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Archiver > Huguenot > 2003-12 > 1071343567


From: "Sharilyn" <>
Subject: [Huguenot] Guerrant/Guerin
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 11:26:09 -0800


I recently posted to Huguenot-L about my interest in the Guerrant family in relationship to a woman seen as "Grace Cerant" who married Huguenot Jan Beselie, and at that time I had found only a Daniel Guerrant, purportedly the son of Henri who had been "broken at the wheel", who appears in a fictional account, and is not proven to have been this man's father. I noted that Daniel and my Grace of interest were about the same age, and both named daughters Jane, but that was as far as I got.

When I was looking into Guerrant, I found that it was spelled in several ways, Guerin, Guerren and Guerrain being common variants. In
the material on the Daniel Bondet Huguenot colony in Massachusetts, I did find a few names mentioned, and among them were Huguenot families that came there
via South Carolina and Virginia. Daniel Bondet made Oliver Beselie, Jr. his only heir. One of those Huguenot families at the Bondet colony in Oxford, MA was apparently:

"Mathurin Guerin, natif de Saint Nazaire, en Xaintonge:
fils de Pierre Guerin et de Jeanne Billebaud; et Marie
Nicholas, sa femme, native de la Chaume en Poitou, fille
d'Andr, Nicholas et de Francoise Dunot. Francois Guerrain
fils de Pierre Guerrain et de Janne Billebeau, n, . St.
Nazere en Saintonge. Anne Arrin,, sa femme."--(Liste des
Francois et Suisses r,fugiez en Caroline, etc.) Etienne
Guerin was in New York in 1711 and 1715.

These, I presume, were also Guerrants, and the timing and travels of this family and of the people in whom I have an interest in New Rochelle seem to coincide.

I presume Mathurin Guerin, native of Saintonge was a Guerrant. Am I correct, and does anybody know more about this family? These "Guerins" appear to have come from South Carolina to the Bondet colony in Oxford, MA, and from there to New Rochelle, New York. And it is possible that the Beselie/Besly family followed this same route.

Thanks much,

Sharilyn Whitaker


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