Archive de la Haute-Marne

The Archives de la Haute-Marne are digitalized. The archives contain records of marriages, births, and deaths covering the periods 1586 up until 1912.

In my research, I have come across many names associated with my family. It begins with Chevallier, the name of my great great grandfather, Paul Constant Chevallier. But there are other names to research as well. Paul Constant Chevallier married Anne Marie Richier. Paul's father was Hilaire Chevalllier, who married Marguerite Collin. Then too, there are the surnames Morel, Rouyer, and Ligier, but I will have to come back to these.

Chevallier is a name which is sprinkled throughout the archives for hundreds of years. I have mentioned Paul's father, Hilaire, but there are also the names of Nicolas, Joseph, Paul Achille, Claude, Charles Hippolyte, and more whose relationship is not always clear.


______________________________________________________________

What follows is a cursory review of the archives for the period 1893 - 1902. This should find a new page.



The Archives of Haut-Marne, births, marriages, and deaths. Select d’état civil. Graffigny today is a village of perhaps two to three hundred souls. The archives suggest that the population has not changed much.

Year	Births	Marriages	Deaths	Arch/Pages
1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901	19 10 10 10 20 14 21 15 x	8 8 10 1 5 9 5 7 x	13 13 10 13 8 22 21 10 x	- - - 60 75 93, 94 112, 113 126 x

Years 1893 to 1895:

Summaries by year of births are found at pages 7, 24, 40

Summaries by year of marriages and divorces are found at pages 15, 30 and 31, 49

Summaries of deaths xx, 35, 52,

Beginning in 1896, births, marriages, divorces and deaths are summarized together. Pages 60, 75,

1896, death of Claude Alexandre Chevallier, born 1810, age 87, son of Hilaire Chevallier and Marguerite Collin, deceased. His wife Marie Genevieve Rouyer, deceased 1889.  Father of Edmond Chevallier, "le premier gendre et le second neveau" (page 56). Note by me, brother of Paul Constant Chevallier.(page 56).

Notes.

1893, Marie Jean-Marcel born 8 May, 1893.son of Marcel Edmond Chevallier and  Eugenie Denise Moirot, both age 33, witnessed by Paul Constant Chevallier, age 70, and Ernest Chevallier, age 44 (page 3).

1893, marriage of Paul Ernest and Marie Hortense Demay April 4, 1893.Paul Ernest, age 46, is the oldest son of Paul Constant Chevallier and Anne Marie Richier. Anne Marie Hortense Demay, age 46, is the daughter of Antoine Demay, deceased, and Marie Collin, age 70 (page 10).

1897. Typewriter used for the first time, although many entries remain handwritten.

1897, Cecile Richier, age 91 deceased. He was born the 27th Brumaire, the 14th of the Republic. Note by me, Brumaire refers to the second month of the French Republican calendar, so named for the fog that often occurs at that time of year. Question, is the scribe repeating the language of Cecile's birth for the year 1805-6? ... Son of Nicholas Richier (died 1853) and Marie Magdeline Quentin (died 1870). Spouse "vuive" ??? of Lemoine Nicholas Antoine. ??? Note by me. I have included Cecile Richier only because of the possible connection with Anne Marie Richier, wife of Paul Constant Chevallier.

1898, Paul Albert Chevallier died 21 October, age 13, son of Paul Ernest Chevallier and Zepherine Douzery (page 90).

Paul Chevallier

Qu'est ce homme?
Paul Chevallier - I am not sure about even the name, it could have been Francois, Hubert, Felix, Rene or Albert, but this photograph was one of many that my grandmother Marguerite Chevallier Meine kept.


What little can I find from the photograph?

The hat has the designation 309. Google France and Wikipedia reveals that "Le 309^e Régiment d'Infanterie est un régiment d'infanterie constitué en 1914." But wait, there is also an Artillery Regiment designated the 309th and this regiment continued throughout the war.

Let's look at the medals on the uniform. Some of the medals were issued after the end of the war.

Here is a description of the medals in French:

Bon, j'ai regardé votre photo. Je peux identifier clairement deux des médailles portées par votre ancêtre. La plus à gauche est la Croix de Guerre 14-18. La plus à droite est la Médaille Militaire 14-18.
D'après la liste des médaillés de la Première Guerre Mondiale, il y a eu 6 Chevallier décorés dignes des médailles de la photo. Vous pouvez trouver la liste ici: http://jeanluc.dron.free.fr/th/thliste.txt

La 3e médaille en partant de la gauche pourrait bien être la médaille des blessés.
Concernant l'unité, il porte le calot du 309e régiment d'infanterie, ce qui nous donne une date précise pour la photo: le 309e a été incorporé en aout 1914 et dissous en juin 1916. D'autre part la Croix de guerre de la Première Guerre mondiale a été instituée en avril 1915. Donc la photo date d'avril 1915 à juin 1916, ou un peu après s'il n'avait pas de nouvelle affectation à ce moment là.
Sans aller plus loin, voilà les éléments que je peux vous donner.

Révélation fracassante: j'ai identifié une autre médaille et cela remet en cause la datation. Je me disais bien que j'avais déjà vu la médaille la plus à droite: il s'agit de la médaille commémorative de la 1e GM. Et la médaille au ruban multicolore au milieu est la Médaille Interalliés. Ces médailles apparaissant en 1920 et 1921, nous voilà avec une nouvelle date.
Ce qui remet en cause aussi l'unité: le seul 309e régiment existant à partir de 1918 est le 309e régiment d'Artillerie hippomobile. On notera que la Croix de Guerre, la médaille la plus à gauche à 2 étoiles, ce qui correspond à une citation à l'ordre de la division.
Si vous avez d'autres éléments, faites nous en part.

Arachnee/Overblog

The medal on the far left is the Croix de Guerre with two stars. Add image here.

One can find a list of soldiers named Chevallier who received the Croix de Guere in the First World War.

CHEVALLIER  Albert
CHEVALLIER  Franç.
CHEVALLIER  François
CHEVALLIER  Hubert
CHEVALLIER Félix
CHEVALLIER René

Julie Laura Emma Chevallier

Julie Laura Emma Chevallier Meine is my grandmother's mother and my great grandmother. Oh, how little we know about our past.

There is a story of her during World War II, and how she saved the village from destruction by the Germans, but that must come later.

Julie was the daughter of Paul Constant Chevallier and Anne Marie Richier. They married in 1847. Julie had two brother, (Paul Ernest Chevallier, born 1848 and married 1893. Marcel Edmond Chevallier, born in 1859, married 1887) .

My grandmother's house

Graffigny-Chemin

As the song says, my grandmother's house is still there but it isn't the same. Today it is a bit overgrown with vegetation. It is owned as a summer vacation home by a couple from Holland.

To the left is an image of the house circa 1910, courtesy of my cousin. If you squint you can see a female figure to the left of the house, who is most certainly Julie Laura Chevallier Meine.

The main entrance to the house is up the stairs on the right of the image. Over the door is an iron decorative piece with the initials "C & L", representing the names Charles and Laura. [Recheck this]

I know that Julie married Charles William Meine. I know nothing of him. I know that

Julie, presumably, did not marry in Graffigny. I can't find a marriage record, and it may be that she married in Frieburg or Hannover, Germany.

My cousin also had this picture of Julie and her two children, Paula and Marguerite. Which girl is the younger and which is the older is not for certain. The image is taken by photographer Carl Theis in Hannover, Germany. A letter in my grandmother's collection identifies her birthplace as Hannover. Surprising to me as my grandmother hated Germans.


[Note to self. Look for a birth record of Paula Meine in Graffigny.]

My great grandfather Charles Meine died before the First World War began, so Julie was left to raise her two daughters alone.



[Recheck this fact. During World War I, Julie wrote to her daughter from the the church in Viviers. Check out the stunning 360 degree panorama by Claire Thibau. Her daughter Marguerite remained in Graffigny at the house where she grew up.]

Missing Person: Elmire Chevallier

My mother's first name was Elmire. She was named after her aunt Elmire Chevallier.

I only learned of the existance of Elmire Chevallier a month ago. I learned of her existence in letters my sister Kathy gave to me. Elmire Chevallier was until then a missing person - missing to me at least and those in my family who did not know of her existence.

The name Elmire is not common. I have never been introduced to another Elmire in my lifetime. I never asked my mother the origin of her name, I just thought it pretty. My father shortened the name Elmire to El, and I thought that pretty too. At first I assumed the name origin as Spanish,  translated as"the sea". I have no basis for saying this other than it sounds poetic. I also fancy that my mother was named for Claude Debussy's beautifully then modern composition La Mer, which was composed in 1903, three years after the birth of my very French grandmother Marguerite Chevallier Meine Pearon.

An etymologist would dispute this interpretation, correcting me by saying that "el mar" is the proper Spanish translation for 'the sea', and that "elmire" translates better as "the view". Further, the word doctor would point out, Elmire is derived from the arabic, Elmira, and means aristocratic lady or princess. With this in mind, I conjure up images of  Arab Moors who swept through Spain in the 11th and 12th centuries and set up castles aand kngdoms in Cordoba, Seville, and Granada. Don't parents always dream images of faraway places and romantic persons when selecting the names of their children?

The name Elmire itself is obscure. The one reference to Elmire I can find is from a character in Moliere's play Tartuffe. The play was written in 1664 and was soon banned by King Louis XIV perhaps because of its racy subject, adultery, but also because the Catholic Church found it was not portrayed favorably. In the play Elmire is the virtuous wife and object of lust by the main character Tartuffe.

My mother's mother was French, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that she was a fan of Moliere. But, the reality is that my mother was named after an aunt, Elmire Chevallier, who lived in Graffigny as did my grandmother. Elmire Chevallier would have been sister to my great grandmother. There still exist several letters between my grandmother Marguerite and her aunt Elmire. Translating them is difficult, not only because of the cursive writing, but also because the long sentences which Elmire was prone to write.

Letters often reveal facts about families that are better left hidden. In letters we reveal our complaints and misfortunes. Keep this in mind for sentences written in haste can be exaggerated or taken out of context.

What I can pick out so far from the letters from Elmire to Marguerite is that there was some dispute as to the family home in Graffigny. So far, I have not found any letters from my great grandmother Laura to her daughter Marguerite. Correspondence seems to have been directred from Marguerite through Elmire to Laura, but whether this correspondence was returned I do not know.

What follows is my translation of a letter from Elmire Chevallier to my grandmother, Marguerite Chevallier Meine Pearson postmarked October 5, 1924. The translation obviously needs improvement and in the future I will photograph and post the actual letter. I will update translation as time allows:


M chere M'ite

Hier apres avoir mise a la porte la lettre que j'adressais a la mere, Marc est entre, comme sa femme m'avais apporte la, fameuse que tu lui a envoyee

My dear Marguerite

Yesterday after having put on the door the letter that I adressed to your mother, Mark came, as his wife had me brings, famous as you sent him

Feburary 4, 1777 - Bans of Marriage

Help!

The Archives of Haut-Marne contain recordings of baptisms, births, and marriage for citizens of the villages in the province of  Lorraine. Go to the listing for Graffigny-Chemin and click. There are 11 sets of books of parish and civil records. Prior to Napoleon, the records are religious. Napoleon made the responsibility for civil records secular.

Start with the parish records for 1767 - 1792.Click on the book and it will take you to page one of 87 pages.

On page 7 the date February 4, 1777 records the publication of the bans of marriage for Claude Chevallier and Marie Jeanne Barbay. The post is the right-hand page. Claude is the son of Nicholas Chevallier and Anne Jaroin (sp). Marie is the daughter of Francois Barbay and Cecile Quentin (sp).

On the preceding same screen, lower left is a post for, it appears, the 18th of January of the same year. The announcement appears to be the engagement of the two.

For Jean-Marie:

On the following page 8, the same date, records the marriage of Nicolas Quentin and Barb Marchal.The name Marchal appears on many of the following pages.

I am stopping at page 15. Page 16 starts an entry for 1779 and the name Chevallier reappears. I will work on this later.