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From:
Subject: Re: Hourtal, Combes
Date: 18 Dec 2005 02:29:56 -0700
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Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/ZUC.2ACI/142.3.1
Message Board Post:
I am IBriens' sister, aged 59 and I still live in Castres, France, the birthplace of Gabriel Hourtal. Our grandfather was Henry Douat, his mother (our great-grandmother ) was Nathalie Hourtal, the sister of Gabriel Hourtal. I have interviewed my mother, Henry's daughter, now aged 87. Here is what I have been able to find out about Gabriel Hourtal :
As my sister says, he ran away from home at age 18, to "go to America", but his father did not agree and had him brought back home by the police.
He went to America again a few years later (but when ?) and there married an Irish girl.
According to my mother, he wanted at one point to come back to live in France, but his wife did not speak French and did not like it here, so they went back to America. There is a record of his coming through Ellis Island in 1892, he was then aged 38, I think it must have been that time.
In the mid 1930s he created a mild sensation by suddenly appearing on the doorstep of his former family house, which was then inhabited by his cousin Joseph (Henry's brother, my great-uncle), his wife and daughters. He was accompanied by his son, Celestin (it seems that Gabriel gave his children the same names as his sister Nathalie). They had walked all the way from the station. Gabriel spoke English with a strong Southern French accent and could still speak our regional dialect. Naturally his son spoke perfect English and no French.
Of course the whole family were invited to meet this "American Uncle" and my mother remembers him well. He had wanted to see his old country again before he died, and indeed he died only a couple of years later, in America. His family sent notice of his death. I still have hopes of finding this among my mother's family papers.
I am not sure whether Gabriel was in the army, but I do know that he had a brother who was. This brother went to Italy with a French corps, to fight for the Pope.
To answer your query, Ida : Combes is a very frequent family name in our area of Southern France. If Richard Combes was born in England, he was perhaps from a French Protestant family who had fled persecution. But this is only supposition.
To return to Gabriel Hourtal, one thing I would like to know : where did he settle on arriving to America, and did he by any chance take part in a expedition to the West in a wagon train ?
Best wishes to all my American cousins.
Odile
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