If you cannot bear to read of torture and bloodshed and burnings, do not study the history of French Huguenots. Millions of people in this hemisphere are descendants of French Protestants who fled the terrible persecutions. The Huguenots did not usually emigrate in groups, nor did they cling together in communities.
French names were readily changed and prefixes were dropped. The name de la Hay easily became “Delahay” or “Hay.” Translations were made; du Bois became “Woods,” Chastain is often “Shasta,” etc.
Because the Huguenots had no desire to continue French culture or revere their French heritage, they often knew little of family origins. Only recently has there been a zeal to learn more about the Huguenots and to gain new appreciation of a Huguenot pedigree.
Protestants were not those who sat at dinner discussing the decadence of the clergy, the poverty and repressions upon the poor, the divergence of doctrine, or favoritism of the wealthy. Protestants bashed statuary, cried “heretical dogma” in the streets, organized outside the established church to teach scriptural interpretation and performed ordinations unlawfully.
Huguenots did not rise suddenly in a body of dissidents. In the early 16th century they were standing doctrinally on the shoulders of the Waldenses, anti-Catholics who had hidden in the Alps for centuries. Peter Waldo had left his large holdings in Lyon, France, to become their leader in Bohemia where he died in 1217.
By 1456 the Gutenberg printing press was turning out folio editions of the Bible and Protestantism increased in every nation of Europe. French Protestants hastened into the safety of Switzerland where Calvin had gone to save his life. He gave structure and some unity to the beliefs of Protestants.
The New World was discovered in 1492 and colonization soon followed. Huguenots tried settlements in Florida in the mid-16th century, and successfully established settlements in South Africa by 1652. Many leading families of South Africa today trace to Huguenots. In 1555 Huguenots settled Rio de Janiero in Brazil. This colony was destroyed by the Portuguese.
In 1662 there was a settlement in South Carolina, but all the colonists lost their lives, killed by Spaniards.
All told, more than 2 million Huguenots left France.
Societies for Huguenot research operate in many localities. Dozens of microfilms give lineages traced from individuals such as Dupuy, Chastain, Agee, Petrie, DuLaux, Massey, Cullin, Ellyson and Bernard.
The Huguenot Society of London has gathered the records of hundreds of thousands who fled there from the continent.
La Rochelle and the Paltz colonies in New York, Pennsylvania Huguenots and those in Kansas, Texas and almost every state are represented by societies which have assembled lengthy pedigrees.
The catalog of Huguenot records in the Family History Center is extensive, with 12 reels just for Pennsylvania. Addresses of local societies and those of other areas are available in most libraries.
“The Trail of the Huguenots,” a comprehensive text by G. Elmore Reamon, has recently been updated and reprinted by the Genealogical Publishing Co. of Baltimore Inc.
—Virginia H. Rollings is director of the Family History Center in Denbigh.