Translation to be reviewed. This page is a translation of the French original, which remains the reference. Read the French version
Claude Martin’s method
Without the Internet or any online genealogy database, Claude Martin traced, one by one, people of Clairac who left after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His typewritten record extracts show how he went about it.
This page draws on his typed record extracts (Claude Martin’s archives), presented document by document on the page Claude Martin’s record extracts (codes G01 to G18), and on what the exhibition panel devoted to him and the press say about them. It describes only what these documents show.
A researcher by night
The exhibition panel says he could give the date of a baptism in 1621 or the witnesses of a marriage in 1674; he noted his information on scraps of paper or on the backs of envelopes. [A] According to Sud Ouest, after his day at his father’s fabric shop, he spent his nights reconstructing the genealogy of Clairac families, searching the departmental and municipal archives and questioning local people. [D]
He “wrote little”, the panel reports. [A] This makes his record extracts all the more valuable: they are what preserves the trace of his work.
The archives he searched
Only the sources written on his record extracts are listed here, with the references he noted.
| Source | Institution and references noted | Documents in the collection |
|---|---|---|
| Poor-relief registers of the French Reformed Church of Frankfurt am Main | Frankfurt municipal archives, “Archiv. des französisch Reformierten B. 156” (41 volumes, 1685-1855): Tome 107 (1685-1688), then registers 108 to 119 (up to 1727); the register and often the page | G03, G05, G01 (1966 article) |
| Parish registers of the French Reformed Church of Hanau | Cited in the first note of the 1966 article, without a shelf mark | G01 |
| Minutes of the notaries of Clairac | Notaries Gadiot, Thoré and Fréron (1690-1711), “Etude Me Roubet Not. a Clairac”; now in the Lot-et-Garonne departmental archives; the notary and the date of the deed | G05, G17 |
| Publications of the Huguenot Society of London | Printed volumes of the registers of the French churches of London (Threadneedle Street, Savoy, Leicester Fields), Dublin, Portarlington and Southampton; the volume and the page (“7:117”) | G15, G14 |
| Wills, letters and deeds of refugee families | Wills of 1692 and 1705, letters of 1729 and 1752, a notarial deed from Clairac, cited without a precise reference | G04 |
| Deed of the notary Gadiot of 26 August 1718 | “Enrôlement pour la Louisiane” (enlistment for Louisiana), presented by Claude Martin at the congress of learned societies in Nantes in 1972 (cited by an article of 2017) | G16, his publications |
We do not know how he consulted the Frankfurt registers: on site, by correspondence or from copies. None of his record extracts says so.
Recording, line by line
In the Frankfurt registers, Claude Martin copies out each person from Clairac assisted by the French church, with their trade, their witnesses and sometimes the town they moved on to. His record extract G03 has 81 lines, taken from 8 registers, and refers 15 times to a specific page of the register.
“Paul LOCCAN de Clérac en Guienne officier dans les troupes de France.”
Extract from the Frankfurt registers, Tome 107, 1686 (G03) — translation: “Paul LOCCAN of Clérac in Guyenne, officer in the troops of France.”
For England and Ireland, he went through the volumes published by the Huguenot Society of London and noted, for each entry, the volume and the page: 61 entries concerning people from Clairac (“Clérac”, “Cleyrac”), from 1608 to 1742 (G15).
“p. 113 Reconnaissance de Jean VILLEBOIS, natif de Clairac en Guienne, le 26 août 1728 (date de la Reconnaissance à Dublin).”
Extract from the Publications of the Huguenot Society of London (G15) — translation: “p. 113 Recognition of Jean VILLEBOIS, native of Clairac in Guyenne, 26 August 1728 (date of the Recognition in Dublin).”
He explains his approach himself at the head of the record extract devoted to Lot-et-Garonne outside Clairac:
“Le but de ces recherches était de trouver d'autres lieux d'origine des Huguenots, en plus des centres les plus importants. Donc après avoir consulté les 20 premiers tomes des Publications de la Société Huguenotte de Londres, […]”
Claude Martin (G14) — translation: “The aim of this research was to find other places of origin of the Huguenots, besides the main centres. So, after consulting the first 20 volumes of the Publications of the Huguenot Society of London, […]”
Cross-checking sources
A departure does not only show up in the host countries. Claude Martin also looks for the traces left in Clairac: in the notaries’ minutes, wills, marriages or receipts mention a relative who is a “fugitif du royaume” or “hors du royaume” (a fugitive, outside the kingdom). His working document G05 sets the Frankfurt registers side by side with 29 notarial deeds from 1690 to 1711.
In the same document, the people of Clairac are underlined and numbered in the margin, from beginning to end, among refugees from the whole region: a way of counting them. We do not know whether these marks are in his hand.
He also presents the same people in several ways: in alphabetical order with their destination (The emigrants of Clairac, G06), or by host country with places and dates, in a list that ends with a “Table des noms de lieux cités” (table of place names cited) (G02). His lists do not always agree with one another: he reworked them, and their figures do not count the same thing.
From working notes to published article
A sheet of notes, “Réfugiés de Bergerac” (G18), and his 1966 article on the refugees of the Lower Dordogne (G01) make it possible to follow his work through to publication. The sheet has 55 lines, 38 of them preceded by a dash. 38 of its lines appear in the article, in the same order; 35 of them are lines with a dash.
The article does not keep everything: only the sheet gives each person’s destination. On the other hand, it adds summaries, such as a count of trades and places of origin.
Continuing his research
Because he noted the register, the volume, the page or the notary, each of his lines can be checked in the original source, and taken further. What we do not yet know:
- when he typed his lists: the dates on the copies (2017-2019) are those of their digitisation;
- who added the underlining, the numbers and the handwritten corrections on some record extracts;
- whether all the references to registers and volumes are accurate: they remain to be checked in the original collections.
Claude Martin’s record extracts From Clairac to the world Contribute
Sources
- [A] Exhibition panel “Claude Martin” (PDF, original document in French)
- [D] Catherine Darbord and Jean Escodo, “Une passionnante histoire de famille” (A fascinating family story), Sud Ouest (sudouest.fr, Tonneins section), 20 July 2017 — online article (article not reproduced on this site) — record in the archives
- Claude Martin’s typed record extracts (G01 to G18): one record per document, with the original document