New genealogical discoveries reveal that the family tradition goes back more than 350 years !<\/b><\/p>\n
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Covid-19 confinement has a major impact on economy and on our working habits. Individual schedules have been completely changed but that new way of working is fine to work on files we don\u2019t have time to treat in normal times.<\/p>\n
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Historical and genealogical research are a good example of this. Time-consuming and with no guarantee results, those researches are setting aside to deal with concrete daily files.<\/p>\n
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In 2017, according to my first genealogical research, I was able to prove that Jean Charlois (1807-1879) was already wood splitter during first half of the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0century. While going back through the Charlois family history, archives of the municipality of Chaulgnes are showing that Jean Charlois\u2019 father and grandfather were roofers. Interesting from a family point of view but not essential to establish the Charlois family legitimacy as a key player in forestry and stave mill.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dating back to the beginning of the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0century was actually an excellent evidence of an ancestral know-how. So, I was suspending my research keeping in mind that roofers shall certainly use oak tiles\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Three years later, Covid-19 confinement allows me to continue to consult archives that today reveal the ancestors of Jean Charlois, in the direct ascending line, were already wood splitters in the middle of the 17th<\/sup>\u00a0century; the oldest one was Jacques Charlois (?-1688), great-grandfather of the great-grandfather of Jean Charlois (1807-1879).<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This fabulous discovery means, among other things, that Jacques Charlois was splitting wood in the Bertranges forest in the reign of Louis XIV at a time when Colbert took possession of the Duchy of Nevers on behalf of Mazarin and when the Ordinance of Water and Forest (1669) was adopted.<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n One of the oldest document mentioning that a Charlois was splitter is the death certificate of Perrette L\u00e9gar\u00e9 (4 July 1668), wife of Jacques Charlois: \u201cle quatriesme de juillet 1668 est d\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9e Perrette Lesgar\u00e9 femme de Jacques Charloys fendeur demeurant en cette parroisse laquelle a est\u00e9 inhum\u00e9e dans l\u2019\u00e9glise le cinquiesme du dit mois et an, en pr\u00e9sence de Gabriel Lesgar\u00e9 p\u00e8re de la d\u00e9ffuncte charbonnier<\/i>\u00a0[..]\u00a0et de Fran\u00e7ois et Pierre Charloys vignerons de cette parroisse fr\u00e8res dudit Jacques Charloys<\/i>\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We can also notice in that certificate that Jacques Charlois\u2019 brothers, Fran\u00e7ois and Pierre, were wine-growers. It is not surprising in a wine country where, for example, during the year 1730, 70% of the certificates in Chaulgnes concern inhabitants registered as wine-growers. That same year, the death certificate of Estiennette Charlois indicates that her father, Louis Charlois, first cousin of Jacques Charlois (1689-1733), was an oak tiles roofer.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lives of labour testifying the obvious link between wood split, roof cover and viticulture in the Charlois family for centuries. Those activities having as common denominator the oak, and the Bertranges forest, always at the forefront of Charlois group activities.<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nothing better illustrates that link than a poem of Achille Millien about the wood splitters in the Bertranges forest: \u201cLe bois sous le coutre \u00e9clate.<\/i>\u00a0\/\u00a0Voici pour nos toits la latte,<\/i>\u00a0\/\u00a0Pour nos ceps les \u00e9chalas<\/i>\u00a0\/\u00a0Et le merrain pour la Tonne<\/i>\u00a0\/\u00a0Dont le vin doux, \u00e0 l\u2019automne,<\/i>\u00a0\/\u00a0Rend la verve aux esprits las<\/i>\u201d (\u201cWood under the coutre is bursting.<\/i>\u00a0\/\u00a0Here are the roof batten,<\/i>\u00a0\/\u00a0The stakes for the vines<\/i>\u00a0\/\u00a0And the staves for the tanks\u00a0<\/i>\/\u00a0Whose sweet wine in autumn,\u00a0<\/i>\/\u00a0Is giving back verve to weary minds<\/i>\u201d).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Guillaume Tozer<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Picture: Death certificate of Perrette L\u00e9gar\u00e9, 1668 \u00a9 Archives d\u00e9partementales de la Ni\u00e8vre<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New genealogical discoveries reveal that the family tradition goes back more than 350 years ! Covid-19 confinement has a major impact on economy and on our working habits. Individual schedules have been completely changed but that new way of working is fine to work on files we don\u2019t have time to treat in normal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-non-classe"],"yoast_head":"\n