Genealogy

A long time ago, I developed an interest in where I came from. Like many Americans. Most Europeans don't seem to share this--nor Asians, Africans, or Indians, judging from the ones I've known. They pretty much know what they are. 

But we Americans always have this question...we know that at some point, our ancestors immigrated here, and we know that our surname is of a particular nationality, but beyond that, there's always this unknown.

So when I was a boy, we had had this tradition that we were French, of course. And there was a coat of arms which was supposed to be associated with our family. But that's all we knew.

My father wasn't really that interested, but my uncle was, and he began to research it, way back before the internet. By the early days of the internet and the advent of the first message boards where disparate researchers could share their findings, he had found our line back to the immigration to America. We were Hugenots, it turns out, French protestants who had settled here after being forced to leave France by the edict of Nantes, and had come here, to Virginia. And there it stopped, for a long time. My uncle died, and there was no more information.

But then, in the early 2000s, after much searching, I finally found another trail. And it led back from our ancestor who had come here to a knight named Sir Richard du Pré, who had been awarded a fiefdom in Artois, on what is now the French/Belgian border, in 1437. And there it went cold again. 

I had always suspected that Sir Richard was either English, the name being Norman, or Burgundian, as that region was under Anglo/Burgundian control at that time, this being during the hundred years war. But I couldn't find anything else, other than a transcript of the trial of Joan of Arc in which a Richard du Pré was listed as sitting on the panel of judges. But it didn't seem that that could be him, as the one was a knight and lord, and the other was a cleric. A relative, maybe. Anyway, for a long time that was it, and I lost interest, distracted by other things.

At one point, by accident while researching something totally different (medieval military subjects), I came across a site which had digitized the English records of the hundred years war, and on which you could search for your ancestor's name. I did, and found Sir Richard, and indeed he had served on the English side, under the famous captain Sir John Talbot. Which confirmed my suspicions that he had been either English or Burgundian, but didn't help with finding his ancestry.

But a few years ago, I was at my brother's house, who had become rather obsessed with the genealogy thing, and he mentioned that he had come across a site in French which he couldn't read, and asked me to take a look at it. I did, and lo and behold, finally found possible records of Sir Richard's father, who was Burgundian and lord of Pereins, near Lyons, which matched up with what we had found many years before in association with that coat of arms, that there was a connection with Lyons. And, fascinatingly, one of his ancestors, or rather the brother of his ancestor, was the first grand master of the Knights Hospitaller:

Raymond du Puis

 And then I found his father, and then his father, etc., all the way back to 775, to a man called Aznar d'Aragon, who was the count of Aragon (which wasn't yet a duchy) and duke of Gascony, which is the border region of France and Spain on the Pyrenees. And I found this picture of him:

Aznar d'Aragon

Weird, right? Apparently, the gene for those eyes has somehow lasted down through all these centuries and millennia, and is still the most identifying feature of our family. It was like something in an old movie, where some American inherits an old castle in England or Scotland, goes there, walks in, and finds a picture of himself. In case you don't see it, here' one of me in which you can actually see my face, for reference:

There the trail ended again, for some time. It was surprising and intriguing, because he was said in some sources to be of Basque origin. But that was it.

Then, just recently I came across by accident, while researching something else, again, information on Aznar's origin. It seems he wasn't Basque after all, but Frankish. In fact, it goes back to Clovis, King of the Franks, and then back to Merovech, for whom the Merovingian dynasty was named. Which would explain the family's rocky relationship with Charlemagne and the Carolingians: if they were descended from the Merovingians, they would have a beef with them, wouldn't they? Anyway, super-ironically, Merovech was king of the Salian Franks, who lived in a territory of the northern Rhine in what is now...BELGIUM. lol. Guess there was a reason I felt so at home there. And liked their ale so much.

Clovis I

So, at this point we're reaching the end of what's even possible to trace, as the Franks didn't keep written records in these times, and all we have is what's recorded by Romans. And at this point, history begins to blend with mythology. But it seems that Merovech's father was Clodio, the king who first united the Frankish tribes and established a quasi-independent kingdom in Belgica and northern Gaul:

Clodio

I mean, this is crazy, right? Or am I imagining it?

Anyway, Clodio's grandfather was a Frankish dux (leader) called Marcomer who invaded Roman territory in 388. And that's as far as it is likely ever to go. But I'm satisfied. I think I can say that I know where I came from. Marcomer, if he led an invasion in 388, would have probably been born sometime between the 340s and 360s, and that's not bad for being able to trace one's ancestry. Of course, none of this is absolutely certain or provable at this point, but the pictures make me think there really might be something to it.

Marcomer