Who do you think you are?
The public misconception of archives as big buildings full of dusty documents, ancient ledgers and shelf upon shelf of piles of paper could not be further from the truth. A recent BBC Television series has proved that archives are places where family trees grow. The team at Jersey Archive reveal just how much satisfaction they get from helping people to trace their roots.
16 THE HERITAGE MAGAZINE The Jersey Archive find out more about his mother and Church records reveal that Anna JERSEY ARCHIVE IS MUCH grandfather who lived in Jersey was baptised at the Town Church on more than the Island’s repository of through the Occupation. 5th April 1835. She was the only child official and private documents. It does not matter whether those of Josué Boudier and Anna Bishop. Between the lines scribed on interested in genealogy are household Josué died within a year or two and his records in States, parish, church, names or the average person in the wife remarried at St Clement’s Church business and individual collections lie street, everyone who sets out to trace on 11th March 1838. the stories of Islanders, from the lives of their ancestors is likely to community leaders to ordinary souls find the experience a life-changing Church records who, as they went about their business one. By delving into the past anyone Church of England records are a vital hundreds of years ago, could never can learn more about themselves and source of family history information, have imagined that in the future their the individuals who were part of their especially before the civil registration deeds would form part of the rich history. Usually a fascinating tale or of births, marriages and deaths became tapestry of Jersey’s social history. two pops up and unresolved questions statute in the UK in 1837 and in Jersey In association with the Channel emerge to be answered. in 1842. Islands Family History Society, the When researching further back, award-winning Archive in Clarence Anna’s story genealogists have to rely on church Road has established itself as the first The Archive, like all repositories of records, as baptisms, marriages and port of call for historians, researchers official documents and personal burials have been recorded since 1538. and professional and amateur records, is the best place to start and it Jersey’s earliest surviving register genealogists. is one of the archivist’s greatest comes from St Saviour’s Church and is The huge worldwide interest in pleasures to help to unravel family dated 1540. The early registers of all genealogy was illustrated in the second mysteries. Jersey’s parish churches are held at the series of BBC Television’s Who Do You The BBC2 series inspired the Archive and, following conservation Think You Are? series screened over Archive Assistants to undertake an by Archive staff, those dated before the winter. exercise to show how easy it is to make 1842 have been transcribed and have The Channel Islands featured yet those first shoots appear on a family been indexed by the Channel Islands again when actress Sheila Hancock’s tree. They focused on 19th-century Family History Society. search ended in St Peter Port as her Islander Anna Esther Boudier and then The Anglican Church records show great, great, great-grandmother, set about tracing her ancestors, their that Anna’s stepfather was John Peele, ground-breaking merchant woman lives, relationships and the houses in an ornamental painter born in St Ann-Judith Zurhorst, retired from which they lived. Anna’s story has its George’s Parish, Middlesex. London to Guernsey in the 1840s. own unresolved questions and Anna was not an only child for Jersey Archive was involved in the mysteries, but in looking at the records long. The family soon grew. In 1839 first series when archivists helped Have held at the Archive the staff were able Maria Grace was born, followed by I Got News For You star Ian Hislop to to piece together a picture of her life. John Thomas in 1841 and five years
Entry of baptism for Anna Esther Boudier
THE HERITAGE MAGAZINE 17 Entry of burial for John Thomas Peele, half-brother of Anna Esther Boudier
later by James Joseph. The 1841 individuals. It is the first census been in transit and fell through the census listed Anna residing at 25 King available on microfilm at the Archive. official net. This left 16-year-old Anna Street with her mother, stepfather and Through the ten-yearly census returns living in Jersey with no obvious trace half-sister. it is possible to plot the movement and of her mother and half-siblings. growth of families over a period of 60 The changing face of Jersey years up to and including 1901, the 1861 Census Anna’s childhood coincided with a census most recently opened for public The 1861 census recorded Anna still period of unprecedented growth and access. The returns are a mine of living at Valpy’s boarding school but great social change. After the Battle of information for all sorts of historians she was described then as a governess. Waterloo in 1815, Europe enjoyed a but are closed to public access for 100 Valpy’s school was probably one of a period of peace, which lasted till the years as they contain personal number of Dame schools – small second half of the century. Following information – which is frustrating for private establishments, many of which the end of the Napoleonic Wars many family historians. were run exclusively for girls – army and navy officers retired to Jersey. In the 1851 census Anna is operating in Jersey in the second half At the other end of the social scale, recorded as being a boarder at Valpy’s of the 19th century. Five unmarried English, Irish and Scottish labourers school at 30 Union Street, St Helier. sisters ran Valpy’s and in 1861 they had came to work on large capital projects Interestingly, her stepfather was by four boarders and one schoolmistress. such as the harbour improvements. By then living alone in London and there The Archive Assistants continued 1837 the population had doubled and is no trace of Anna’s mother and to use the census records to track new roads and properties were built to siblings either in the Channel Islands Anna’s life. By 1871 she had left accommodate the boom. or the UK. The Archive Assistants Valpy’s and was living on the The growing population of St have assumed that the death of young Esplanade with Charles Pirouet and his Helier and the poor quality of water John may have prompted a move and wife, Jane. Charles is listed as a supplies led to a series of cholera that the rest of the family may have merchant, aged 49, and it would epidemics. In 1832, there were 787 appear that Anna was a lodger but was recorded cases and 341 deaths in ten still working as a governess. weeks. These epidemics underlined In 1881 Anna was still residing the need for a palatable water supply with the Pirouets, but at 7 Pier Road, and public sewers. During the second today the headquarters of the Société cholera epidemic of 1849, the Health Jersiaise and next door to the Jersey Committee kept daily cholera returns, Museum and the offices of the Jersey indicating who was infected and who Heritage Trust. died. Sadly, Anna’s half-brother, John, By 1891 Anna was living at 41 La was one the fatalities. Motte Street, the house of Jane Pirouet, and her occupation was Census data recorded as ‘of independent means’. The census records are also a vital In 1901 Anna was still boarding but source of information for genealogists. this time at 30 Belmont Road. The first UK decennial census was So much of Anna’s life was spent taken in 1801, but it was another 40 moving from one town location to years, in 1841, before the census gave another. She never married, and in her Jersey Times Almanac advertisement for Valpy’s school details of names and addresses of testament made in 1913 she left
18 THE HERITAGE MAGAZINE everything to her cousin, Frederica exception of her biens paraphernaux. becoming John, Philippe becoming Maria Brodie. The wills and The 1861 census lists a Hannah Philip) and the surnames frequently testaments of movable property Peele as a dressmaker, living with her misspelt - or just plain wrong if the (household goods, shares, money, etc.) son, James Peele, aged 15, and enumerator was not familiar with made in Jersey from 1660 to 1985 are daughter, Grace M Hammond, a them. also in the care of the Archive. widow, aged 22, in Cotton Street, St In 1861 Anna/Hannah was still Mary’s District, Whitechapel. Hannah living in the Whitechapel district. Anna’s mother is listed as being 42 years old and the Whitechapel was home to a large The relationship between Anna’s head of the household – her marital population by the 1840s and many mother and her second husband is an status is still given as married rather parts of the district were poverty intriguing one. than widowed but there was no trace stricken - as illustrated on Charles In November 1838, just six of John Peele. Booth’s map of London showing areas months after their marriage, Anna Even though Anna Peele had of social population. The maps are Bishop (women in Jersey continued to become Hannah, it can be reasonably available on the internet. Whitechapel be known by their maiden names) and assumed that this was Anna’s mother. Road, which ran through the centre of John Peele obtained a separation des Her place of birth was given as Jersey, the district, was not particularly biens in the Royal Court. As a widow, and although her age was incorrect, squalid, but the alleys and backstreets Anna would have been entitled to keep the names and ages of her children that branched from it were prime items of personal usage - biens corresponded. In the nineteenth examples of poor, filthy and dangerous paraphernaux - from Josué’s movable century illiteracy was common and living conditions. estate, and the separation would have names were often misspelt, and people Charles Booth’s maps of London preserved this on her remarriage. On did not know their precise dates of are wonderful visual representations marriage, a husband became entitled birth. Jersey Christian names were of life in the city and are coloured to his wife’s moveable estate with the often anglicised in the census (Jean street by street, with each colour
7 Pier Road
7 Pier Road: The home of Anna Esther Boudier in 1881, now the Societé Jersiaise premises, next door to the Jersey Museum
THE HERITAGE MAGAZINE 19 representing different scales of poverty The first local record is the marriage of the land registry for Anna’s name, the and wealth Estienne Boudier to Ann Payn in 1721. Archive Assistants found that in 1847 – Ann and Estienne had three children at the age of 21 – she owned a house in The family in Jersey including John Boudier, born in 1721 Don Street, which her grandfather had Although Anna’s immediate family and baptised in the Town Church. bought as new in 1813. moved to London in around 1851, her John married twice and had nine Anna’s mother appointed a tuteur extended family, including her children with his second wife, to act on her behalf, and on 19th June maternal grandmother, stayed in Elizabeth Falle, whom he married in St 1847 Thomas Gallichan sold the Jersey. Anna’s maternal grandmother Saviour’s Church on 10th March property for the sum of 72 quartiers of was Anne Magdelaine, the daughter of 1756. The second youngest of their wheat of rente – rente is an annual Philippe Le Geyt and Elizabeth Riolet children, Josué, was Anna’s charge made on land similar to a dit l’Hermité. She was born in 1783 grandfather. mortgage and wheat rente was paid on and baptised on 15th October in the Josué married Esther Le Gallais and a yearly basis. Subsequent contracts in Town Church. She married Thomas they had two sons, Jean, baptised on the land registry show that Anna sold Bishop in St Helier on 20th July 1805 10th October 1806 and Anna’s father, her right to receive the rente for a cash and their daughter Anna, Anna’s Josué, baptised on 1st March 1809. payment. It seems safe to assume that mother, was born in 1815. The Archive holds the testament of a governess living in St Helier had Anne appears in the 1851 census as movable property of Josué Boudier more use for a cash sum than an annual a widow, aged 67, living in Don Street. senior, in which he left his property to payment of wheat. Her profession was given as dressmaker be divided between his wife and sons. and she was listed as the head of the The testament was made in 1824, two Archive resources household, which also included her 30- years before his death. The Archive Assistants were able to year-old dressmaker daughter, Eliza Perhaps Anna stayed in Jersey piece together a large amount of Fleury, and her son, William, aged ten. because of her paternal family information about Anna’s story and Ten years later Anne was still alive connections and her inheritance of her life in the Island by looking at the and living in St Helier with Maria property in Jersey from her uncle, various records at their fingertips. Brodie and her daughter, Frederica. Jean. The Archive also holds the Some provided just brief glimpses of Maria was the sole recipient of Anna’s Island’s Public Registry, which records what must have been major influences worldly goods on her death in 1913. the details of land transactions relating on her life: her father dying when she The Boudier family moved to to individuals from 1602 to the was only three, her mother re- Jersey from France in the 18th century. present day. By searching the index to marrying, inheriting property at the age of 12 and being left in Jersey when her mother moved to London. If you would like to try to find out more about your ancestors in Jersey, the Archive is open to the public from 9am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm, Tuesdays to Thursdays. It has a late night opening to 7pm on the last Thursday in the month. The catalogue is available on-line by clicking on the catalogue link on the Jersey Heritage Trust website, www.jerseyheritagetrust.org. The Archive staff are always available to help new readers and volunteers from the Channel Islands Family History Society are happy to help people trace their roots.
The Archive Assistants at Jersey Archive compiled this article.
Death notice of Anna Esther Boudier
20 THE HERITAGE MAGAZINE Map showing Don Street where Anna Esther Boudier inherited a property
THE HERITAGE MAGAZINE 21