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Archiver > CARIBBEAN > 2000-10 > 0970424772


From: Jan Bousse <>
Subject: Re: Henry Cerf will and family
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 20:26:12 +0200


wrote:
>
> Dear Christel and all - I thank you for all your interest - I am showing
> Henry Cerf - born 1758, where unknown, died November 18, 1841, Brussels,
> married September 10, 1826, Newland, Gloucester, England, Elizabeth Wint,
> born about 1780, where unknown, died April 2, 1841, Brussels. Their
> daughter, Emilia, married in England, Marcus Ebie Vulgo Debie, of Brussels,
> on February 9, 1825. It could be that Mr. Cerf was originally and born in
> Brussels. - Richard Lyman.

Richard and Christel and Robin and all the rest,

Seeing what you wrote there, what is the obvious thing? Go and look up
archives in Brussels! Right. And who is the obvious choice to do that?
Bousse of course! So shall I volunteer? Ok, just give me some time,
because Brussels is all of 120 Km from Oostende, and I don't go there
often.

I had a closer look at the list that Christel mentioned. It has as title
: Index of Jewish family names which may be found in the dictionary of
Genealogy and Biography of the Jews of Brussels. Under Cerf there are 32
entries, the remarkable aspect is that the places these families came
from to Brussels are mostly nearby, the furthest is Rawicz, which is in
Poland, in 1731 and Berlin in 1846. Taking Richard's last message shown
above as a basis, the places and years that would interest us, assuming
that Henry was born in Brussels, are : Rawicz 1731, Saint-Esprit 1747 (I
haven't found where that is, sounds like France), Bordeaux 1752,
Thermslapen/Rhin 1749 (don't find that one either, and the name sounds
very strange to me), Schweinheim 1755, Edingen 1741 (that's in Belgium)
and finally London 1756. Any of these families may have come to Brussels
and have a son Henry there in 1758.

To answer Christel's question : as I said, Thermslapen/Rhin is totally
unknown to me, and in the list I don't see any explanation what that
asterix means. I'll try to find out from Claude Gudevert, if he is still
around and contactable.

I suppose the long and the short of all this is, that I will explore
what can be found in Brussels, in the National Archives as well as in
the Jewish associations. And to come back to that Jewishness, Richard
said somewhere that he was married in the parish church, all these Cerfs
on the list are classed as Jews, but of course Jews have changed
religion at times, and Henry seems to have made so many caprioles in his
life! But German prince, I don't believe it, not more than that he would
have been the Prince of Bel-Air!

Not end of story!

Jan Bousse, Oostende, Belgium

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