Francoise Schindler

One of these days, I'll find something funny to write about. But not today, alas. Today I've been organizing my Bourgeois documents prior to stowing them for safekeeping, which means double-checking dates and names, putting them in order, and creating an index so I can find what I want. So again, I am reading old documents. The process reminded me of one of my sadder discoveries.

Xavier Bourgeois was the great nephew of my great-great-great-great grandfather, Michel Bourgeois. We have no evidence that he emigrated with other family, and I have not looked at death records past about 1850 so I don't know his fate.

Xavier was born in 1791, and in late 1823, at 32 he married a woman named Francoise Schindler. Francoise was about 30 and the mother of an illegitimate infant daughter, Francoise, born in Fulleren in 1822. Xavier and Francoise had pretty a pretty depressing child-bearing experience. Their first child, Anne, born 12 months after the wedding, apparently died young, as they named a second daughter Anne*. Xavier and Marie are the next two children and then came an infant in May of 1830 who was stillborn. In August of 1830, young Francoise died; she was 8. Their last child, another Anne, was born in 1831. And then I lose track of the family.

Aside from the pain of losing, I think, three of six children, there's the coldness of the child Francoise's death report. In it, the officials declare she was illegitimate. That's true.  But what I found troubling is that the death report makes no mention of Xavier; Francoise, the mother, is a "journaliere" (laborer). Francoise died "dans la maison de Xavier Bourgeois," not in her mother's home. There is no mention made that Francoise and Xavier are married.

I suppose this is a good place to mention that sex before marriage was common in early 19th century France, to the great dismay of the Catholic church. The number of healthy, sturdy children born 5 or 6 months after a wedding was a scandal, and it wasn't that unusual for a couple to celebrate their betrothal with a bit more ardor than was seemly and then for him to depart -- for the army, for a job in the city -- or die. So Francoise's indiscretion wasn't the moral outrage it may have been in a different time or place. And obviously, Xavier had some reason to marry her, though it may have been that she'd already demonstrated fecundity. The Bourgeois family seems to have been highly regarded by their community, judging by the number of marriages that occur between various Bourgeois and other families of position. So I don't think Xavier married Francoise because he could do no better. I would like to believe he married her because he had some warm regard for her (marrying for love was an anomaly in the 19th century), but my guess is he had darker reasons.

The coldness of the death report makes me wonder about the lives of Francoise and her mother. My acquaintance in France tells me that men of that era often took in the illegitimate children of their wives, giving them their name, but not in this case. Xavier gave her (and her mother) a place to live, but it isn't clear he embraced them with warmth. I know nothing about this man, but I don't particularly like him. Interesting how a bare bones official document can arouse such intense emotion.


*It's also possible that this is another case where a child gets one name and then somehow ends up using another. But both Annes are simply Anne on their birth records.

ADDENDUM, 27 Feb. 2016.

A few days ago, I got a notice from Geneanet.org, where part of the family tree is posted, that a new Bourgeois entry had been found. When I checked it out, I was linked to a website called SteHelene.org. This site lists the names of hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen who were awarded the St. Helene Medal of Honor in 1857 for service in Napolean's army.

Xavier Bourgeois, born 3-Dec-1791, served with Napolean from 1811 to 1814. He’s one of only two relatives I could find who fought in the French Revolution.

Why I'm not applying for Pioneer Family status with Perry County

I'll start by saying that the Perry County branch of the OGS is awesome. The staff has been unbelievably helpful in all phases of my research, and I'm very grateful. I am not criticizing the organization but rather describing my own experience as a heads up to others who may want their families to be designated Pioneer Families.

My family were early settlers in Perry County; my 3rd grandfather, Michel Bourgeois, bought land and settled in Reading Township, Perry County, Ohio in Sept 1827. This meets the cutoff date of Dec. 31, 1830. So why am I not signing up?

Simply put, it's the challenge of meeting the standards for application. Part of the problem lies with the last name. The passenger list that documents the family's arrival in 1827 uses a pretty odd spelling (Boursioe), and the names and ages of the children listed do not quite match the facts. For instance, my own ancestor, Morand, born 26 Sept. 1810, is listed as Noma, age 14 (not 17).  There are many elements of the passenger list that have convinced me this is our family, but that conclusion was reached in conjunction with many other documents (French birth, marriage, and emigration records, and Michael's will). Standing alone, it's reasonable to have some small doubts.

To demonstrate the family is eligible for the Pioneer designation, we must show more than a land purchase. But during the early years that the family was in Perry, the name Bourgeois was spelled almost 40 different ways, none of them Bourgeois. We do have the family in the 1830 census, but the spelling of the name doesn't match that on the land records (or the passenger list). So while I know that Michael Burshee on the 1830 census is the same as Michael Burchuer who buys land 29 Sep 1827 as well as Michael Burscheur and Michael Burshue, who buy land in 1828, I can't easily prove it.

Because Michel and his wife arrived with all six of their children, we have no birth records that date prior to 1830. One of his sons, Meinrad, buys land in Nov. 1830, but he's not my direct ancestor. And again, buying land is not evidence that the pioneer lived on that land. So I have less than sterling evidence that the family was actually living in Perry in 1830.

Even if Perry County would accept my data as sufficient evidence that the family was living in Perry County in 1830, that doesn't solve other problems. One is that my mother's birth certificate is gone; a fire in Cairo, Illinois took that. The catholic church where she was baptized won't release baptism records. So I must use her marriage record and other documents to prove who her parents were. Of course, the marriage record is not a contemporaneous record, although there is good reason to consider it accurate. And I do not have her father's birth certificate though it is probably available, for a fee. I realize that it is remotely possible there is a hidden bomb waiting to be exploded (mother could be the daughter of the local priest rather than the man married to her mother), but I don't think her baptism certificate is going to reveal that. I'm convinced she is the daughter of Herbert Bushu, but I'm not sure I have unquestionable evidence of that.

The clincher, however, is the requirement that I get independent confirmation of the translations of the German, Latin, and French birth and marriage documents substantiating the lineage of the immigrant family.  I took French from grade school through two years of college; I took Latin for grade school and two years of high school. I spent an intense year learning German so I could translate the 100s of documents in my possession, and my translations have been informally substantiated by a German cousin who is now dead. I'm not fluent but I'm absolutely capable of translating simple documents. I'm not paying a translator beaucoup bucks to affirm the legitimacy of my translations. End of discussion.

I am not questioning the right of the society to make these demands; I assume they are consistent with the standards for the DAR and other pioneer societies. But these standards exceed those I have met to demonstrate incontrovertibly my ancestry. And so I've decided that I'd rather spend the money I would lay out to meet the society's demands on a genie trip, a book or magazine, or a conference. So the Bourgeois/Boursoie/Bursheur/Bushore/Bushu/Bushur/Bushue/Bursher families are pioneers, yes, but not Pioneers. Schade! Mais c'est la vie.