Did Your French Ancestor Serve in a Foreign Army?

This was a happy discovery and could be of help to those of you whose ancestor left France during the Revolution and First Empire, or even before, to serve in a foreign army. Some of you have written of the difficulty of finding an ancestor's military record for such service, or even of knowing in which army, of which country he may have served. You are not alone; Napoleon wanted to know the same thing. So he issued a decree requiring all such men to report such service to the police générale, bringing us to our favourite series in the Archives nationales, the F/7 series, in the building in Pierrefitte-sur-Seine. There, in cartons beginning with the number F/7/6127, one can find numerous lists of men, both those who declared their service and those who did not,  made by the police, as well as many complete declaration or investigation dossiers.

Each department's police had to submit a list. Recall that, during the First Empire, parts of Italy and Belgium, as well as Germany were departments of France.

They can be simple, with only a name, as here:

They can be quite a bit more informative, as this list of French officers serving Austria, Spain or Prussia, which gives a little bit of service history:

If you are lucky, there will be a dossier on your ancestor, with much more, such as this one on Ambrozy (or Ambrosis or Abroise), an Italian serving England and who was condemned for it.

Or this, a dossier on Louis Charles Beaufort, born in Paris, a retired major who had served in the Austrian army.

These are not digitized, nor have the names in the alphabetic cartons of dossiers been listed anywhere. Here is how they appear in the finding aid:

If you have reason to suspect that there may be a dossier on your ancestor, you can write to the archives and ask them to copy it, giving the correct code from the list above. They will either tell you there is no such file or send you a bill to pay in order to receive the copy. Unfortunately, they will not search through the lists for you.

A story in every dossier - nice find!

©2023 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

FGB Free Clinic - Case no. 9 - Marie Fouyol, Parisian wife of Thomas Mansell, part 12 - Research Bits and Bobs

Poor Marie Fouyol, we have not yet found her origins or her birth place or family. However, this is not for lack of endeavour, for we have not forgotten her. Each time we visit archives where there may be a ray of hope of finding her, either in her own name or in that of her husband, Thomas, Mansell, we do look. To bring you up to date on this conundrum of a Free Clinic case, here is where we have looked during the last few months:

In the Archives de la Préfecture de la Police de Paris:

• AA/48 - 266 - Statements and letters from the police of each of the Paris sections. (1789-1820)

In the Service Historique de la Défense at Vincennes, continuing with the dossiers on other weavers allowed to remain in Paris in the Yj series:

• William Oswald
• John Gillet
• James Spencer
• John Lane

In the Archives nationales:

• F/7/3507 - Passports for the interior and foreigners June 1808 to Sept 1810
• F/7/3324 - Police, requests for residence, Me-My, 1791 to 1954
• F/7/3323 - Police, requests for residence, Lh-Ma, 1791 to 1954
• F/12/4861 - Archives of the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers. (an III-1866)

We wrote earlier that we had checked the register of people allowed to live in Paris and that he was not there. Then, on a subsequent visit, as we wrote in our last post, we discovered that there was a register that included British with Swedish people allowed to stay in Paris during the First Empire (F/7/2250). There, we found Marie's husband, listed as Thomas Mansille:

Unfortunately, it tells us no more than we had discovered from previous sources, and nothing at all about Marie Fouyol.

And so, the hunt goes on. We think that a very good place to search, but it would be a long and difficult job, would be in the succession registers on the website of the Archives de Paris.

©2023 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

 

 

Enjoying the Enemy's Elegance During War - Finding Your Foreign Ancestor in Paris

As with every war in Europe, it seems, while battles are fought, ships filled with me are sunk, and people are slaughtered, there is always a contingent to be found partying with impunity in Paris. During the Napoleonic Wars, a rather significant number of enemy nationals, especially British, lived comfortably in Paris. Some were technicians whose expertise was so valued by the French that they were allowed to live in Paris and other cities and to practice their trade, so long as they taught all of their skills and secrets to their French counterparts. Some were so wealthy and owned so much property in France that they were friends with those in the highest realms of First Empire society (and were permitted to bribe the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the all-powerful Talleyrand) and feared neither surveillance nor expulsion. Some were prisoners of war or detenus granted parole who could afford Paris and whose requests to live on parole there had been granted. (Many such requests were not granted, others were but only for vastly less glamourous cities.)

The partying folk of wartime Paris were not limited to the British, by any means. There also were Swedish, Prussian, German, Russian, Turkish, Polish, Spanish, Italian and many more foreign nationals living in Paris under police surveillance. The Police Générale kept registers on all of those under surveillance, noting the names, sometimes the addresses, and often a few details on those being watched. Sometimes, these registers offer the only surviving documentation on a foreigner in Paris during this period (recall the fire of 1871 that destroyed so many Parisian records about people).

These police surveillance registers (codes F/7/2248 through 2254) are not online but must be viewed, on microfilm, in the Archives nationales at Pierrefitte. We will be going there in three days' time and, by way of thanks to our patrons on Patreon, we will look up your ancestor in the registers and send you as good a photograph of the microfilm as we can manage. Send us the full name and the nationality before the 16th of November. With luck, we will find the person you seek.

©2023 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

A Few British Workers Discovered in the Police Archives of Paris

Image source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Coul%C3%A9e_d%27une_glace_%C3%A0_Saint-Gobain_en_pr%C3%A9sence_du_directeur_Pierre_Delaunay-Deslandes.jpg

 

Wouldn't you know it, Dear Readers, that the moment we finish our talk on finding British prisoners of war in France during the Napoleonic Wars in French archives, we stumble upon a few more. Truly, they pop up everywhere, (which was the point of our talk).

The tiny archives of the Paris police, les Archives de la Préfecture de Police, is amongst our favourites. The collection is small but always interesting and the staff are eagerly helpful. It is in such a remote place at the end of such an awkward journey, that the few researchers who succeed in completing the marathon to get there are all quite dedicated and keen, the frivolous and mildly curious having given up many Mètro stops earlier. It is also one of the few archives that has some series organized by the Sections of Paris, which is most useful when researching people of the Revolutionary and First Empire eras.

Here, we found police dossiers on some British people who had been living and working in Paris. Unlike so many, they were not all in the textile trades. Living in section Invalides, John Bond, aged thirty-five, and John Farrands, aged forty, both worked in a factory making mirrors on the Ile des Cygnes. [This was not the modern Ile aux Cygnes, but was a different island, where "insalubrious trades", such as malodorous tripe shops, were permitted, and that is now partially submerged in the Seine]. The twenty-six-year-old Thomas Quine was a carpenter at the mirror factory. At the other end of the economic spectrum, in the Hôtel de la Haie, on rue Saint Dominique, lived a young English gentleman named Trench, his wife and their servants.

The police took statements from them all but did not arrest them under the law of May 1803, that required the arrest of all British males in France. We wrote about these détenus here.

John Moore, however, who was living in rue de Charenton, in section Quinze-vingts with his wife, Eliza Jane Anderson, endured a different fate. He ran a factory for making tulle. A Monsieur Terlay claimed that the tools and machines within the factory actually belonged to him. In Brumaire an XIII (October 1804) the police entered and made a very complete inventory of said tools and machines, which was signed by Moore's wife.

Could this possibly be the same John Moore, escaped détenu, who was arrested by the French for bigamy in 1808? That would require quite a bit more research.

These little dossiers do not contain a great many such enemy aliens in France during the Napoleonic Wars but, should one be your ancestor, it could be a great find in a somewhat obscure archive.

We do like obscure archives.

©2023 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

 

 

Napoleon's Law on Children's Names

The English section of Radio France presents a regular podcast "Spotlight on France". It gives pithy and perky summaries of the events of the day, with occasional fillers of historical or cultural interest. A recent edition contains something of interest to French genealogists: a discussion of Napoleon's 1803 law on what people could name their children.

Coincidentally (or not?) the law was passed on the 1st of April and remained in effect for one hundred fifty years before it was relaxed a tad. It was not until 1993 that, at long last, parent could name their children what they pleased, with the courts intervening only if they deemed that the name were not "in the interest of the child". (Such names as "Ugly", for example, or "9X", which do make one reflect, not on the courts' intervention into family life, but on some peoples' idea of parenthood.) 

You can hear the podcast here. The portion concerning the law on names begins at at thirteen minutes and eight seconds (13:08). 

Some years ago, we wrote our own post upon the subject and we give that again :

Historically, the French have been very strict about naming. It is permitted to change a name legally, but very difficult, and only with a very good reason. Even when one does, every single official document about one gives one's name as "Monsieur X, who changed his name from Y...." One might as well not have bothered.

Forty per cent of all French surnames are religious, falling into general groupings, as determined by the authors of the Grand Dictionnaire des Noms de Famille (éditions Ambre, 2002)

• Biblical names, such as Adam, Daniel, Gabriel, Levy, or Salomon
• The evangelists' or apostles' names or Mary and Joseph, such as Jacques, Andrieu, Pierre, Marie, Joseph, Lucas, Marc
• Names of saints that may have Germanic, Greek, of Latin origins, such as Arnaud, Lambert, Nicolas, Vidal, or Clément
• Names of religious occupations, such as Clerc or Moine
• Names of religious festivals, such as Noël or Toussaint
• Names of pilgrimages, such as Pelerin
• Names of religious places such as Chapelle
• There are also surnames of a religious nature given to nameless foundlings such as Dieudonné, meaning God-given.

If surnames have been influenced by religion, first names have been even more so, and that religious influence was used by the government for its own purposes. Humorous stories abound of parish priests who imposed the name of a favourite saint upon every child, with generations of children having the name Martin or Martine. No priest would baptize a child who did not have a Christian name. The rigidity was continued by the officers in charge of entries into birth registers. As late as the 1970s, an acquaintance of ours tried to register the birth of his daughter Pénélope. The officer at the Mairie refused to accept the name because it did not comply with the 1803 law. Our acquaintance was stunned but possessed a formidable amount of French dudgeon and won the day; so Pénélope she is.

Some names were not permitted on the grounds of their not being French. The civil government extended the custom of the priests' limiting of names in order to prevent any child having a name from the suppressed language of lower Brittany. Breton names such as Aezhur or Tangi were not accepted by either priest for baptism or clerk for acte de naissance. The parents had to choose another name. Today, though Breton is still not recognized as a language by the French government (read here an in-depth CNN article on the subject of the Breton language's struggle for survival) such Breton names as Yannick and Annick are beginning to be heard again. 

©2023 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

Black History Month - The 1807 census of People of Colour in France

Image credit*

 

France, like other countries, does not have a stellar past in its relationship to slavery and people of colour. In 1794, during the heady days of the Revolution, the law of 16 pluviôse An II, abolished slavery throughout the French colonies. In 1802, when Napoleon, described by some historians as a "nègrophobe",  was First Consul, he reinstated slavery with a series of decrees. Further laws concerning people of colour were increasingly restrictive.

On the 2nd of July 1802, the Consulate passed the order of 13 messidor An X, which said that no foreign people of colour ("noir, mulâtre, ou autre gens de couleur") could enter France under any circumstances; additionally, except for those in the service of France, no people of colour from the colonies could enter continental France without specific permission from the authorities; finally, any people of colour who entered France in violation of this decree would be detained and deported. This began a new phase of documenting people of colour in France.

La Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel, 1 October 1802, p. 2, Retronews

(We touched on this in an older post but have since learned more of the history, especially the 1807 census of Black people in France.)

At the same time, the order of 29 May 1802 (9 prairial An 10) was passed, establishing three auxiliary companies of Black men, under white officers, in the French Army, one to be based in the south and two on the Atlantic coast.

La Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel, 1 October 1802, p. 2, Retronews

By 1807, what with all of Napoleon's campaigns, more men were needed for the army, many more. In part to find more Black men for the auxiliary companies, in part to identify and maintain surveillance of all people of colour in France, something of a census of people of colour within France was ordered. All of the prefects throughout the country made lists of the people of colour within their jurisdictions, such as this that we found in the Departmental Archives of Gironde.

Archives départementales de la Gironde

Archives départementales de la Gironde

The census was completed by October of 1807 and the prefects' lists sent to Paris. They survive in the Archives nationales, in series F7 8075. A few studies of them have been written, especially by Erick Noël, Julie Duprat and Olivier Caudron. We have not seen this collection but, if the prefects' lists are all like the one shown above, and the collection is as substantial as reported, representing a true census of people of colour in First Empire France, surely they are an important resource and need to be made available online. We hope that the reproduction department at the archives will take note. Perhaps this could be one of the projects to be sponsored by the Foundation for the Remembrance of Slavery.

Should we be able to get there ourself one day, we promise to report on it here.

© 2023, Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

 

 

 

 

Image credit: 

 

FGB Free Clinic - Case no. 9 - Marie Fouyol, Parisian wife of Thomas Mansell, part 11 - Fanny Mansell's Sampler

From Monsieur E, we have received the most astonishing of responses to our series attempting to identify Marie Fouyol. He sends us a beautifully told and well-researched study of a lovely sampler by Marie Fouyol's daughter. Read on.

Fanny Mansell’s sampler of 1818

Recently I followed a link to Anne Morddel’s wonderfully helpful French Genealogy Blog and soon came upon her ten-part series of blogposts on her quest for records of Thomas Mansell, the Yorkshire weaver detained at Fontainebleau and then in Paris when renewed conflict between England and France erupted in 1803, and his French wife Marie Fouyol.

I was greatly excited by this because, some years ago, I purchased at an antiques show in Canada a textile sampler (marquoir) made in France by Joséphine Fanny Mansels (sic) in 1818 at the age of seven. The dealer thought it was French Canadian, and somewhat unusual for that reason. [Salahub] But upon doing some research I soon identified Fanny as Thomas Mansell’s daughter, the later Mrs. Greig, and realized her story was a lot more complicated. The wording on the sampler records, in French, the day they left Paris, which she evidently added later. This is the only sampler I have seen that records an act of migration. As it was produced in Paris under French influence it differs from English samplers in a number of respects. And it introduces some new hints about the family’s life in France.

Samplers originated as exemplars: oblong pieces of cloth bearing sample stitches as teaching and memory aids for young seamstresses. Over the course of the eighteenth century they became more ornamental: a demonstration of a young girl’s accomplishments and something to be framed rather than kept in a drawer for reference. Sometimes a series of samplers was produced as a girl gained in knowledge and experience [Mouillefarine 88]; usually only the last was retained once her training was complete. As many were produced in schools and female academies, they reflect standardized motifs typical of their time and place as well as occasional unique elements specific to the maker.

Some scholars view samplers as a form of life writing or autobiography. This viewpoint has been popularized by a spate of articles about an unusually introspective English sampler from the 1830s consisting of the textual lamentations of a servant girl who had been abused by an employer. [e.g. Flower, Pezzoli-Olgiati] Samplers in the English tradition tend to be more didactic than introspective. Many contain moralistic verses derived from books of instruction for children, but most are personalized to the extent of naming the maker of the textile, and stating her age and the date it was made. A location is also fairly standard, and less often the name of the school or instructor under whose direction the child produced the item. Samplers reveal or at least suggest information about the creator’s education and values: or at least the values which the instructor sought to inculcate.

Typically of early 19th century French examples, Fanny Mansell’s sampler was worked in silk threads on linen using cross-stitch. [Pouchelon 5, 108] Her sampler tells us nothing overtly about its creation – she names no school or teacher – but as is typical it gives her name and age and the year. But the text is in French, and the conventions of the sampler are culturally more French than English. Though French samplers are less likely to include moralistic or religious verses than English ones, they are more likely to include religious symbols. Fanny’s resembles other French samplers from the First Empire and Restoration in using an alphabet based on the Encylopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert and featuring discreet Catholic religious symbols and naïve flowers and animals, [Mouillefarine 48] with about 80% of the space devoted to the motifs. [Pouchelon 108]

The top row begins with the monogram of Jesus in blue: IHS with a cross atop the crossbar of the H, but with the S reversed. To the left of the alphabet is an outlined cross atop a stepped base. The alphabet commences, as in most French samplers, with a small cross with equal arms called the Croix de par Dieu:  Sampler historian Catherine Pouchelon explains that a French child reciting the alphabet began by making the sign of the cross and, following the Encyclopédie, model alphabets included the symbol as a reminder to the student. [Pouchelon 91-94]

While many French samplers from this period feature a centrally-placed altar, Fanny’s centres a monstrance (a stand incorporating a glazed shrine for displaying the host) below the alphabet but omits the altar. Above it two birds face a crown, as in an example from c.1814 [Pouchelon 110]. An 1819 example [Mouillefarine 66] similarly shows a crown above the monstrance but flanked by lions instead of birds. Even lacking the lions the crown may reference the Bourbon restoration of 1814. The monstrance in Fanny’s sampler is smaller than many of the other motifs. To the right below her name are five small tools. The third may be an arrow, the fifth a pair of tongs or pincers. If these are intended to represent the instruments of the Passion, a common set of symbols on French samplers, they are given a fairly token presence. Various potted plants dominate, with a few small birds and animals and in the bottom row a windmill, ship, and table-and-chairs, common motifs in samplers of the era.

The alphabet is in blue, with only a few letters having both capital and lower-case letters: Aa, Cc, Mm Nn Qq. The capital Q interestingly is in English form but with the tail pointing left, rather than resembling a backwards P following the Encyclopédie. As in most French alphabets there is no W. Z is followed by an ampersand and the numbers 1 through 10. In the texts toward the bottom of the sampler Fanny employs mostly lower case letters in recording her name and age (also in blue) but with upper case D and G (the lower case letters for which are lacking from her alphabet). But she makes liberal use of the lower case e despite not recording an exemplar in her alphabet. And again we find a reversed capital S. She is careful to include the accent on the “e” where appropriate, something her teacher may have emphasized. In recording her departure from Paris, in red, she employs all capitals apart from in the opening word “quiter”. Her arrival in England is added in white using mixed characters, omitting an “r” from “ARIVé” and abbreviating the month “Juillet” to “Jet”.

Despite the muted Catholic symbolism and the attempt at an anglo capital Q, Fanny’s sampler suggests she was raised in the Parisian cultural milieu of her mother – French and Catholic – rather than in a self-isolating English émigré community. In the 1901 census of Carleton Place, Ontario, Fanny stated her mother tongue as French, again suggesting she was raised and educated in a French Catholic environment. As her father seems to have been illiterate, this should not surprise.

Needlework was an integral part of girls’ education whatever their social rank, whether that education was formal or informal, though the formal education of girls in France lagged behind that in England. From practical exemplar to demonstration of accomplishment, learning this dexterous manual work was integrated with other types of knowledge. While some girls may have been instructed by their mothers, the samplers resulting would likely be less elaborate than those that were worked under the tutelage of a skilled needlewoman.

We have a clue to the possible identity of her instructor. Fanny’s godmother at the time of her baptism in 1814 at the age of two years and two months was Joséphine Thomassin, Mme. Cartier, a chamareuse [Morddel parts 2 and 6], one who decorates clothing with trimmings, lace, and braid. [Reymond n.p.] This implies that Thomassin made her living through sewing rather than embroidery and indeed chamareuse was accounted a humble occupation. But Mme Cartier was able to sign her name capably, and she may have worked below her skill level. Anne has traced Thomassin’s background, found record of her marrying Jean Baptiste Joseph Cartier in 1802, living in rue du Petit Lion Saint Sauveur, and having children in 1810 and 1812. While she has not tracked her beyond 1813 when she stood godmother to Françoise Joséphine Mansell (who likely took her middle name from her), the fact that her death has not turned up makes it plausible that she was still living in 1818 when Fanny made her sampler.

It is interesting that though she was baptized as Françoise Joséphine, she stitched her name as Joséphine Fanny Mansels, including the proper accent on the e but giving the name by which she was known, Fanny rather than Françoise. That she spelled Mansels with an s adds another spelling to the list of variants associated with documents relating to her English father, who was stated in French baptismal records as unable to sign.

The sampler includes an unusual biographical element in recording the date Fanny left Paris (April 1, 1819) and the day she reached her destination (July 20), presumably where members of the wider family were then living in Yorkshire. This was perhaps Strensall just northeast of York, where Thomas’s brother Robert lived in 1809, and where his brother John married in 1817. More likely Thomas joined his mother at Nunnington, in Ryedale, 21 km north. Here his father George had acquired a freehold by 1807 (having returned to his parish of birth) and had died in 1816. His widow Frances died there in 1829.

The information about the return from Paris appears to have been added later. The move is dated a year after the sampler itself, and the text breaks the symmetry, as for that matter does Fanny’s signature, which intrudes into the bottom tier of motifs. It is as if the idea of signing the sampler occurred as it was nearing completion, and even later the details of her travels were inserted in a small space remaining to the left.

Fanny understood the significance of leaving France, and gave it a permanent record here, and thus far this is the only record discovered of the precise dates of the family’s departure and arrival. She did not record their destination, but she did not have the space, and perhaps she thought they would be remaining there. Later changes to samplers are not unknown but they are unusual. Several authors refer to samplers in which the age or year have been unpicked later in life in an attempt to conceal a woman’s age. [Scott 47] Leaving Paris, journeying to England, and settling in rural Canada was also a major cultural shift for Marie Fouyol. Living in an Anglophone milieu, in localities where the Catholic minority was mostly Irish, she became Mary and appears to have made no attempt to retain her Catholicism. (Though recorded as Church of England in 1861 and in her death certificate, in the 1871 census the space for her religion was left blank: her son Alfred was Anglican but his wife was a Scot and she and the children were Presbyterians.) Did Fanny’s sampler move with her to Carleton Place, or 120 km north to Westmeath where Mary lived with Alfred? Hanging in either parlour, as it likely did, it was a tangible reminder of an earlier and very different life.

The story was not forgotten as Fanny’s gravemarker in the Auld Kirk Cemetery near Almonte, Ontario, records her birth in Paris, and the story is recounted in somewhat more detail in her newspaper obituary.[Morddel part 1] There are one or two factual errors due to the story being recounted by one of her children rather than by Fanny herself. Her younger brother Alfred was not born in England, as her obituary suggests, but rather in Elizabethtown Township near the St Lawrence River before the family relocated 90 km north to Ramsay. In the 1901 census Alfred gave his birthdate as April 28, 1821, and his death certificate states his place of birth as Elizabethtown. [Ont. d. cert. 1907/027101] This is consistent with Fanny’s obituary stating that the family lived at first near Brockville, though they may not have resided there all of the four years it claims.

Select bibliography

• • Flower, Chloe. “Wilful Design: The Sample in Nineteenth-Century Britain”, Journal of Victorian Culture 21, no. 3 (2016): 301-21
  • Lukacher, Joanne Martin. Imitation and Improvement: The Norfolk Sampler Tradition. Redmond, WA: In the Company of Friends, 2013
  • Morddel, Anne. French Genealogy Blog, Free Clinic, Case no. 9: Marie Fouyol, Parisian wife of Thomas Mansell (10 parts). https://french-genealogy-typepad.com
  • Mouillefarine, Laurence. Les Marquoirs Anciens de Catherine Pouchelon. Éditions Mango Pratique, Cahier du Collectionneur, 2005
  • Pezzoli-Olgiati, “’As i cannot write I put this down simply and freely’: Samplers as a Religious Material Practice,” Journal for religion, film, media www.jrfm.eu 7, no. 1 (2021): 95-122
  • Pouchelon, Catherine. Abécédaires Brodés du Modèle a l’ouvrage. Paris: Les Éditions de l’Amateur, 2001
  • Reymond, Paul. Dictionnaire des Vieux Métiers. Paris: Brocéliande
  • Salahub, Jennifer E. Quebec Samplers: ABCs of embroidery. Montreal: McCord Museum of Canadian History, 1994
  • Scott, Rebecca. Samplers. Botley, Oxford: Shire Publications, 2009

 

Thank you so much Monsieur E!

©2023 Monsieur E

French Genealogy

The Finistère Convicts Register - Was Your Ancestor an Escaped Convict or Prisoner of War in Napoleonic France?

Earlier this year, we went on a marvelous archives junket to Bretagne. One of the most important things on our list was to examine much more carefully and thoroughly this superb register of recaptured escapees of all sorts during the Napoleonic era.

To describe it properly, this register is an Alphabetical List of recaptured French and foreign prisoners who had been released or who had escaped and who subsequently were held in various prisons in the department of Finistère (Forçats français, étrangers : liste alphabetique des détenus, libérés, ou évadés de differentes prisons, Code 1Y88 in the Brest Annex of the Departmental Archives of Finistère) On the cover is written that it spans the years 1800 to 1815 but it seems to be more from the middle years of that period. It has about two hundred pages, with roughly twenty-five to thirty-five names per page. That makes for something between five and seven thousand names of convicts and escapees.

The presentation within is tidy enough. One finds the prisoner's surname and first names, their status and the prisons from which they escaped. There are many types of status or descriptions, but the most common are:

• forçat libéré - released convict
• forçat évadé - escaped convict
• condamné et évadé - convicted and escaped
• prisonnier de guerre évadé - escaped prisoner of war

Here is a sample page:

As you can see, the columns to the left of the names refer to lists and dossiers that should have provided more detail. Frustratingly, these would seem to have been lost.

Nevertheless, there is some interesting information to be found in this register. On just this one page, we find that:

• There seems to have been a mass break-out at Rham, in Luxembourg, with  many men recaptured.
• François Bureau escaped from prison at Brest
• Claude Breugnot was held on suspicion of the kidnapping of Charlotte Seure
• Ralph Billings was a prisoner of war escaped from the depot at Verdun, as were William Brown and Thomas Benninck

The book is filled with convicts who came to the west of France from all over the territory of the French Empire. It sometimes gives a small detail of their conviction, such as that a man was condemned to years in irons or that he had escaped during the march to a prison. Most of the entries, of course, are  escaped criminals and those suspected of every type of crime, including murder, rape, fraud, theft. Quite a few managed their escapes from hospitals. The escaped prisoners of war were of all nationalities: Spanish and English especially, but also Italian, Polish and Austrian. Many in the list were conscripts and deserters from Napoleon's army. There are a small number of women and a few runaway children. They had made their way to the coast, hoping to find a boat to make their escape from France. Each of them, somehow, in some way, was nabbed.

This register is a wonderful view on a particular part of French society at a very particular time in French history. Combined with other archival resources, it could help to enhance your research on an ancestor. As just a couple of examples:

• For those of you with a convict ancestor who escaped from the Bagne de Brest, you could compare his entries in the two registers. (The registers of the other port forced labour prisons of Rochefort, Toulon, Lorient and Cherbourg, from which there were many escapes,  are not online and would have to be examined in the archives.)
• For those of you with an ancestor whose military records show that he deserted, you might find evidence of his capture here.

***

The escaped prisoners of war form an interesting group. We are not informed as to the accounts and archives concerning the prisoners of war of Spanish, Italian, Polish, Austrian or other nationalities, but we do know a bit about some of the British prisoners of war in Napoleonic France. We have discussed the civilian British prisoners here and, briefly, the prisoners of war here. They are listed in Admiralty records digitized on FindMyPast. Additionally, those who were still being held in 1812 can be found listed in the "Report from the Committee for the Relief of the British Prisoners in France; with a list of the prisoners". After the wars, a number of British ex-prisoners published accounts of their experiences, including their "escapes".

We counted in this register just under 880 names of escaped British prisoners of war who were recaptured and held in Finistère, amongst them:

• Beaumont Dixie, escaped from Verdun
• Edward Boys, escaped from Valenciennes
• Joshua Done, escaped from Verdun
• Phillip Levesconte, escaped from Verdun
• Hugh Falconer Macfarland, escaped from Verdun
• Two Thomas Mains, father and son, escaped from Valenciennes
• Edward Montagu, escaped from Verdun
• John Moore, escaped from Bitche
• Denis OBrien, escaped from Bitche
• Sidney Smith, escaped from Verdun
• Charles Sturt, escaped from Meaux

In the accounts written by some of the above, there is no mention of recapture, which does call into question the rest of what they wrote. On the other hand, some of the above most certainly did escape France, most notably Charles Sturt, which could indicate that at least one prison guard was not above accepting a bribe, or that, after being returned to prison, they had to escape all over again. Indeed, a few of them did just that.

Recall our recent post about a trove of letters from British prisoners of war held at the harsher prisons of Bitche and Sarrelibre. Men usually were sent there from other prisons if they were troublesome or if they had attempted to escape. Comparing those letters with this register, we can see from the recaptures the probable reason for a man's having been sent to a "punishment prison".

• David Absalon appears in the Finistère Convicts register as having escaped from Verdun; a letter from him appears in the Bitche-Sarrelibre cache
• Thomas Nazeby, appears in the Finistère Convicts register as having escaped from Arras;; he had three letters in the Bitche-Sarrelibre cache
• James Ord appears in the Finistère Convicts register as having escaped from Auxonne; a letter from him appears in the Bitche-Sarrelibre cache
• William Tullidge or Tullage appears in the Finistère Convicts register as having escaped from Cambrai; one letter from him appears in the Bitche-Sarrelibre cache

This lone register is, we believe, a treasure of a find and we hope that it may be digitized soon, along with the registers of the other port bagnes, please.

©2022 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

 

Letters Seized - Was One From Your Ancestor Held in a French Prison by Napoleon?

Two English seamen, James Burns and James Betts, were on the Neptune when she was captured by the French privateer, Subtile, on the 26th of November 1809. The Subtile sent her boat with five men to board their prize, the Neptune. Suddenly, the wind changed and the boat overturned, throwing all five men into the water. Three managed to get to the overturned boat and cling to her. The two others drowned. Burns and Betts rowed out the Neptune's boat and saved them. "Even though they were the enemy, we had not lost our humanity," Burns wrote later.

All were taken on board the Subtile, which then sailed to Calais. The captain of the Subtile, Tucker*, wrote a letter describing how Burns and Betts had saved three French seamen and, therefore, should not be made prisoners of war. The port authority at Calais also wrote a letter to the same effect. To no avail. They were sent to the prison depot at Arras and, some time later, Betts ended up in the punishment depot at Bitche.** Burns seems to have spent the rest of the wars at Arras but Betts was released and sailed home from Morlaix on the cartel ship, Elizabeth, in January 1813 (see the released prisoners passenger lists discussed here).

Before Betts left the prison at Bitche, in about mid-December 1812, he must have offered to take with him some letters from other prisoners. He seems to have passed though the prison at Sarrelibre (now Saarlouis in Germany) and picked up some more letters. He then appears to have passed through the prison at Verdun around Christmas and picked up one more letter there. By the time he arrived at Morlaix, he had nearly ninety letters from British prisoners of war to take back to Britain and deliver or post. The letters never arrived. The French authorities took them from Betts at Morlaix.

They have been languishing in the Archives nationales for many a long year, where we stumbled upon them last spring while pursuing our bête noire, Thomas Mansell. We were finding nothing on Mansell and decided to look at a carton identified, curiously, as "uninteresting letters from English prisoners" (archives code: F/7/4240). Oh ho! They are not uninteresting at all to our mind. They are most revelatory about a group largely unknown, being ordinary soldiers and seamen, rarely officers and none a civilian prisoner, held in the two easternmost prisons, about which the Admiralty prisoner of war records (found on FindMyPast.co.uk) have little to say.

Unlike the numerous prisoners' diaries and accounts published after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, almost all of which concern life at a single prison, Verdun, these letters were not meant for publication and so, do not contain the tedious and repetitious self-praise or the understandable resentment at the treatment endured of those books. These letters are to parents, siblings, wives, business associates and they are filled with longing, with reassurances that the prisoner is well, with Christmas wishes. Some report the sad news of the death of a fellow prisoner.

Not only are they of interest to anyone studying prisoners of war, they are of great interest to any of you, Dear Readers, researching a British ancestor held prisoner in France. This is especially so as they show relationships and acquaintances. We photographed them all and give you here a list of the names of the letter writers and the addressees. We have retained the men's spellings of their own names and of the addresses.

• Abbott, William to his parents, address: Mr. James Abbott, No. 2 New Road, Sloane Street, Knightsbridge, London
• Absolon, David to William Absolon, Jr., address: Mr. David Absolon, Yarmouth, Norfolk [includes a note from Robert Capp to his parents].
• Bailey, Joseph to his mother, address: M.M. Newton, Scots Square, Blanket Bow, Kingston Upon Hull
• Baker, Michael address: Mr. Thomas Wilkinson, Church Street, North Shields, Northumberland
• Banfield, William to his brother, Mr. Francis Banfield, address: care of, W.B. Banfield, Shipwright, Saltis [Saltash] Cornwall
• Banfield, William to Miss Mary Nichols, address: Frisco [?], Saltis [Saltash]
• Barber, James to his father, John, address: John Barber, in Norton near Lauden [?] in the County of Norfolk. Included in the letter from John Smith.
• Barrass, Thos. to his father and mother, address: Mr. Saml. Barrass, Kells-field near Gateshead, County Durham
• Barrett, John to his wife, Frances, address: Mrs Barrett, care of Mrs McDonald, Harrald Cross [now Harold Cross], Dublin, Ireland
• Bellarby, Edward to his wife, address: Mrs. Elizabeth Bellarby, Wood Street, Sunderland, Durham
• Berrell, Peter, address: Mr. Edward Galagher Cruelsant [?] to care of Mr. Thomas Caleman, Nort Quay Drogheda County Louth, Ireland
• Berry to. his mother, address: Mrs. H. Berry at Mrs. Wilson's near the king and Queen, Rotherhithe, London
• Berry, to his brother and uncle, address: Mr. Tho. Berry, Limehouse bridge Dock, London
• Bishop, ? to Mr. Robert Symes, address: Burton nr. Bridport, Dorsetshire
• Bond, J to his sister, address: Miss Elizabeth Bond, West Teingmouth, Devon
• Bond, J. to his father and mother, address: Mr. Samuel Bond West Teingmouth, Devon, England
• Brangan, Thomas to his sister Ann address: Anne Brangan, no. 100 Abbey Street, Dublin, Ireland
• Came, Richard to his wife, address: Mr. Richard Came, Newton Abbott, Devon, England
• Capp, Robert to his parents, included in a letter from David Absolon to William Absolon, Jr. address: Mr. David Absolon, Yarmouth, Norfolk
• Cargill, John, to his mother, Emily, care of James Cargill, address: Scoran-Burn, Dundee Angeshire, Scotland, North Britain
• Cargill, Laurence to his mother and father, address: Mrs. Cargill, Ballast Hills, Newcastle on Tyne, England
• Cavanagh, James to his wife, Margaret, address: Mrs Barrett, care of Mrs McDonald, Harrald Cross [now Harold Cross], Dublin, Ireland
• Colquhoun, H. to his sister, Miss Ann C. Colquhoun, address: Arran Castle, By Saltcoats, Scotland
• Cook, Peter to his mother, address: Mrs. Jane Cook, Appledore, Near Bidford, Devon
• Davis, D. with a message for his brother Mellorgan [?] Davis, address: Ship and Castle Swansea
• Dods, John to his father, address: Capt. James Dods, Samuelston near Haddington, N.B. [Scotland]
• Douglas, John to his mother, address: Mr. John Willers [?], no. 22 Thistle Street, Edinburgh
• Douglas, Thomas to his father address: Mr. Alexander Douglas, Links of Kirkaldy, Fifeshire N. Britain [Scotland]
• Farquhar, George to his brother, address: Mr. Alexander Farquhar, Post Master, Wick, Caithness, North Britain [Scotland]
• Franklyn, J. to his mother, address: Mrs. Franklyn, Kelvedon, Essex, England
• Franklyn, John to John Wolfe Esqr., address: Wood Hall, near New Frost [Forest?], Essex, England
• Fromayne, William to his wife, Mrs. Mary Fromayne, address: no. 17 William's Street, New Passage, Plymouth Dock, Devon
• Gray, Robert to his sister, Miss Sarah Gray address: Capt. Henry Pennal, Queenborough, Isle of Sheppey Kent
• Haltridge [?], Capt. Charles, address: Mr. John Cramsie, Merchant, Belfast, Ireland
• Hancock, Able to Miss Ann Davies, address: Barnstable, Devernshire, England
• Hancock, Robert to his brother, address: Mr. William Hancock, Barnstable, Devernshire, England
• Heard, Th. to his brother, address: Mr. Gl. [?] Heard, His Majesty's Dock Yard, Sheerness, Kent, England
• Hemson, William to his uncle, address: Capt. William Sharland, Teignmouth, Devon
• Hernaman, Francis to his sisters, address: Mr. Thomas Nicholls of HM Hurd Tender, Eliza & Jane, Plymouth, England
• Hernaman, Francis to his wife, Betsy, address: Mrs. Francis Hernaman Junr., Appledore, Devonshire, Englan
• Herring, James to his brother, address: Mr. George Herring, Sterlingshire, Falkirk, Scotland
• Hirst, James R. to his wife, address: Mrs. J. Hirst at Mrs. Robert Halls, Bay Street, Port Glasgow
• Imrie, George this mother, address: Mrs. Ewing, [unclear word] Hynd, Dundee
• Jerh. [Jeremiah?] Ryett [Byett?] to his brother, address: Mr. Willim Bur, no. 161 Near the Horse Ferry, Rotherithe, England
• Lackey, Peter, to his mother, address: Mr. Peter Lackey, Wright overgate, Dundee
• Lander, George to his wife address: Mrs. George Lander, Passage of Cork, Ireland
• Leigh, Gideon to his father and mother, [this letter is written in French], address: Monsieur Philippe Leigh, Paroisse de St. Britade, Jersey
• Litson, John to his wife, address: Mrs. Mary Litson, 33 King Street, Bristol
• Maillard, Daniel to his mother [this letter is written in French], address: Capt. Daniel Maillard, Glatney, Island of Guernsey
• Maryon, G. to his parents, address: Mr. Maryon, no. 34, Prinus, Leicester Squ, London
• McCarthy, Jeremiah to his father, address: Mr. Charles McCarthy, Healy's Bridge, Cork, Ireland or Elsewhere
• McCarthy, Jeremiah to his friend, John Adams, address: Seaman on Board HMS Defiance, Channel Fleet or Elsewhere
• Meall, James to his parents, address: Mr. James Meall, Yarmouth, Norfolk
• Milne, Thomas to Mr. Andrew Lunnen, shoe maker, Kirrymure [Kirriemuir], North Britain [Scotland]
• Milne, Thomas to Mr. John Ferney Junr., Merchant, address: Leith, North Britain [Scotland]
• Morris, William to Ann, address: Miss Blanchard, Scarborough, Yorkshire
• Mortimer, Robert C. to his mother, address: Mrs. Mortimer, care of Mrs. Searle, wife of Captain Searle R N, Somerset Place, Strand, London
• Nazeby, Tho. to his brother, James, address: Mr. James Nazeby, Blythe, in the County of Northumberland
• Nazeby, Thomas to Smith and Family address: Capt. Edward Smith, Queen Street, no. 32, or Elsewhere, London
• Nazeby, Thomas, to his father, address: Blyth in the County of Northumberland
• Norris, Henry to his brother, address: Mr. Jonathan Norris, Meldrum House, Old Meldrum, By Aberdeen, Scotland
• Ord, James to his wife, address: Mr. James Ord, Banff, Scotland
• Ormiston, John to his wife, address: Mrs. Jane Ormiston, Lynn, Norfolk, England
• Parker, William to his uncle, Mr. Robert Parker, address: Drawing Master near the Turnpike Gate, Stonehouse Road, Plymouth
• Patie, Wm to his brother and W. Walker, address: Mr. W. Walker, no. 11 Lower Cornwall Street near St. Georges in the East London, England
• Patterson, John, address: Messrs. Ormmanny [Ommaney] & Druce, Navy Agents, Norfolk Street Strand, London
• Portious, J. to his sister, address: Jenny Portious, Stenhouse Muir, By Falkirk, Stirlingshire
• Prior, Joseph "son of Elizabeth Prior" to his brother, sister and uncle, address: Mr. Joseph Aldridge at the repository Little St. Martin Lane, Cherring [Charing] Cross, London
• Rowlinson, R. to his wife, address: Mrs. Rowlinson, attn: Mrs. Joseph Shornts, 11 Plattfield Street, Blackfryars Road, London
• Short, Ralph to his wife, address: Great Grimsby Lincolnshire
• Show, James to Mr. Alexander Henderson, address: Mr. Samuel Henderson, Portarpittle [Port o'Spittal?] care of Mr. Hugh McCrea, Merchant, Portpatrick, N.Britain. [Scotland]
• Simpson, Wm to his wife, address: Fellan near Newcastle upon Tyne County of Durham
• Skelton, John to his wife, address: Mrs. Skelton, Hebbron [Hebburn] Read house High South Shields, Durham
• Smith, George, to his sister, Mary, address: Mary Smith, Red Lyon, no. 120, Long Milgate, Manchester, Lancashire, England
• Smith, Hugh to his mother, address: Ann Smith, Rahcail in County Limerrick, Ireland
• Smith, Hugh to Wm. Wilson, Esq. address: Nantenon, in the County of Limerick, Ireland
• Smith, John to his father, address: Mr. William Smith, Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, England. [includes a note from James Barber for his father John Barber in Norton near Lauden [?] in the County of Norfolk]
• Stephen, William to his father and mother, address: Mr. William Stephen, Ship Builder, Aberdeen, N.B. [Scotland]
• Stephen, William, to his brother, David, address: Mr. David Stephen of Aberdeen to the Care of Mr. Ritchie, Iron Monger, Edenburgh, N.B. [Scotland]
• Stephens, Benjamin to his mother, address: Mrs. Jane Stephens, Mumbles, near Swansea, South Wales
• Stewart, William to his parents address: Mrs. H. Stewart, Midwife, Kirkaldy, Fifeshire, N. Britain [Scotland]
• Taylor, John, Capt. from Verdun, address: Major General Macleod[?], Depty adjutant General Rl Artillery, Woolwich, in the care of Mr. Drury, artillery officer
• Taylor, Wm. to his brother, address: Mr. John Teylor Jun., Teingmouth, Devon
• Thomson, Robert to his brother, address: Mr. James Thomson, Messrs. Beckwith & Co., Liverpool
• Tullage, William, to his wife and daughter, addressed to: Mrs. Blunden, Lydd, Kent, England
• Viney, James to his mother and to Miss Sarah Viney address: Little Hampton, England, Sussex
• Wallace, David to his parents, address: Mr. William Wallace, Shore St. Andrews, Fife Shire, N. Britain [Scotland]
• White, John address: Mr. John White, Sign of the Swift Brig, Smith Street, Guernsy
• Whiteway, J to Sarah, address: Mrs. Jos. Whiteway, Ringmore, Teignmouth, Devonshire
• Whiteway, Jos. to Mr. Robert Hyne, Merchant, Dartmouth, Devonshire
• Whitfield, Thomas, to his brother and sister, at either of these addresses: Mr. Robert Parker, Drawing Master near the Turnpike Gate, Stonehouse Road, Plymouth or to Mr. Richard Mills, Windmill Street, No. 60, Plymouth Dock
• Williamson, George to his wife, address: Capt. Geo. Williamson, Aberdeen, North Briton [Scotland]
• Young, Andrew to his brother, address: Mr. David Young, Eastburnwind, St. Andrews, Fifeshire, North Britain [Scotland]
• Yowart, Michael to his wife Mary address: Mrs. Yowart, 21 Aston Street, Poplar, near London

We do hope some of you may find your ancestor amongst them.

©2022 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

*Captain Tucker would seem to have been from an interesting family in Calais, founded by one John Tucker of Deal: "John Tucker, Esq., of Calais, a descendant of an ancient family in the county of Kent, but outlawed for following the Stuarts into exile. ["A literary and biographical history, or bibliographical dictionary, of the English Catholics from the breach with Rome, in 1534, to the present time" - Gillow, Joseph, 1850-1921 Volume 5 p.138 archive.org/stream/a583126605gilluoft#page/138/mode/2up/search/tucker]"

https://gw.geneanet.org/azerty7?n=tucker&oc=&p=john

**Their story of the rescue is in the prisoner file on Burns at the Service Historique de la Défense, ministry of War archives, file number Yj 40.

Summer Reading - Two Books for Those Researching a French Naval Ancestor

The pandemic was a horror and the lock-downs around the world caused suffering to many; about this there can be no dispute. Yet, amongst those fortunate enough not to fall ill, some turned to creativity and productivity while confined. Les marins français, 1789 - 1830 : Étude du corps social et de ses uniformes is such a lock-down creation. It  is a treasure of a book, with lovely illustrations of uniforms and weapons, and a remarkably clear explanation of the changes in French naval uniforms during a most fraught period in French history. The author, Eric Shérer, is a Vice-Admiral in the Navy and a life-long collector of all things naval. He came to writing history through his collecting and this is his third book.

Shérer 's structure is logical, giving two chapters to each time period, the first on naval ranks and responsibilities, and the second on the uniforms of those ranks during that period. We translate the chapter titles:

• Sailors at the End of the Ancien régime (with a very good explanation of naval conscription)
• Uniforms of Sailors at the End of the Ancien régime
• Sailors During the Revolution
• Uniforms of Sailors During the Revolution
• Sailors During the Consulate and First Empire
• Uniforms of Sailors During the Consulate and First Empire
• Life on Board Ships in the Fleet for the Marines and for the Crew
• Naval Staff at the Arsenals
• Sailors of the Coast Guard
• Uniforms of Sailors of the Coast Guard During the Consulate and First Empire
• Sailors During the Restoration
• Uniforms of Sailors During the Restoration
• Naval Uniform Buttons from 1786 to 1830
• Bibliography and Archival Sources

Even if you cannot read French, the charts and illustrations are incredibly useful. It is a thorough study and will greatly inform your research into your French naval ancestor.

Les Marins français 1789-1830 : Etude de corps social et de ses uniformes. Eric Schérer. 2022. 50€, ISBN: 978-2-7587-0241-2

 

 

France really excels at biographical dictionaries. They are well-researched, well-sourced, well-structured (straight-forward alphabetical listing by surname) and very useful. This one, Dictionnaire des Marins français,  runs to five hundred forty pages and covers documented naval personalities of note from as early as 1341 to 1931. The biographical essays give the date and place of birth, career details, and date and place of death. If you are lucky enough to have an illustrious naval ancestor, the essay on him will delight you and possibly aid your research. For the rest of us, the real use of this book is in helping to follow the career of an ancestor who served in the French Navy, for here, you may find your ancestor's commanding officers and, through the essays about their careers and movements, work out where your ancestor was as well.

Dictionnaire des marins français. Etienne Taillemite. 2002. ISBN: 978-2847340082

 

Using these two books, with our highly recommended further reading, could break down your brick wall concerning your French Navy ancestor.  In our next post, we tell how you can track the vessel on which he or she may have served.

©2022 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy