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Archiver > Huguenot > 2002-09 > 1031495702


From: Dora Smith <>
Subject: Re: [Huguenot] Query - ancestor French or Dutch
Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2002 07:35:05 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <003a01c256c8$d941a0c0$c2a137d2@y5m8n8>


Short answer to complex question;

Flanders changed hands a number of times.

Many people in Flanders were religious refugees from
France, from well before 1500. Before Calvinists,
there were Waldensians, which were a major movement of
heretics that by the time they were brutally squashed
were basically quite radical Protestants. Alot of
them sought refuge in Flanders.

I don't even have my geography of that area straight.
Tehre is Flanders, tehre is the Netherlands, there is
Belgium, and at one time there were the French (I
think)and Spanish Netherlands. I don't even know
exactly what was wehre.

What I do understand is that northern Belgium and
southern Belgium are ethnically different, and
southern Belgium is ethnically something that is
pretty much French, and they speak a dialect called
Walloon that is closely related to French.

As to trying to pinpoint where a particular family in
any part of that region including modern Holland came
from, good luck. Names are often pretty similar so
you can't go by that. Especially if as in my cases you
are dealing with widespread north germanic roots, like
hart and hoff/hoven. Names like that could actually
morph dramatically twelve times in one generation of
the same family and take forms consistent with
ancestry from several nations.

If you knew even a little more about the family you
might safely make a guess. What their religious
history or their occupational history was, for
example.

But the name itself doesn't tell you much of anything.

Unless it's a very rare name, and that is rare indeed!

Dora


--- Gaile and Grant <>
wrote:
> My gr x 2 Grandfather James John TAINE wrote the
> following regarding his ancestry in his
> reminiscences:
>
> An examination into the pedigree of the Taine
> family shows that it is descended
> from one Jacques (anglice James) Tayne, who was the
> owner of a freehold estate
> in the Netherlands, his native country. He had two
> sons, Jacques and Benjamin, the
> first having been born at Valenciennes, French
> Flanders, in 1667.
>
> My question is was French Flanders part of the
> Netherlands or France. Is my ancestry Dutch or
> French? The names appear to be Fench.
>
> Gaile, Motueka, New Zealand
>
>
> ==== Huguenot Mailing List ====
> Smile..Be Happy
>
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