Hey Everyone!
I don’t remember if I spoke about my Saint-Barthélemy project on Wikitree before but I have one. Which you can view here. It’s basically me researching and talking about the history of the island and its people because my Father’s paternal side of the family is from there. The funny thing about Saint-Barthélemy is that it was a very endogamous place so I’m related to a lot of people in a lot of different ways. There were cousin marriages, double cousins, and half-siblings galore.
If you’ve never heard of Wikitree before it is a World Family tree that is very source-based, meaning you need solid proof to link to the world tree. It took me about 4 years to connect to the world tree and it was not easy because Caribbean-based profiles were basically nonexistent on the site. Like everywhere else it was mostly American and British profiles, I managed to build up a very good portion of the St. Barts community with the help of distant cousins who entered their branches. This played a major role in me developing my project, I wanted to see how many different ways I’d connect to some of these distant cousins so I set out to put up all the family members of the different branches, I’m not even half done because there are still so many people I haven’t found in the records yet.
I’ve been able to connect my Grandfather’s line all the way back to Île d’Yeu and Nantes, France. There is one line, my Chapelain line that I just can’t seem to break through, I know my 3x great grandmother Anne Louise Chapelain sometimes spelled Chapelin was born about 1835 in Saint-Barthélemy and she married my 3x great grandfather Pierre LaPlace sometime around 1856, I’m assuming because I have a 2x great uncle named Louis Joseph LaPlace who was born on July 28, 1857, according to his marriage certificate.
I could not find any other children for this couple beside my uncle and my 2x great grandfather Gabriel.
Gabriel was born on March 4, 1862, according to his marriage certificates (he was married twice) and Anne Louise passed away on September 9, 1863. Her death record as you can see doesn’t list any parents for her so I have no clue who they are, I have also not found a marriage certificate for my grandparents.
What I did find though was a reference to a 3x uncle by name of Joseph Chaplin in the witnesses for Gabriel’s second marriage.
This Joseph would be a very young brother so I’m assuming he was a half brother but I can find no other traces of him.
For now, I’m going to continue with my project and hope that I find something that can help me break down this brick wall.
Talk to you guys later!
Crucianize 