This past spring, we spent two weeks in France searching for Huguenot ancestors and the places they lived. We began in Paris at the Societe de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Francais where the staff was very helpful – they have collected many records from the small villages and towns in France and are well worth a visit.
From Paris, we traveled to the Dordogne to see the Cave of Lascaux and we drove through the river valley lined with castles on almost every hilltop. We stopped in several small towns on our way to the coast looking for the villages our ancestors had left more than 300 years ago, stopping in Montigne, Mauze, Pons, Sepvret, La Granerie, La Mothe-Saint-Heray to name a few.
The most surprising thing we found was the architecture which remains from the 12th to 17th centuries – we have photographs of all the seventeenth century walls in all the towns we visited and we will share them with you in future blogs.
We spent a wonderful long weekend on Ile-de-Re, more time in La Rochelle at the departmental archives and then south to La Tremblade where we spent Easter and then to Bordeaux and home.
Visit the website of the Huguenot Society of South Carolina to see a more detailed account of our trip in the Huguenot Herald. There will be an even more in-depth article in Transactions #118 which will be out later this year.
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