Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

According to my “DNA Story” at ancestry.com, I am 41% Irish, with the rest being a mix of Scottish, Welsh, Flemish, French, and northern and southern Germanic. Although my Irish comes equally from both parents, my father’s Irish roots are probably based in the Connacht province of the southern, Republican side of the island. Wisely they left before the famine began. While my mother’s family … Continue reading Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

The Napoleonic Code

Jean Germain Voisard was the mayor of Montecheroux, France from 1815 to 1826. He was a fifth great grandfather on my father’s side. As the “maire” of the commune he was first and foremost a bureaucrat whose main responsibility was enforcing the regulations of the “Code civil des Français” – also known as the Napoleonic Code. Msr. Voisard was born in 1754 and he was … Continue reading The Napoleonic Code

A Well-Regulated Militia

Geneanet.org is a genealogical website headquartered in Paris, France. It differs from ancestry.com in that Geneanet is a collaborative site where the members share in the effort of building family trees and supplying transcriptions of registers, both civil and parochial. The site has been around since the mid-nineties, and I was a regular visitor twenty years ago. At Geneanet, I could connect with fellow researchers … Continue reading A Well-Regulated Militia