Sunday, December 15, 2013

Mystery Cousin: Pierre Frazier

Ok ok, in the last week, we have managed to not only establish the exact time and place in France where our Coquigne immigrants came from, but we have taken the whole family tree back an additional FOUR generations with our earliest known relation being born about 1670. This should be called a job well done, and let's call it done, and Amen. But aren't there always just a few niggling details that remain unanswered? And aren't those just the things that entice me to keep looking just a little bit more.

The current mystery has to do with our earliest relations, namely Jean Coquigne (1670-1744) and Jeanne D'Elle (1675-1737). First we must note a correction in the maiden name of our 7th g-grandmother. Her son Pierre's marriage record indicates her maiden name was DAIX, but all the other baptism and marriage records of her children, as well as her own death record indicate a maiden name of D'ELLE (sometimes DELLE).

Second, I couldn't help noticing that the godfather of Jean & Jeanne's son Pierre was somebody named Pierre Frazier. This Pierre Frazier was noted as a witness on the death record of Pierre Coquigne, as well as on the death records of the parents Jean & Jeanne. What's curious is that on the death record of the parents, Pierre Frazier is noted as a cousin. To BOTH Jean Coquigne and Jeanne D'Elle? hmmmmm.

Well, let's just say that I've now burned quite a few midnight hours staring at the old French parish records. The first known child of Jean & Jeanne was born in 1697, so I thought if I worked backward from there I would find Jean & Jeanne's marriage record, but so far not yet. Also the death records of both Jean & Jeanne indicate their approximate age at death, so I searched through the derived years when they might have been born, and still nada. Maybe it's time to post this mystery as unsolved and hope that somebody else out there might have a clue.

But then I remembered the magic of Google is country-specific, which is to say that when we search Google in America, we are getting, for most part, American results. If you access the French version of Google, you will get entirely different results. Cool. So a search of French Google for "généalogie" and "Coqugine" brought me to a website that publishes French family trees, and lets them be viewed FOR FREE! Merci! A search of FRAZIER didn't present any obvious connections, but I noticed that some people of this name could be found in Saâcy-sur-Marne, Reuil-en-Brie, and Chamigny. I resisted this information for awhile, mostly because I just got my brain used to searching in Jouarre, but now I'm supposed to expand my searching to all these other locations? Maybe I'll try just one....

And so knowing that Mystery Pierre Frazier was last seen alive at the death of Jean Coquigne in 1744, and figuring that if Pierre was a cousin, he must be roughly the same age, I started searching forward from 1744 in Saâcy-sur-Marne for a death of anybody named Pierre. When I got to 1750, I said "this is the last year I'm going to check" and then of course, there he was. You can view the death record here.

The death record said that Pierre was "about" 70 years old, and so cross-referencing with other French family trees, I was able to find Pierre's birth as 10 Jul 1683 in Reuil-en-Brie. His parents were Nicolas Frazier and Jeanne D'Elle! So Pierre's mother must have had a brother who had a daughter named Jeanne D'Elle who married our Jean Coquigne. And for Pierre Frazier to be a cousin to both Jeanne D'Elle and Jean Coquigne, then Pierre's so-far-unnamed uncle D'Elle must have married a Coquigne!

Ok ok, way too complicated? Maybe. It's probably a good thing that I like both puzzles and challenges! In any case, I've searched up and down for our Jeanne D'Elle's parents and suffice it to say, the search goes on. Stay tuned for any updates.

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