François Origins

Rough sketch of the ville and surrounding area from Louis C. Thomas's Section Rurale ou Section Communale. 

After randomly checking Family Search for something unrelated to genealogical purposes, I noticed that the indexing of Haitian digitized records has made great strides. Although some of the indexed records contain errors and must be fact-checked with the original documents, they are usually reliable indicators. Moreover, even the ones currently unavailable for view but digitized from the Haitian Civil Registries, have proven to be of tremendous value for reconstructing the extended family network of my Bainet-born grandparent. I see all kinds of connections among the various Haitian families I have heard were related to me. Now all we really need is a miraculous manifestation of significantly more records from the beginning of the 19th century. That, plus any registry from the church Saint-Pierre could help fill in the numerous gaps in our documentation.

The death of Beresfort François's mother, a Gaury, was recorded in 1859. This is also one of the multiple documents in which Beresfort François's signature appears, leading one to think he was literate.

Our latest obsessive perusal of Bainet documents confirms our first suspicions about François origins. Our lineage does appear to have begun with a man named François Pierre and an Anne Marie Joseph Gaury. Their descendants took François Pierre's first name as the family surname. François Pierre was presumably born a slave (if his birth preceded the revolutionary period). His partner, whose 1859 death certificate suggests she was born in c.1799, was listed as the natural daughter of a Joseph Gaury and Victoire. Since she was likely born in the late 1790s or early 1800s, Anne Marie Joseph Gaury was never a slave. Her father, Joseph Gaury, may have been enslaved or was possibly a free person of color. Her mother, Victoire, is impossible to trace. Searching for Gaury or Gory in colonial Bainet, we came across a few people carrying the name. It was carried on among the descendants of a François Gory and his mixed-race wife, Françoise Sougrain. The two had children who were baptized in the 1730s and 1740s, suggesting that they were probably born in the 1710s and 1720s. Therefore, the Gaury or Gory name has been in Bainet since the origins of the parish. We believe Joseph Gaury, the grandfather of Beresfort, was either a descendant of one of the affranchi Gaury or someone who took the name from an old habitation owned by them after emancipation.

The birth of a Jean Baptiste to Beresfort François and Afloride (Ifloride?) Michel is available on Family Search.

In addition to our ancestor, Beresfort (also known as Gontrand), François Pierre and Anne Marie Joseph Gaury also had at least 2 other children: Bonaventure François and Almaide François. These two appear in 1880s Bainet documents: Almaide François's death certificate and a marriage license for Bonaventure putting his birth in c.1818. If Bonaventure and Almaide were born in the 1810s, then it is probably fair to assume a similar time frame for Beresfort François, perhaps in the 1810s or 1820s. Some of the confusion in later Bainet documents about the children of Bonaventure and Beresfort may have arisen due to the two being brothers. Nonetheless, the Bonaventure relation to Beresfort proves my theory that one of the Carriere, who married a daughter of Bonaventure was likely also related to Roselin Carrière. Roselin appears in the death certificate of Anne Marie Joseph Gaury. Their surname likely came from the colon Louis Carrière, who passed away in 1774.  We suspect the Haitians who carried the name during the 1800s inherited the surname via residing on the old habitation owned by them or mixed-race progeny of Louis Carriere, a native of Languedoc. Anyway, Roselin was also named to the conseil de notables for the commune of Bainet in 1849, before Soulouque declared himself emperor. Therefore, Roselin was probably someone of status who knew our great-great-great-grandfather, Beresfort.

The death of Louis Carrière. There was indeed a habitation Carrière in the valley of Bainet after 1804, according to this source.

The rest of the picture was mostly given from sources we already encountered during our last bout of genealogical hyperactivity. Based largely but not solely on the 1890 marriage certificate for Pierre Leopold Francois and his wife, Marie Therese Cangé, I discovered that my great-grandmother's brother, Donatien, was born in 1905. Recently finding her birth certificate from 1899 confirmed the parentage. Her mother's mother, Chérilise Alexandre, is difficult to trace. However, Family Search records include some documents on Alexandre's other children with Assez Cangé. Those documents reveal that Assez's formal name was probably Jean Michel Cangé. Assuming the estimated age is correct, Jean Michel was born in c. 1829, presumably in the valley section of Bainet.  All the Cangé of the valley were probably related and were likely descendants of the large clan of free people of color bearing the same surname in the 18th century. The topic of Cangé origins has been broached elsewhere on this blog, so we won't repeat it. Suffice to say, already by the end of the 18th century, they were a large family with branches in Bainet, Jacmel, and Petit-Harpon. Unfortunately, we lack the requisite documents to prove exactly which ones those living in the valley of Bainet descended from by the days of Jean Michel. Regardless, the Cangé were a well-known family with a surname that can be traced to the earliest days of Bainet settlement. Despite our lack of documents, we made a quick survey of colonial-era documents records on the Cangé who were living in the valley in the late 1700s. Our findings revealed at least 2: Jean Louis Cangé, who was married to Charlotte Favre from Croix-des-Bouquets and a Pierre Louis Cangé. The latter was the son of Pierre Louis Cangé and Marie Therese Petit.

The parents of our great-great-grandmother are identified here. Chérilise Alexandre and Jean Michel Cangé had a few other children besides our great-great-grandmother.

Perhaps most intriguing for us was finding out the François connection between our great-grandmother and great-grandfather was not immediately obvious. Told throughout my life that the two were close cousins, I found out that the father of my great-grandfather was a Joseph or Joseph Antoine François. Joseph Antoine does not appear to have been a sibling of Leopold François. Instead, Joseph's father was identified in another record as a Cambronne François. Perhaps Cambronne was a son or sibling of Beresfort François, but it establishes that my great-grandparents were not first cousins. How Cambronne and his son Joseph were related to Beresfort is difficult to say with our incomplete Bainet records. A death certificate for a Cambronne in Bainet only identified his father as François and his mother as a "Foratine" or "Forastine." Perhaps Cambronne's father was Beresfort and his mother Iflorine or Iflorine Jean-Michel? Family traditions are not particularly help here, either. All I can remember from traditions, photographs, and descriptions is that my great-grandfather was dark-skinned, like his half-sister who married a Point du Jour. My great-grandmother, on the other hand, was remembered as very fair or white-looking, perhaps something inherited from her mother. Based on the little we could find, we are inclined to believe Cambronne was a son of Beresfort or Bonaventure.

Part of the marriage license of our great-great-grandfather Leopold. 

Last but certainly not least, Family Search records confirmed the existence of Marinas François. The ancestor of my godmother, I had first heard of him several years ago. Well, it turns out he existed and was possibly born in or around 1857. Marinas was a tailor living in the town of Bainet, and married to a Louissaint. I assumed he was illiterate but on some birth certificates for his children, his awkward signature appears. Although unable to find a death certificate for Marinas or anything to identify his parents, my godmother's testimony suggests he was part of the same François clan. If he was born in the late 1850s, he was young enough to be a child of Beresfort or Bonaventure. Naturally, his father could have been another child of Francois Pierre and Anne Marie Joseph Gaury. Either way, Marinas Francois was another relative whose existence confirms the connection with the Jean-Paul, Louissaint, and Pierre-Saint families. My godmother's account has been largely confirmed, although the exact parentage of Marinas cannot be determined.

Our Marinas appears here, described as a tailor.

Overall, these new indexed records have greatly contributed to my interests in genealogy and Bainet history. They support some of my conclusions reached 2 years ago on the origins of our family name. Moreover, they have given me a number of new surnames and connections to research. At this point, much will remain a mystery. The shadowy founder of our lineage, possibly born enslaved, will require some archival digging to discover. Joseph Gaury, on the other hand, may be easier to trace in the latter days of French colonialism. Our Alexandre and Cangé lines, beginning with individuals likely born in the 1820s or 1830s, is also hard to investigate. For them, however, I suspect conversations with other descendants of Alexandre and Cangé in the valley might shed some light. With this information, I can put a human face to the history of Bainet from the zenith of Jacmel's prosperity and the role of our Bainetian farmers in providing the coffee, fruits, and other exports for the port. Someone should write a book on the history of Bainet that humanizes it with the personal details of its people.