Those French Records: They're all Greek to Me

 

I'd love to say it's all Greek to me, but unfortunately I can't; it's French, and the last time I studied that language...well, let's just say it's beyond my memory currently. But to gain any helpful details on a family member's roots, I'll try anything.

In this case, the possible family connection is to Theresa Blaising Stevens, technically my father-in-law's step-grandmother, but in reality, the only grandmother he ever knew. Theresa came to the United States as a young child—possibly a toddler or even an infant—sometime before she and her family showed up in Indiana for the 1870 census.

Her family, by the time of that 1870 census, was missing one person: Theresa's father, whoever he was. We've seen Theresa's mother Mary's obituary, which mentioned his name as Lawrence Blaising, but we've found two of her brothers' death certificates state their father's name as Henry. This past weekend, it was time for me to see what could be found on the man who supposedly died during wartime, back in France in the 1860s, no matter which given name he claimed.

Ancestry.com made the search rather easy, if the death record featured through their hints system is the right one. Logically—at least for someone whose death was in France—Theresa's father was listed as Laurent, rather than the Americanized Lawrence. That was a discrepancy easily accepted. But for the next detail translated from that block of French handwriting, I had my doubts. Either my French was far more rusty than I thought it was, or we have a problem with this death record.

I tried my hand at transcribing the words into Google Translate, just in case. Of course, what appears to me to be illegible text might, to a native speaker, be easily deciphered. Here is my best rendition of the basic details:

In the year 1882, January 4th at [?] hours in the morning, the death certificate of Laurent Blaising, aged 61, bus driver, born at Romelfing (Meurthe). Died yesterday at 1:00, [at his home at? or] Lived at 47 Chapelle Street. Son of Jean Blaising and Anne Marie Meiller, spouses [or couple?] deceased; married to Marie Hirschbeck aged 52, day laborer....

Whether I've managed to mangle the body of the text or not, there is one thing clear about this portion of the record's information: Mary Blaising did not leave France after this man died; she left long before his 1882 death.

Now, this Laurent Blaising may not be the right husband, notwithstanding the name of that man's wife matching up with what our Mary's name might have been in France ("Marie"). And of course there might be more than one Laurent Blaising with a wife named Marie in the whole of France—or even in their native region of Lorraine.

One thing, however, is certain: this puzzle will require further inspection.