Time travels

You can go from here to there in seconds.

Here is the computer that you are sitting in front of and there is Graffigny-Chemin, where Marguerite Chevallierwas raised and where she met James Madison Pearson.

Google takes you to the church across the street from where she lived. Observe the carriage house and gardens of her house. In my view, the number 52150 appears on top of the house. A path to the left of the image leads to the hill where I took the view of the village. (See wikipedia entry on Graffigny-Chemin.) The path leading out of the village to the top of the picture goes to Bourmont where during World War I, the Second Infantry Division was originally headquartered. The path leading to the right is the ancient Roman Way from Langres to Toul near the birthplace of Joan of Arc.

Time travels. The past is the compression of all that has happened, waiting to be revealed.

here is a mystery for you

Here is a mystery for you. I think I have the answer, but I don't want to give it away. The door at the front entrance has the initials C & J over the doorway. What do the letters stand for?

Voie Romaine - Roman Way

Written history of France begins with the Romans.

Julius Caesar in The Conquest of Gaul,  writes that, "[t]he Meuse rises in the Vosges Mountains, in the country of the Lingones." Geographically, he is a bit off, for the Meuse rises on a plateau to the west of the Vosges Mountains, but there is no denying that Graffigny-Chemin is in the area he describes. In 52 BC, at Alesia (Alise-Sainte-Reine) near Graffigny, the Romans fought the Gauls in a life or death struggle. Julius Caesar beat the Gauls under Vercingetorix, bringing France into the Roman world. Had it gone differently, France might have ended up speaking German.

The Lingones like most Gallic tribes were farmers, but possessed at least two cities, Langres and Dijon, and possibly a third at Toul. If one draws a straight line between the ancient Roman cities of Toul and Langres, then midway on the route is the village of Graffigny-Chemin.



Heading north out of the village towards Toul and away from Langres is the route which is still called by its original name "Voie Romaine" or Roman way.

Michelin map of Graffign-Chemin.

Picture - The ancient Roman way which passes by my grandmother's house in Graffigny and through the neighboring village of Chemin.

La maison de ma grand-mere a Graffigny-Chemin

La maison de Graffigny de ma grandmere

 La Maison

One sees in the left corner of the old image, my grandmother's house in Graffigny-Chemin. Standing in front of the carriage house is Laura Chevallier Meine, my great grandmother.The house stands in the main square across from the church seen in the image below.

The picture was taken circa 1909.

On voit de l'avant gauche de la maison de ma grand-mère à Graffigny-Chemin. Debout à gauche de la maison est la mère de ma grand-mère de Marguerite Laura Chevallier Meine. Elle est debout en face de la maison de transport.


La photo a probablement été prise en 1909.

Graffigny-Chemin

Bon Jour, salut tout le monde.

C'est mardi. C'est un belle jour.

Un peu de moi - Je habitue in Wichita, Kansas. Je suis marié a Robin et j'ai deux enfants, Hannah et Gillame.

Mon grandmere etait francais. Elle vivait dans le village de Graffigny-Chemin, France. Le village c'est entre Toul et Langres en Lorraine. Le village est petit, avec une centaine de familles.

Bientout.

Parle vous francais

Bonsoir. C'est lundi, 24 August.

Ca va. Je m'appelle Artur.

Je ne parle pas le français. Ainsi, je suis étudiant français a la universite Wichita State.

En premiere classe, la classe répète l'alphabet. Je ne comprends pas, "g" c'est "j", et vis a vis, "e" c'est ou, "i" c'est e, et "u" c'est uh. "Y" est prononcée ecrek.

Nous avons répété les numéros de zéro à cent. Pourquoi est 70 "soixante-dix"? 15 c'est "quinze" et 16 c'est "seize".

Listen to the nombres in francais.

Il suffit de faire un fou.

A bientot, au revoir.

meanwhile back in the colonies

George introduced me today to a new line of our family - the Whites.

"[Art,] I added a file here on some documents that I had received from a distant cousin in California awhile back on the White Family. This would be Daddy Mat's G-grandmother's line Mary White b1790- d 1883."

George included a link to a pdf file so that all of the correspondence and documentation on the Whites would be available. Thanks George.

So, who are these people?

The original White was William White, a minister from Wiltshire, England. He and his family were granted land in the colonies by Robert Beverly because, "they were hard workers and because they oposed the Colony's old ruling clique and fundalistic economy." (Comment of Stanley Williams, dated 1985). The use of the term fundalistic is a bit obscure at this point, but it may be that Beverly and White both opposed the idea of slavery as the basis for a new world economy.

This William White died in 1658, appointing his brother Reverend Jeremiah White as guardian to his children. Another brother, John White, vicar of Cheriton, Wilshire, England left a bequest to his brother William's children in a will dated 1668.

William married twice in his lifetime. By his first marriage, he had six children: John, William, Edward,Deborah, Mary, and Jeremiah. His wife's name is lost to time, or someone else will discover it. William's second wife was named Martha, widow of Major Thomas Brice. These two, William and Martha married in 1657, a year before both William and Martha died.

One of William's sons, who it is not clear, fathered John White who married Mary Elliot sometime before 1705. Mary Elliot was the daughter of Thomas Elliot (Ellet) of King William County, Virginia. John and Mary had at least six children: Daniel, Jeremiah, Henry, Thomas, James, and another John. (The birth order is uncertain as is the number of children.) John, Senior died by 1743.

Daniel, the son of John and Mary, died in 1790 in Culpepper, Virginia, but not before producing at least one offspring Henry White.

Henry married Celia Page(?) (whose father was John Page of Buckingham County, Virginia?) Henry and Celia had six or more children: Jacob (Cpt.), William, Thomas, James, Stephen, Obadiah, and possibly, Henry.

And who is Captain Jacob White? Jacob is a great great grandfather of our family and our connection to the American Revolution. Jacob was born in 1765 and married Hannah Spiers (between 1781 and 1786). Jacob and Hannah had a girl child, Mary White, who married a Pearson. The state of Virginia years ago started a project to preserve the history of the American Revolution and from them this photograph of the gravestone of our ancestor's gravestone is possible.



I will leave it to George or Kathy to tidy up the direct connection to James Madison Pearson.