My Blog
L’histore de ma famille, Guillory-De Cuir
May 14, 2020
My maternal 6th great-grandfather, Simon Guillory, was born near Chartres sur Cher in the Diocese of Blois France on February 16, 1646, according to Catholic Church records. In 1664, he boarded a ship in La Rochelle, a town on the southwest Atlantic coast of France, bound for Quebec City in New France (Canada).
Macon is in the province of Hainaut, Belgium and is the ancestral home of my paternal 6th great -grandfather, Albert deCuire, he was born here around the year 1673. Albert signed a contract on January 13, 1720 to work for six years in the St. Reyne Concession of the Compagnie des Indes in the colony of Louisiana. He boarded the ship, Le Loire, at the port of Lorient, France and arrived in Mobile Bay on November 9, 1720.
Both men did an incredibly remarkable thing in choosing to immigrate to an unknown and potentially dangerous new world! They did this of their own free will and for reasons that I plan to delve into in more detail in the coming blog posts. I also have another ancestor who needs to be introduced. Her name is Marguerite and she was a slave of Joseph Pierre Gregoire Guillory, the grandson of Simon Guillory. Marguerite and Joseph are my maternal 4th great-grandparents. It appears that Marguerite, her slave name, was most likely born in the region of Senegal, Africa around 1720-30. In researching the Slave Voyages database from Emory University, I located the Venus, a French slave ship, that arrived in La Louisiane about the precise time that Marguerite most likely arrived! More will be answered about that in a future post!
The journey into my genealogical past began when I was a boy of around 12 years of age. I was born and raised in Los Angeles and as a child, I spent some summers on my maternal grandparent’s farm in Swords, Louisiana. It was here where I first heard my grandparents talking to me in French. They did not speak English. Prior to this, I had often heard my mother speaking to her brothers and sisters on the phone in French. As far as I can remember this is when I began to ask her about my grandparents and her life as a child. My father on the other hand, grew up as an orphan. His father died when he was about five years old and his mother died when he was probably around twelve years old. I did not learn much about his childhood or relatives until after he had passed away!
The pursuit of my ancestral past began in earnest when I received a copy of Albert deCuire arrives in America by Randy De Cuir. This book was published on November 9, 1995, the 275th anniversary of Albert’s arrival in Louisiana. One of my sisters attended a family reunion in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and obtained copies of this book and sent one copy to me. I read through this family history and was amazed at the details that had been uncovered!
This blog is intended to tell the story of my family from my point of view and with as much documented material as I can glean about their story. To make the blog relevant, I will attempt to tie their stories into the history of America whenever possible. There will be times when I will take some poetic license and describe events and people as I see them. Any errors or omissions are mine and please accept my apologies in advance for them. The blog will not necessarily follow a chronological path because information in genealogical research is not found in sequence. Sometimes you stumble on something while exploring a completely different line of research. These are usually rewarding and happy accidents!
I hope that my family members will enjoy learning about some of their ancestors through this blog and may decide to conduct some research on their own. I also hope that the other readers will find my family story interesting and perhaps be encouraged to explore their own family tree and roots!
Let me take a moment to set the stage for our voyage thru my family history. In 1534, the French explorer, Jacques Cartier, sailed to North America and began his exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in what is now Canada. This area was claimed for the King of France, King Francis I, and was known as Nouvelle France or New France. At its peak it consisted of a large part of Canada and down thru the Great Lakes and Mississippi Valley to the Gulf of Mexico.
In 1763, the Treaty of Paris concluded the 7 Years War and France ceded New France to England. In the prior year, France via the Treaty of Fontainebleau, had previously ceded what was then La Louisiane to Spain. This effectively ended France’s colonial activity in North America except for a brief period in 1802-3. In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte, sold La Louisiane for $15 million to the United States in what was known as the Louisiana Purchase.
France began exploiting the area of New France now Canada from the beginning but did not invest much into the Louisiana Colony until 1700. Around 1704 the first Guillory, François, my maternal 5th great-grandfather, arrived in the Louisiana Colony from New France where he was born. Approximately, 20 years later in 1720, my paternal 6th great-grandfather, Albert deCuire, arrived from Macon in the Province of Hainaut, modern day Belgium to the Louisiana Colony. Thus, began my family history in Louisiana! That puts the Guillory family in America for over 300 years! November 9, 2020 will mark the 300th Anniversary of Albert deCuire’s arrival in what is now America!
The methodology for research into my genealogy has been varied. I have used historical books, manuscripts, church documents, internet sources, family pictures and mementos along with other resources. In 2013, my wife and I traveled to Europe and went to Macon, Hainaut Province to the birthplace of Albert deCuire. Along the way, there have been several trips to Louisiana to continue my research. I have used Ancestry.com for research including my DNA testing. I have not yet elected to post my family tree from Ancestry on-line but may do so in the future. The material I have gathered is primarily stored in Family Tree Maker 2019 by The Software MacKiev Company along with Microsoft documents in OneDrive.
My plans for this blog are to post updates approximately every two weeks that will break open the story of many of the Guillorys and De Cuirs that make up my family tree. I am positive that there will be surprises revealed along the way. Not all my family members or other readers will be comfortable with some of the facts in the hidden branches of the tree, but they should be revealed, and I have chosen to do so. The family tree has Caucasian and Black ancestors along with slavery in the branches! We will meet Louisiana’s gens de couleur libre or free people of color. Afterall, this is very much a story about people and relationships, it is also an American story told from my point of view!
In the upcoming posts, we will visit West Africa, Belgium, France, New France and then take a voyage to La Louisiane and fully explore my family tree. Please subscribe to the blog so that you do not miss any future posts.
a bientôt
