Everyone, I have been playing Devil’s Advocate over the last few months, trying to find any information that would verify or debunk the pre-1600 Boucher tree. It appears to me that this part of the tree contains unsourced fragments of trees, merged together, with errors and unproven assumptions taken as fact.
Does anyone has supporting information (other than unsourced family trees or the Mormon’s Millennium File or OneWorldtree) so that this part of the tree could be cleaned up?
The Bouchers are literally all over the map of France in this tree-from Perche, Paris, Bretagne and even Geneva Switzerland & England. It makes very little sense if one takes into account the history of France at the time.
Here is a summary of what I found or not found to date. I will try to keep it short.
The profiles I have been looking at are:
@Jacques Boucher
@Jean Boucher
@Jehan Boucher Dit Lamarche
@Jehan Boucher
and their wives.
We have information for Jacques Boucher & Françoise Paigné (i.e. they were the parents of Gaspard Boucher) as per
http://www.fichierorigine.com/detail.php?numero=240483
so that link is OK.
1- Marriage of Gaspard Boucher & Nicole Lemaire
The date given is 12 Dec 1619 in Maners, Sarthe (fichier origine). Unfortunately, the records for that date in the parish records in Maners are lost. So, the actual date cannot be verified by church records. I will keep looking.
Nicole’s parents date of marriage could be found by searching through a table of marriages (dated from that era). I plan to do that. However, this only gives the name of the bride & grooms, date of marriage and not the names of the parents. So, it will be a dead end.
3- There is a confusion as to who Jacques Boucher’s mother was. Some family trees say Françoise Roussin; others have her as Jeanne Mercier.
I am searching the marriage records in St-Langis circa 1582 to see if I could find anything but so far, nothing. It is (believe me) rough going. The records are very difficult to read and do not always list the name of the parents.
Does anyone have sources to support who his mother actually was?
I put more credence on it being Jeanne Mercier but that is just a judgement call on my point... Need proof.
4- Records for marriages in France were only recorded from the late 1560s and many of the records have been lost. Baptisms were recorded from 1539 but again many have been lost.
Earlier than that, you have to rely on scant notary records and family histories of notable people. (The mid to late 1500s were a very difficult time in France, the 40 year war of religion was raging. Just in Normandie,over 100,000 people lost their lives in the Wars of Religion.)
The tree has the Bouchers moving back & forth between Geneva & Perche, makes very little sense since Geneva was one of the refuges for Huguenots during the War of Religion (and not the closest refuge to Perche) whereas Perche has under the control of the Catholics. Do we have any proof that our Bouchers were even Huguenots?
A tree posted on a Geneva genealogical site states that Jehan (Jean) Boucher who died in Geneva was a Conseillor in the Parlement du Paris. I checked a site that lists current research in the archives/notary records of Paris. The Bouchers I found who were involved in the Parlement du Paris were the Bouchers d’Orsay. There were not from Perche or Loisé.
There is a Jehan Boucher in that family, in that time frame, but he was a priest (chantre de Notre-Dame de Chartres, sieur des Molières et de la Baste) who died without issue.
I do not think we have enough information to link the Jehan & Jean Boucher listed on that tree with the Bouchers of Perche. (Their wives are not listed;not surprising because names of spouses were not recorded at burials in that time frame in Geneva).
There is a Jeanne Fournier married to a Jehan Boucher in that Geneva tree. Note Fournier is not Bournier; the two names are different. However, even though this lady has the same parents (except for the Fournier-Bournier confusion) as Jeanne Bournier, this could be just another unproven assumption or an error copied from one tree to another.
The Jean Boucher who is suppose to have married Françoise Roussin and-or Jeanne Mercier is listed, in the Geneva web site, as having two different wives. The tree is very detailed with subsequent generations listed at this point which leads me to think that this is an totally different family from the Bouchers of St-Langis.
This person married in Geneva, lived in Geneva and had children who married and died in Geneva. Unfortunately, the records in Geneva are not on-line.
5- Marriage of Alice Halsam & Jehan Boucher
I have found references to an Alice Halsam or Haslam (with the same parents as Alice who is suppose to have marriedJehan Boucher) married to a James Bowker. The fact that two different scenarios exist for Alice (a century apart) points to a serious problem. (I have emailed a family genealogist looking into James Bowker & Alice. He is going to get back to me if he finds any supporting documentation).
What I suspect might have happened is that someone came across the reference to an Agnes Bowker burnt at the stake in Tudor England. Her father was a butcher. On another web site cashing on the genealogy craze, they have posted that the Bowker name arrived in England during the Norman Conquest and that it is a name of a butcher. Someone made the “running leap” and assumed that Bowker is a variation of the name Boucher (translation in modern-day French of Butcher). Anyone who knows any French knows the two names are not even close in pronunciation.
Although, I could be wrong but my explanation for this is just as plausible as an English woman marrying a French man in Paris or Chartres or Bretagne near the end of the 100 Year War (formerly ended in 1475).
But there does not seem to be any proof to support Alice marrying Jehan Boucher.
6- Jehan Le Boucher, Master Mason.
Is there documented proof that the St-Langis Bouchers are descendants of the Master mason mentioned in the construction of the Saint-Maclou in Rouen, France? Boucher was not a “unique” name, after all. It all sounds so romantic but unless there is some documented proof, no cigar.
DLD