July 19^th, 2020

---

Hi,

The main changes since Spring 2019 are:

• Penal colony related:
  • Thanks to the publication of the book Le Bagne en héritage destins de familles issues de la colonisation pénale Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes Editions. Richly documented and illustrated by each Caledonian family descended from convicts, this book is bound to be a treat for all genealogists concerned (only in French).
  • As well as following my 3-day stay at Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer right before X'mas 2019 : the completion of a long-held dream! Please note: on the ANOM website, the convict registration forms are now available to everyone (reading French...)!
  • Hence, the family sheets of my two convict ancestors, Raphaël BOISSERY and Pierre CHENEVIER, were drastically enriched with the details of their legal journey, their physical description - possibly over time, but above all some letters exchanged with their family, or the wife finding herself in poverty and begging the authorities to let her join her husband with her children on the antipodes. Do not hesitate to check the sources, I have included photos of all the documents for both of them. In some cases, I transcribed the letters.
  • I also intended to go to Aix-en-Provence, to find out if my other ancestor, warder MEYER, had come across my convict ancestors, especially Raphaël BOISERY at the Gouaro agricultural penitentiary center. Alexandre Eléosipe MEYER sheet has therefore also been greatly enriched with numerous details, in particular, his annual evaluations as warder, his correspondence with the administration, and even his punishments. Thanks to Richard MEYER for his analysis of these evaluations, and to Louis-José BARBANCON for his additional information on the “Baskans” affair and the “Bourail trial”.
  • Doing so, I have also updated as much as possible the descent and ancestry of these three ancestors. Two remarks:
  • The reason for the conviction of Raphaël BOISSERY mentioned in Le Bagne en héritage does not seem correct to me: it is his half-sister, Marie-Marguerite BOISSERY widow CAMUS, widow without heirs, and vineyard owner in Fleury-la-Rivière, near Epernay, which he tried to poison!
  • The mystery of MEYER origins is clarified thanks to Frédéric Gadmer family tree sur Filae.com which details the genealogy of the brother of our "roots" Claude Nicolas André MEYER, husband of Catherine GILLET, who died in Chantraines in 1844! I have a very special thought for Gérald and Marie-Hélène MEYER, with whom I would have had great pleasure in sharing these discoveries!
• On the HOISE / LE MONNIER side, lock-down and a few days of forced leave allowed me long discussions with Monique MOURET who provided me with photos. This was, of course, a good opportunity to complete this part of the tree.
• I keep updating step by step the family tree with articles or sketches from Calédoniens by Patrick O'REILLY, published by the Société des Océanistes. Some of these articles were already transcribed by Bernard BERNIER.
• Some of you have informed me of some changes, additions or corrections.

When you surf through the family pages, do not hesitate to click on:

• the name and surname in the frame , to view the exhaustive person sheet. Some are very detailed, with many references.
• , to surf on the ascending family tree
• to spot other pictures if any

All comments are, of course, welcome, especially:

• If you detect some errors or inconsistencies, or for any update, please, contact me!
• if you don't like a picture, or consider you have a better one or that gives a better idea of that person, feel free to contact me.
• if you would like to speed up the site illustration, please do not hesitate to directly provide scanned pictures!

Some figures:

People	14'619
Families	10'111
Surnames	3'882
Places	1'382

For those who did not received previous e-mails, here are some additional information:

Each of you should find him or herself.

However, in order to preserve everyone's private life, only deceased people (or without date of birth) appear with their collected data.

For all the others, only given names first letter is mentioned, and research in the index or in the surname list is disabled.

Best regards,