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Genealogy/memories

Refugees to England

(9 Posts)
growstuff Wed 15-Mar-23 10:31:11

I finally cracked one of my brick walls and discovered that I have Huguenot ancestors.

I was doing some background reading and came across this article from 1985:

www.historytoday.com/archive/englands-first-refugees

Plus ça change!

Grandyma Wed 15-Mar-23 10:40:56

Thank you so much for posting. Unbelievably I too have recently discovered Huguenot ancestors. I am very much looking forward to reading the attached article. Such a coincidence!!

Callistemon21 Wed 15-Mar-23 10:46:22

Yes, me too, strangely enough both sides of the family although neither had a clue about it.
It was my cousin who first discovered this and she did go along to some local meetings and found out more information about this.

Callistemon21 Wed 15-Mar-23 10:52:05

Thank you for the link, growstuff

Blossoming Wed 15-Mar-23 10:58:19

Brilliant article growstuff and what an exciting find. I do have a Frenchman in my family tree but he is from the 12th century. Documentation is sketchy, mainly land grants and the like, but new bits turn up every now and then.

allsortsofbags Wed 15-Mar-23 11:09:16

We have Huguenot ancestors too.

My Grandmothers maiden name was a Huguenot name and she was sad it would disappear so we gave it to DD1's as her middle name.

Funny thing happened when DD1 went for her first job interview in NZ for a Government Department. She'd had to sign form stating she had no relationship to anyone interviewing/hiring as part of the application process. Not a problem they had been there 3 weeks and didn't know anyone.

She was sat waiting for the interview and receptionist brought the form over and said you've signed to say you don't know anyone here. Yes that's correct. Then a chap came out of the interview room and started questioning her about who she knew. Now she was really, really nervous. But having been in the work place for a few years she held her nerve and asked what was the problem, what might she have done wrong.

Turns out her middle name (Huguenot name) was the same as the last name of the chair of the interview panel. Once she explained it was her Great Grans last name and she'd never met anyone else with that name they were happy no rules were being broken. She got the job too :-)

She Skyped me to say how shaken she was until she found out what they were unhappy about but glad she held it together. She had the job for 3 years so it worked out well.

Delila Wed 15-Mar-23 11:14:18

Me to growstuff!

growstuff Wed 15-Mar-23 11:49:41

Callistemon21

Thank you for the link, growstuff

You're welcome!

I'm trying to wean myself off GN. I started my family tree about 25 years ago and go back to it every so often. There's so much more information available now than there was 25 years ago, so sometimes I knock down a brick wall which had previously eluded me.

growstuff Wed 15-Mar-23 11:53:24

allsortsofbags Some clever person worked out that anybody with white English ancestry is likely to be no more than a 10th cousin of all the other people with a similar background.