Charlet / Immigrants from Picardy

[TimRose]

Has anyone come across the community of weavers who came to Edinburgh in 1729? They are remembered in the street name Picardy Place which is where they lived and worked.

I am descended from an Ann Charlot (b. Edinburgh 1766) who was the daughter of Charles Charlott ("weaver from his house in Picardy") (married Mary Sommervile 27/3/1755, died 14/10/1794, aged 58 so would have been born about 1736).

I can find no record of Charles's birth. However....in 1729 half a dozen or so families of weavers emigrated from Picardy in France to Edinburgh. These included a Jean Charlet and Marie Marguerite Charlet (who seem to have changed their names to James and Margaret to become a bit more local) who had children Jean James in 1727 and George Aguste in 1729. Jean remarried to Suzanne Dauson 25/2/1734 and they had a child (Suzanne) at the end of 1734.

Charlet/Charlot/Charlott is a very rare name in Scotland at the time, here we have a couple who are having children at the right time, living in the same street in Edinburgh as my Charles, with the same occupation. I think that the chances of it being the right people are pretty good but that the birth record has been lost in the mists of time.
Is it fair to just make this assumption without the documents to prove it?
Has anyone else connected with these French immigrants?

Tim

[Russell]

Hi Tim

I would be inclined to make the assumption but leave a question mark in place just in case. Most folk find that managing to get this far back documentation runs out so confirmation is hard to find. Documents keep turning up, sometimes in most unusual places so you might still find that piece of the jig-saw.
My reservations are based on Scottish emigration patterns (not the diaspora of the Clearances) where there were occasions that an entire family including cousins, uncles, aunts made the trip and us modern day researchers are left with a whole collection of folk with the same surname and many examples of the same forename cropping up.
Who knows ! there might be a mouldering collection of papers/records for the weaving guild suddenly turn up in the back of a garage/garret/guild hall


Russell

[LesleyB]

Hi TimRose

Don't know if you have seen these entries before from David Dobsons book "Huguenot and Scots Links 1575 - 1775" (both on page 16), but if not they may be of interest:

CHARLET, CHARLES ANTOINE, a cambric weaver of Temple le Guerard, arrived in Edinburgh during November 1733, initially he settled in Picardy Place and later in Gorgie, but in 1737 he moved to London where he joined the Threadneedle Street church, he died in 1759.

CHARLET, JAMES, a weaver, with his wife Margaret Fleming, the daughter of Anne Dassauville and niece of Nicolas Dassauville, and son James aged 2, from Picardy via Tournai and Rotterdam bound for Leith, arrived there on 10 October 1729, second son George Augustus was born on 11 October 1729, settled in Candlemaker Row, Edinburgh, was admitted as a burgess and guilds-brother of Edinburgh on 5th August 1730.

There is also mention of:

CHARLOT, ANN, m. James Lumsden, St Cuthberts 8 Jan 1773
CHARLOT, ANN m. James Thomson, N.Leith 14 Jan 1820
CHARLOT, ANN m. John Henderson, St Cuthberts 9 Sept 1799
CHARLOT, CHARLES m. Mary Somerville, St Cuthberts 27 Mar 1755
CHARLOT, Cpt. Daniel, commmissioned Brigadier of HM Scots Troop of Life Guards 25 Aug 1702, naturalised in Scotland 1707.
CHARLOT, James m. Marion Pringle, St Cuthberts 8 April 1769
CHARLOT JAmes m. Mariy Ann O'Neill, St Cuthberts 6 Oct 1795

Best wishes
Lesley

[TimRose]

Thanks Lesley

I had seen the information in David Dobsons book, the James Charlet referred to is the one I am trying to connect to.

There is a French family tree http://www.roelly.org/~pro_picards/prop/pag6.html#40 which has this James Charlet and traces his ancestors back another 3 generations, when you start tracing them back most of the immigrants that arrived in Leith in 1729 were related in some way (often through marriage).
Most of these immigrants came from a village called Templeux-le-Guerard in Picardy. The village today looks tiny (on google earth!), perhaps a dozen or so houses, so it could have been that most of the village emigrated together.

Tim