ROOTS 3 (searching for family history in a foreign land)

The Aubry family had always known that it came from France. We had even known (or so we thought), the name of the ancestor who came from France, and the name of the town that he came from. Emile Alphonse Abry [as with many surnames, spelling was changed to make it easier for Americans to pronounce] had come from Hericourt France in the northeast corner of the country in the middle of the 19th century. Turns out this was only partly correct.



After David’s father died last year, he and his sister were cleaning out his condo. They discovered, in a drawer, a copy of an affidavit, done by the Maire [mayor] of Hericourt in April, 1852. The affidavit was for Jean Nicolas Abry and his family [including son Emile], attesting that they were of good standing, were legally married, and also named the children with dates and places of birth. Additionally, it named the parents of Jean Nicolas and his wife Catherine Schlammer, and the days and places of birth of both Jean Nicolas and Catherine. Needless to say, his sister and he were amazed at this discovery. [As a side note, we also learned that Emile’s middle name was not Alphonse, but Adolphe.] They decided that we needed to record some of the family’s history that we knew, as we were now the ‘old folks’ – all relative of course!


Since Anna and David were coming to France, David thought it would be fun to visit the area where the family originated. Prior to this trip north, David discovered that the archives of the Department of Haute-Saone were almost all on line. We also discovered that our French daughter, Estelle, had done her graduate thesis on genealogy!  After discussing French record-keeping methods with her [they kept amazing records!] and begining his research, he pushed the family’s history back to the 17th century, and in the process learned the names of the towns where various ancestors had lived. The family was Protestant, because the area has been part of France only since the 18th century, and the Protestants were ruled by a number of minor Protestant nobility based in Wurtemburg. After France gained control of the area, Protestants lost much of their status as members of the majority. Armed with all this information, we planned our trip north.


There are a number of small villages within 5 miles of Hericourt, where members of the family had lived during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. At the time, these were mostly farming communities, although David’s ancestors tended to be masons, flour millers, clock makers, and forge workers, with an occasional shepherd. Today,like all western societies, people have moved from the land to the cities as less and less labor was required to grow food. The French government has put considerable effort into keeping these small communities viable, and today these towns are inhabited largely by commuters to Belfort, Hericourt, and Montbeliard.


The towns we visited, including Hericourt, a thriving small city of about 11,000, included: Brevilliers, Tremoins, where David’s great-great-great grandfather was born in 1778, Mandrevillars where the Abrys appear to have originated, Couthenans, Eschenans sous Mont-Vaudois, Chagey, the site of an iron and steel forging center in the 16th to the 19th centuries, and Luze where an Abry is currently Maire. We stopped in each town, took pictures, and visited some of the old [mostly abandoned] Protestant churches and cemeteries where we found the older markers to be unreadable due to erosion. Each of the towns had an historical marker telling about the town and its history, especially as the history related to the surrounding area. One of the more interesting items was on the marker at Mandrevillars where it was noted that many Protestant families had emigrated to the US in the middle of the 19th century.

See below for some of the places and sites we visited.

Hericourt, where the family lived before coming to the US in 1852:


Jean Nicolas Abry and family lived on this street, right side, in 1846. We had breakfast at the Patissier on the left side of the picture.











This is Rue de La Voute, or street of the Vault where the family lived in 1851.

Tremoins  - the now disused Protestant church and cemetery where some of David's relatives are buried.













Mandrevillars, where the Abry family appears to have orginated, along with the historical marker noting that a number of Protestant families emigrated to the US in the 19th century.

Eschenan sous-Mont-Vaudois  where we found an Abry family marker.