On 19 November 1827, Jean François Aubry and Anne Martine Drouot, two of my husband's 4th great-grandparents, were married in Herbeuville, France, a commune located in the nation's northeastern Lorraine region. With the poor contrast, this particular record is difficult to read, but I just love the detail of the French civil marriage records:
Not only does this record list the bride and groom's parents, it even provides the exact birth dates of the bride and groom AND the exact dates of death for both fathers and Anne Martine's mother. Jean François Aubry, a vine grower (vigneron), was the son of Nicolas Aubry and Anne Catherine Colnard. Anne Martine was the daughter of Jean Nicolas Drouot, a vine grower, and Fermine Benoit, and they were from the nearby town of Hannonville-sous-les-Côtes.
According the the civil birth records for Herbeuville, Jean François and Anne Martine had eight children between 1828 and 1839. Unfortunately, five of those children died before they were a month old. In 1840, Jean François and Anne Martine and their three remaining children immigrated to America aboard the ship Apollo. They entered America through New Orleans and settled in the northeastern part of Darke County, Ohio, where other French families were also starting to settle and farm the land.
I particularly enjoy looking at the marriage records of those couples whose lives began in the 'Old Country' and ended in America. Did they have any idea on their wedding day that someday they would move across the ocean and leave behind everyone and everything they knew? Did they realize on that day that they would be buried in a completely different land than the one in which they were born? Could they have fathomed that their descendants would come to speak English and not French?
Research note: I would not have been able to find so much information on my husband's French ancestry without the help of genealogist and historian Marianne R. Doyle (DoyleMR@aol.com), who sent me helpful copies of her newsletter French Ancestors. If you have or suspect you have French ancestors who settled in western Ohio, I highly recommend contacting her.
(And never underestimate the value of learning at least a little of a foreign language. I took four years of French in high school, and even the small amount I remember has enabled me to pick out the important information in these French records.)
Marriage Record Source: http://archives.meuse.fr/?id=recherche_guidee_etat_civil Herbeuville; 1823-1832, Birth, Marriage, Death Records, Images 138-139/353
©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder
According the the civil birth records for Herbeuville, Jean François and Anne Martine had eight children between 1828 and 1839. Unfortunately, five of those children died before they were a month old. In 1840, Jean François and Anne Martine and their three remaining children immigrated to America aboard the ship Apollo. They entered America through New Orleans and settled in the northeastern part of Darke County, Ohio, where other French families were also starting to settle and farm the land.
I particularly enjoy looking at the marriage records of those couples whose lives began in the 'Old Country' and ended in America. Did they have any idea on their wedding day that someday they would move across the ocean and leave behind everyone and everything they knew? Did they realize on that day that they would be buried in a completely different land than the one in which they were born? Could they have fathomed that their descendants would come to speak English and not French?
Research note: I would not have been able to find so much information on my husband's French ancestry without the help of genealogist and historian Marianne R. Doyle (DoyleMR@aol.com), who sent me helpful copies of her newsletter French Ancestors. If you have or suspect you have French ancestors who settled in western Ohio, I highly recommend contacting her.
(And never underestimate the value of learning at least a little of a foreign language. I took four years of French in high school, and even the small amount I remember has enabled me to pick out the important information in these French records.)
Marriage Record Source: http://archives.meuse.fr/?id=recherche_guidee_etat_civil Herbeuville; 1823-1832, Birth, Marriage, Death Records, Images 138-139/353
©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder
