Follow-up Friday: Further French Facts

After I posted my last blog, I realized that I hadn’t posted a photo/scan of the original document that started all of the discoveries this week.  Plus I found another great document as well.  So I thought I’d give an additional bit of information for you all to peruse.  I’m sure everyone was wanting that, but they were a bit too shy to ask.

This first pic is of that document, which is a passenger list for the Louisiane that traveled from the port of Bordeaux in France to New Orleans in 1857.  As you can see, Piere is listed as a baker.  What business does a baker have that requires him to travel to another country in 1857?  Or was he just visiting family?

I also mentioned the 1856 passport for Piere in the last post and I don’t think I shared it with everyone previously.  So here it is.  Henri Germaine, who was evidently very important because he had been awarded a Legion of Honor title in France, signed this passport that asks that Piere be allowed to pass freely.  This is where Piere is identified as a boulanger, which is French for a baker.  In one place I read, they identified him as a butcher, but that would have been a boucher.  I guess with the old scribbly writing that you can see in these old documents, it could be an honest mistake.

Now for the other document that I found.  I posted the baptismal record for Leobon Patureau.  It was dated Aug. 1, 1768, from Palluaud, Charente, Poitou-Charentes, France, and it listed the parents as Antoine Patureau and Marie Sicaud.  I had found on a distant cousin’s blog that Leobon was the first of six children for Antoine and Marie.

From the research I have done, I notice that in my family the first child is usually born pretty soon after the marriage.  Because that’s what it takes to have a child – a marriage certificate. Mom and dad had Jodie almost a year after they were married.  Mee Maw and Pee Paw had Marie after almost a year and a half.  Grampa Max and Marie Therese had Emma after ten months, and his parents were similar.  It must have been a Patureau tradition.  So I figured that Antoine and Marie probably got married in 1766 or 1767.

Since the online collection that had the baptism was from the Palluaud area and it included marriages and deaths, I figured I might as well check for a marriage record.  They could have gotten married in a different place, but I figured it would be worth checking out.  It was a small area, so a year’s worth of documents was only 5 or so pages.  Yes, it was in French and hand written over 250 years ago, but how bad could it be?

It was a bit straining, but the reward was worth it in the end.  Otherwise there wouldn’t be this post that you are reading!  Sure enough, the wedding was recorded on November of 1767, just nine months prior to Leobon being born.  My hunch paid off and now I have the wedding information for my great, great, great, great, great grandparents.  I also found some birth records for their children.  I found a few death records as well.

Now let’s go back to the time of the Patureau family immigrating to the US.  This is the 1840 passport that they had when they came to Louisiana.  The French authorities request in the name of the King that the United States allow Pierre Patureau, his wife, and their four children to enter freely into the country.  Again, Pierre is called a boulanger.

The family settled in Opelousas, where Anne Rose Machet Patureau (Piere’s wife) and their daughter Elise died in 1842 during a yellow fever epidemic.  The family then moved to the Plaquemine area and lived in Turnerville (northeast part of Plaquemine).

I would like to show you more and probably will in the future.  But for now, I think you may have had enough.  My problem is that when I find something exciting like that, I want to find more.  And if I can find that wonderful old French wedding record that is so difficult to read, I can find anything.  At least that’s what I tell myself while I’m going cross-eyed looking at those blurry documents.  Sometimes I just have to tell myself that it’s time to stop.

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Follow up to my follow up

Just found another old document that needs to be shared.  This one is the marriage record for Leobon Patureau and Jeanne Lanson.  They were married on January 16, 1787, in Bors de Montmoreau, Charente, France.  The great thing about this document is that it gives the Jeanne’s father’s name, which is shown as Francois.  It probably has the mother’s name, but I can’t make it our right now.  Perhaps another time…

PS.  I think Jeanne mother’s name was Jeanne Hivain.  I found the death register for Jeanne (mother and daughter) and it was clearer.  So much out there to see!