research cannot be made on line. One has to go there and do the research .
And do the research in Toulon if Charles is not found in Brest.
Hard work.

[grahamd15]

Thanks for all your advice joger!

I believe that I have found the identity of Charles Franks. There was a Jean Cloarec born 6 Dec 1838 in Boudouguen in Hanvec to Joseph Cloarec and Marie Catherine Omnes. He had three siblings that I have found so far, Marie b. 1841, Jean Louis b. 1842, and Joseph b. 1845. I had a French DNA match that showed up as a potential 4th cousin and I successfully connected her to Marie Cloarec b. 1841. On his marriage certificate Charles listed his father as a baker named John Franks, whereas Joseph Cloarec was a farmer. I will have to investigate this further but I believe that the DNA does connect Charles Franks to Jean Cloarec.

I suspect that the Jean Clorie listed in the "Seamen Deserters" article was mistranscribed from Jean Cloarec as the note to the paper would have been handwritten as typewriters did not become common use until the mid 1880s. I can see from looking at the name in French birth records that if you were unfamiliar with the name you may mistake the "ec" as an "ie".

Thanks to everybody for their help!