Another Victoire

There is another possible contender for Victoire Gory. In addition to Marie Victoire Gory, Marie Victoire Pitiot, and Victoire Susanne Monteise, there was a fille naturelle baptized in 1778 whose father was possibly an unnamed Gory. This woman was the goddaughter of Victoire Susanne Monteise, which leads one to suspect that the father of the child might have been a relative of hers. We have not identified the father yet, but I suspect this Victoire's father was from the same area of Bainet and probably related to Victoire Suzanne Monteise. Perhaps a cousin or uncle of hers? We assume the mother, a Beaubrun Dupuy with a Barreau maternal background, was close to the neighboring Gory and related to several of them (including Victoire Susanne Monteise). However, it is not entirely clear who the mother was. There was a Marie Beaubrun Dupuy baptized in 1766, but that seems a little too young for her to have given birth to a child. The best candidate is Marie Francoise Beaubrun Dupuy, her older sister, who was baptized in 1761. We are not sure why the priest recorded the name as Marie Magdelaine but a similar mistake was made with Victoire Susanne Monteise's name. Overall, this theory would explain why Victoire Gory was still alive in the 1850s, but we still do not know who Joseph Gaury was. Certainly not the Joseph Gaury who married a Paponet in the early 1770s? Perhaps the father of Anne Marie Joseph was Jacques Gaury, a son of Jean Baptiste Gaury baptized in 1769? He would have been not significantly older than Victoire and possibly still around in the 1850s. 

3 Victoires

Somehow we neglected to mention the existence of another Victoire related to the Gory of 18th century Bainet. A quick persual of ANOM's Baynet parish registries clarified the matter, somewhat. In addition to Victoire Suzanne Monteise and her godmother, Marie Victoire Gory, there was a Marie Victoire Pitiot (incorrectly written as Pichot by the parish priest). Baptized in 1765, this Marie Victoire could also have been the mother of Anne Marie Joseph Gaury. Again, like Victoire Suzanne, there is a problem of why her name was recorded as Gory by the parish priest but that could have been an error on his part, just like the parish priest who wrote Pichot instead of Pitiot. We know Marie Victoire Gory was married to Michel Pitiot and thus the mother of Marie Victoire Pitiot. Marie Victoire was also the aunt of Victoire Suzanne Monteise. In other words, the mother of the Anne Marie Joseph baptized in 1793 was likely one of these three women. 

It seems that Anne Marie Joseph's parents were still alive when she passed away in 1859, so it was probably one of the younger women (the daughter or the niece of Marie Victoire Gory). Marie Victoire Gory was still married to Michel Pitiot in the 1780s and we were unable to find any mention of his death before 1793. Moreover, we know that Victoire Suzanne Monteise's first name was obviously Victoire, strengthening the case for identifying her as the mother. We could only find one instance in which Marie Victoire Gory's name appeared as just Victoire Gory, and that was when her sister's illegitimate child, Marie Louise, was baptized in 1769. Marillac, who married a sister of Victoire Suzanne Monteise, was also the godfather to the son of Marie Victoire Gory born in 1781. He must have known all three of these women but all the evidence remains slightly in greater favor for Victoire Suzanne. 

Our Louis?

We are still trying to uncover the origins of Louis Gory of Bainet, the first Gory. We think his sons were born in the late 1710s or early 1720s, so it is possible that this Louis above, a quarteron libre born in 1699, could have been their father. Our evidence is slim, but it is interesting to note that the godmother of this Leogane-born Louis was a Montard. The Montard, spelled as Montar, were also in Bainet by the 1720s and 1730s. Indeed, in Bainet was a Louis Montar living in Baynet in the 1720s who fathered children with a free black woman. Perhaps this Louis, whose father was not named, was the same Louis Gory or Gorry (also spelled Gaury) who was identified in the Bainet parish registries in the 1720s-1740s? He was a "quarteron" instead of a "mulatto" but we have already seen how flexible those terms were. Unfortunately, if his son Jean Baptiste really was born in or around 1711, this Louis would have been too young to have been his father. Of course, by 1791 there were few people around who would have known Jean Baptiste's actual age when he died. It is more likely that he was born in the late 1710s or early 1720s, around the same time as his brother, Francois. Perhaps a young Louis and Marie sired them when they were in their late teens or early 20s. Either way, we need more proof and identifying this Louis's godfather might point us in the right direction. Who was Guy L'Eroudelle?

Pierre Celin dit Cangé?

The signature of Jean Pierre Cangé appears here, when he became the godfather to a Jean Joseph Stanislas in 1781. 

What makes trying to piece together the origins of the Cangé in the 18th century so difficult is their large numbers and the repetition of the same names (Jean, Pierre, etc.). One glaring example is the appearance of at least two people with Pierre Celin as part of their full name. Both were supposedly the sons of Jean Cangé and Marguerite Butet, but they married different women and were not the same person. Our tentative reconstruction of our great-great-grandmother's father's family assumes descent from one of them, the younger one not born in 1729. 

In 1755, Pierre Louis Celin Cangé married Marie Therese Petit.

Our Cangé ancestry appears to derive from the Pierre Celin dit Cangé, who was the father of Jean Pierre, baptized in 1760. That Jean Pierre went on to marry a Saugrain and became the father of Jean Charles, the man we suspect was the grandfather of our great-great-grandmother. From what I could gather, the Pierre Louis Cangé who married Marie Therese Petit (the woman whose family suddenly became "Indians" later in the 18th century) was actually the father of the general who went on to fight at the Battle of Savannah and became a general during the Haitian Revolution. That Pierre Cangé later fell in disgrace after the 1805 Santo Domingo campaign and was killed by order of Henri Christophe in 1806, according to Histoire de Toussaint Louverture by Pauléus Sannon.

So, there appear to have been two men brothers named Pierre, children of the free people of color Marguerite Butet and Jean Cangé. Pierre Celin dit Cangé had a number of children with a Françoise or Marie Françoise Geoffroi or Geffroy, before he married her in 1770. The other one, Pierre Louis Celin, married a Petit and sired a number of children. If our theory is correct, our great-great-grandmother was a descendant of the Pierre Celin dit Cangé. As mentioned in our previous speculative posts about her origins, we are still lacking a birth record for her father and would like some information on her Alexandre mother. However, it does seem likely that her father was a descendant of the Jean Charles born in the 1780s. We also know that Jean Pierre Cangé was still living in the Valley of Bainet in the 1790s, and it is likely that his son remained in the same area. Unfortunately, we still couldn't identify any of the African-born forebears of these free people of color or figure out the origins of the Geoffroy before Pierre Geoffroy.

Hunting for Drouillac

Our current theory assumes this Françoise Drouillac, who passed away in 1761 in Leogane, was the mother of Marie Françoise Paponet, who married Joseph Gory in 1771.

As part of our quest to trace the origins of the forebears of Anne Marie Joseph Gory in our tentative family tree, we decided to attempt to tackle the issue of the Drouillac. According to our theory, Anne Marie Joseph's father was the grandson of a Paponet who married Joseph Gory. Her mother, a Drouillac of Leogane, appears to have died in 1761 and was presumably born in the early 1720s or late 1710s. Paponet had a son from a previous relationship who married Agathe Gory. The product of that union, a Joseph baptized in 1776, seems like the best candidate for Anne Marie Joseph's father. Even if we are wrong, at least we are further establishing the familial network of the Bainet Gory in 18th century Saint-Domingue.

The 1771 marriage entry for Joseph Gory and Paponet appears to indicate that Françoise Drouillac was deceased, which supports the idea she was the Drouillac who died in 1761. 

So, who were the Drouillac? Another round of searching Leogane entries of baptisms, marriages and deaths via ANOM's site helped to partly address the question. We found a few individuals who were likely siblings of Françoise, including a Pierre, Ignace, and François. Although I am not sure all had the same mother, they appear to share a Gilles Drouillac as their father. Assuming they were all born in the 1710s and 1720s, we assume Gilles Drouillac was probably born in the late 17th century and was a "mulatto" scion of a Drouillac and a black woman we could not locate. 

Ignace Douillac, who died in 1744, was the son of a Gilles and a woman named Marie Therese. We assume Ignace was a sibling of our Françoise.

What helped make things easier is the number of children Pierre and François had. The baptismal entry for the daughter of the latter, Rose Victoire, actually named Gilles Dujacq (Gilles Drouillac) as the godfather. Interestingly, François was named as a free black, perhaps because he was a dark-skinned grif son of a "mulatto" and a "black" woman. Elsewhere we have noticed the shifting color or racial terms used to describe the population of Saint-Domingue, so we assume the parish priests just recorded what they thought as more accurate "racial" category for nonwhites (or, in some cases, chose to omit any mention of their racial origin). 

We also have established by 1752, Gilles Drouillac resided in Grand-Goave. Assuming Marie Therese was the mother of all (or most) of his children, including Françoise Drouillac, we can probably infer that she was a "griffe" born sometime in the early 1720s or late 1710s. She actually appeared as the godmother to the child of Pierre  in 1743. So we know at least a few things about her origins and her parentage. The Drouillac were still around in the late colonial era in Grand-Goave, too. A Marcel Drouillac, son of a later Gilles Drouillac married in 1794. We assume his father was the Gilles baptized in 1756, a son of Pierre Drouillac. 

A daughter of Pierre Douillac (Drouillac) and Marie Rose was baptized in 1743. Her godmother was Françoise and the child actually bore the same name as Françoise's daughter.

The harder, more time-consuming task that remains is to search for Gilles and Marie Therese early on in Leogane. Who knows, perhaps that could contain a reference to an African-born person or lead to a revelation about other possible Drouillac-Gory connections. We just wish Drouillac had a consistent spelling so we don't have to search for Douillac, Douliac, Dujac, Dujacq, and Drouillac. Alas, we still have to identify the Paponet father of Marie Françoise and the father of her son. That would require a trip to Grand Anse and a more thorough search of the voluminous Leogane parish register.

Marillac Origins

Although we are not descendants of the Marillac (the paper trail is insufficient to establish it), we thought it would be worthwhile to trace the origins of Anne Marie Joseph Gory's godfather. We already discovered that he married what appears to have been the sister of Anne's mother. Moreover, both Marillac and Anne Marie Joseph appear to have been descendants of a woman enslaved by the Saugrain in the 1720s, Susanne. What about the Marillac name, and that part of his past?

A quick perusal of the Marillac of Jacmel and Bainet via ANOM clarified a lot. The first Marillac, or Marillan (?) in Jacmel was a native of Agen, Jean Marillac de Monplesy. He married a Marie Elisabeth Marin of Martinique in 1722. We assume his wife was a woman of color (this remains to be determined), and their children then married or had children with other free people of color. One of their children, Jean Baptiste, was born in 1728, or so. That Jean Baptiste was, in turn, the father of the Jean Baptiste Marillac who married a Marie Louise Monteise (Gory). 

The mother of the Marillac who was closely connected to the Gory was a Saugrain (Sougrain), Marie Barbe. She was, from what we could gather, one of two twins born to an enslaved woman of the Saugrains, Susanne. Baptized in 1725 and declared free, she went on to have Jean Baptiste Marillac in late 1757 or early 1758 with the senior Jean Baptiste. 

Jean Baptiste Marillac, fils in this case, had a Bainet Saugrain (probably also a daughter of Susanne) as his godmother in 1758. This explains how he was related to several of the Gory. Then to further link the Marillac and Gory, he went and married Marie Louise Monteise (or Montes), the daughter of a Frenchman and a Gory. Our theory is that his wife was the sister of Anne Marie Joseph's mother, Victoire Susanne (named after their enslaved ancestor?). 

We know of one other child by the first, white, Marillac. His daughter, Magdeleine, was baptized in 1732 in Jacmel. She had an illegitimate child baptized in 1753, Marie Magdeleine. This daughter, Marie Magdeleine, appears to have been the mother of a child with a Louis Saugrain (or Sougrain, the name was spelled differently from the original), Marie Louise. This daughter, Marie Louise, married Jean-Pierre Cangé. In short, all these families were marrying or having children with the same few families of similar status (no surprise), and in some cases marrying cousins.

Crude Family Tree

Our crude attempt at illustrating Anne Marie Joseph Gory's ancestry through an online family tree construction site. The identification of her father Joseph is still just a theory, although we are quite confident about her mother. 

Another Bainet Gory Deep Dive

Jean-Baptiste Marillac married a woman of Montes and Gory parentage in 1787. 

A quick perusal of ANOM's Baynet parish record revealed some more information that strengthens my theory for Anne Marie Joseph Gory's origins. Her godfather, Jean-Baptiste Marillac, was actually related to her and shared her Saugrain ancestry. Moreover, Marillac was linked to the Gory through his marriage to a daughter of François Monteise (Montes) and a Gory. Indeed, it is possible that Jean-Baptiste Marillac was actually married to the aunt of Anne Marie Joseph, if indeed Victoire Gory was the same person as Victoire Suzanne Monteise. 

Marguerite Louise, the older sister of Victoire, was born in 1761. 

Although I would like firmer evidence to connect Anne Marie Joseph to Victoire Suzanne Monteise, our case rests on slightly stronger ground. We have identified this specific Jean-Baptiste Marillac, who was baptized in 1758, and linked him to the Saugrain and Gory through birth and marriage. The fact that he was Anne Marie Joseph's godfather further establishes a connection. Indeed, the fact that he was married to Marguerite Louise Montes, the possible older sister of Victoire, makes it possible he was an attractive candidate to be Anne Marie Joseph (her uncle). Furthermore, we have yet to locate any other Victoire living in that section of Bainet besides the older Marie Victoire Gory, who was probably not Anne Marie Joseph's mother (she would have been far less likely to still be alive in the 1850s). It is possible Victoire Suzanne dropped the Montes name because her father was dead by 1787 if not far earlier.

Jean-Baptiste Marillac appears to have been born in late 1757, baptized in February 1758. His godmother was a Bainet Saugrain married to François Gory.

So, now that we have established the familial link between Jean-Baptiste Marillac and Anne Marie Joseph Gory, what do we know of the deeper origins of the Gory name in Bainet? Despite appearing rather early on as a godfather to several children, the first Gory we know of, Louis Gory, did not leave behind much of a paper trail. Our current theory is that he was the father of not only Jean-Baptiste Gory but François Gory, too. François Gory died in about 1760, around the age of 40. His brother, Jean-Baptiste Gory, died in 1791 around the age of 80. They both appear to have been sons of Louis Gory, a "free mulatto" who was still alive in 1746. 

Jean-Baptiste Gory died in May 1791. If he was 80 at the time of his death, then Louis Gory must have been born sometime in the later decades of the 1600s. Our current theory for Anne Marie Joseph links her to Jean-Baptiste and François. 

If Louis Gory was not a native to Bainet, from whence did he come? The other Gory or Gaury in early 18th century Saint-Domingue were in Croix-des-Bouquets and Cavaillon. The Croix-des-Bouquet Gory was a woman from Saint-Christophe, Anne, who died in 1732. Her father, Pierre Gorry, was presumably the son of another Pierre and his "mulatto" wife, Marie. The Cavaillon Gaury in the 1720s was a woman said to be a native of Ile a Vache. Perhaps the origins of Louis Gory can be found in the Sud, although I cannot recall any census from 1703 or other records identifying a Louis Gory in that region. But I can imagine him moving to Bainet parish from another area once administered by the Compagnie de Saint-Domingue. Or, like others who migrated to Jacmel and Bainet parish, he could have come from Leogane or Croix-des-Bouquets.

In 1723, Louis Gori (Gory) was the godfather of a child of Mathieu Renard (probably related to Jacques Renard, a native of Saint-Christophe) and an enslaved woman. In that same year he was also the godfather of a child born to free blacks Soliman and Marie.

Sadly, we are still in the dark as to the origins of Louis Gory. We can guess he was born in the late 1600s, perhaps the 1680s. Our evidence suggests he was a "mulatto" and was well-connected to a number of other Bainet habitants, including free blacks like the Soliman. We are not sure where else to look for possible traces of Louis, either. Perusals of Croix-des-Bouquets, Les Cayes, Leogane, and other parishes has not revealed anything so far.

Here Louis Gory was identified as a "free mulatto" in yet another example of him acting as godfather.

To sum it all up, our current understanding of the available evidence suggests the earliest Gory in Bainet was a "mulatto" named Louis. Jean-Baptiste was his son, as was likely the case for François. Anne Marie Joseph's godfather was also related to the Gory via Saugrain ancestry and marriage to a Gaury who also had a Monteise connection. Our theory suggests Anne Marie Joseph's mother was the sister of Jean-Baptiste Marillac's wife. Being her uncle, it is no surprise to see him act as her godfather.

Joseph Gaury?

After reviewing the evidence, find it likely that Anne Marie Joseph Gaury's parents were actually cousins. In fact, that means Anne Marie Joseph Gaury was a descendant of both Jean-Baptiste Gory and François Gory. A second read of the 1771 marriage license for Joseph Gaury (a son of Jean-Baptiste and Marie Bichot (Pichot?)) and Marie Françoise Paponet (the daughter of a mulatto, Françoise Drouillac, from Léogâne) revealed an interesting fact: Joseph Gory married the mother of Joseph Delande.

A close read of Joseph Delande's marriage record to Agathe Gory (also a child of Jean-Baptiste, but born in 1759) clarified the matter. Joseph Delande was explicitly stated to be under the guardianship of Joseph Gory, who was married to his mother, Paponet. So, Delande, already related to the Gory via his mother's marriage, proceeded to marry Agathe Gaury, the younger sister of his stepfather. Talk about incestuous? Or maybe borderline? At least they were not actually related.

Agathe and Joseph Delande had a son, Joseph Guillaume, baptized in 1776. This Joseph was likely the father of Anne Marie Joseph. Perhaps his name did not appear the entry for her baptism in 1793 because of his age and the fact that the mother was his cousin? The mother, Victoire, was likely Victoire Suzanne Monteise, born in 1764. She was therefore quite a bit older than Joseph Delande. Maybe his name did not appear because of an inappropriate relationship between cousins with a sizable age gap.

Our theory also makes it more easier to explain why Anne Marie Joseph's 1859 death certificate referred to her parents as if they were still alive. If Victoire was still alive in 1859, she would have been in her 90s, which is plausible but rare. Joseph Guillaume would have been in his 80s, which also seems rare but not completely unheard of. As for why Joseph Guillaume was named Gaury in her 1859 death record, perhaps it had something to do with the fact that his father's mother was married to a Joseph Gaury and his own mother was also one.

In light of the close link between Joseph Guillaume's father's family to the Gory, and his own maternal ancestry, one can understand why he used that name. It would appear that his father was an illegitimate child whose own father is not easily traceable. Therefore, the Gory name might have made more sense for him to adopt. We still do not know the exact reasons why Victoire, who was probably a Monteise through her father, used the Gory name. But this theory makes sense out of a messy situation of kissing cousins and missing records. Moreover, it illustrates how Beresfort's mother was linked to a variety of places besides Bainet, including Leogane, Grand Anse, and Jacmel. Now we just have to make sense of the possible Bichot connection and figure out where Paponet and Deslande came from. 

Making Sense of the Gory

A Joseph Gaury was baptized in Bainet back in 1748.

Despite our limited sources to identify the origins of Beresfort Francois's mother, we have explored the Gory or Gaury name in Bainet for clues as to her origins. Her 1859 death certificate is highly problematic. The document is partly illegible and the full name of Anne Marie Joseph Gaury's mother Victoire cannot be determined. Fortunately, the estimated age of around 60 was plausible for Beresfort's mother. We know two of his siblings were said to have been born in c.1818 and 1816, which would suggest the mother was probably born in the late 1700s or very early 19th century. We suspect Annie Marie Joseph Gaury was born in the 1790s or so. And indeed we found someone named Anne Marie Joseph Gory born in 1793.

Anne Marie Joseph Gory was baptized in April 1793. Her mother was Victoire Gory, but the father is not named. Note the godfather was a Jean-Baptiste Merillac. Who was the Joseph Gaury named in her 1859 death certificate?

Almaïde François, the sister of our great-great-great-grandfather died in 1888. According to the document, she was 70 and therefore born in c.1818.

We did search ANOM's Baynet files for Joseph Gaury or Gory. To our surprise, there was indeed a Joseph Gory, the son of Jean-Baptiste Gory. However, his baptismal record from 1748 would have meant he was around 45 years old when Anne Marie Joseph was born. It is possible, but there could be other explanations for Anne Marie Joseph's father's origin.

Agathe Gory was baptized in 1758. She had a son named Joseph in the 1770s.

So, if the Joseph Gory baptized in 1748 is not the father we are looking for, what does that leave us with? The Gory or Gaury were mostly free people of color linked to the Bichot, Sougrain, Pitiot and other families of similar backgrounds. Many of the marriages, baptisms, and deaths recorded in Bainet for Gory or Gaury involve the descendants of two men, perhaps brothers: Jean-Baptiste Gory and Francois Gory. Jean-Baptiste's father was named Louis Gory, who was probably also the father of Francois, too. These two Gory fathered multiple children, including the Joseph Gory born in 1748. The other ones include Marie Francoise Gory, Francoise and Francois Gory, Jean Louis, Marie Victoire, Pierre, Agathe, Elisabeth, Jacques, and Guillaume. One person with a Gory mother included a Joseph Guillaume Deslande, son of Agathe. A few others were born in the second half of the 18th century to Gory mothers. Unless one of them fathered a Joseph Gaury that does not appear in the records, we are still in the dark as to the origins of Anne Marie Joseph's father. 

Agathe Gaury actually died in 1788.

It seems rather unlikely that Joseph Guillaume Deslande would have dropped his father's name, although he is of the right age range (born in 1776) to have been Anne Marie Joseph's (very young) father. A 1776 birth would have made him in his late teens when Annie Marie Joseph was born in the late 1790s or early 1800s. Then he could also have still been alive in 1859, residing in the bourg of Bainet. However, as previously stated, it seems unlikely that Joseph Guillaume would have used his mother's name.

Joseph Guillaume was about the right age to have been the father of Anne Marie Joseph and live well into the 19th century. 

In 1794, a Pierre Gaury passed away. He was almost certainly the Pierre Gory baptized in 1761 and a son of Jean-Baptiste Gory. Note the mention of his habitation. This Pierre would have been an uncle to Joseph Guillaume Deslande (or Delande) and a cousin of Marie Victoire.

But can we identify Victoire Gory, the mother of Anne Marie Joseph? The only person with that name is Marie Victoire Gory, who had married a grif named Michel Pitiot in 1765. That man, the son of a Pitiot and a a slave, had a child with Marie Victoire (daughter of Francois Gory and a Sougrain) named Jean Joseph Gabriel Pitiot, born in 1781. Interestingly, the godfather was Jean-Baptiste Merillac, the very same man who served as the godfather of Annie Marie Joseph. Is it possible that Marie Victoire was the same Victoire who gave birth to Anne Marie Joseph in 1793? It it possible, since her baptism in 1749 would have made her in her 40s in 1793. If she had a child with her cousin, the Joseph Gory, baptized the year before, then Anne Marie Joseph was the fruit of kissing cousins in their 40s.

Marie Victoire Gory's son had the same godfather as Anne Marie Joseph. 

Our theory is that Anne Marie Joseph Gory's mother may have been the daughter of a brother or cousin of Marie Victoire. Since there was a plethora of related individuals bearing the name Gory, and all connected to L'islet, like Victoire, perhaps Victoire was born to one of them and we simply have not located any trace of her yet. Otherwise Marie Victoire was indeed Anne Marie Joseph's mother. Either way, her child born in 1781 had the same godfather as Anne Marie Joseph, suggesting that he knew Victoire Gory and Marie Victoire. We are inclined to believe Anne Marie Joseph Gory's mother was related somehow to Marie Victoire or the other Gory (descendants of Jean-Baptiste Gory). 

In 1749, Marie Victoire was baptized. Her mother was  a Sougrain.

All of this confirms that Beresfort Francois's mother was from an ancien libre lineage linked to L'Islet. Beresfort's father, however, does not appear in any records we have searched. As we already assumed he was a former slave or child of former slaves, finding any trace of him will be exceedingly difficult. But we at least know what part of Bainet Beresfort's mother came from, and some of her family connections. Perhaps his father was from the same section of Bainet? 

In 1781, the widow of Francois Gory, Marie Francoise Sougrain, died. Note that one of the witnesses was Jean-Baptiste Marillac, who was the godfather of Anne Marie Joseph Gory in 1793.

It is probable that the Marie Sougrain baptized in 1718 was the same woman who married Francois Gory. She was an illegitimate child of Alexis Sougrain and freed by her Sougrain grandfather (Francois Sougrain?).

We will take a break from our obsessive Bainet historical and genealogical rantings at this point. We are more interested in the African and Creole slave population and do not have the sources needed to really begin to explore those questions. Free people of color in a colonial slave society are fascinating, but we are more interested in Africa and the African origins of the Haitian people.