Leignes

This site shares the results of my off and-on research into my family’s history ever since one of my elderly aunts in the Netherlands shared a distant relative’s genealogical notes. These notes contained some interesting family names that suggested a French origin for at least some of my ancestors. In particular, the name “Guillaume Leignes” piqued my interest, as well as the name of a daughter “Marie Magdalaine Leignes” born in 1765 – from whom I descend through my father’s mother’s family. No other dates or place of birth listed for her or her father, or even a name for her mother mentioned, so the question remained: where did they come from and when did they or their ancestors arrive in the Netherlands?

I eventually found Marie Magdalaine’s 1765 christening record from the French or Walloon Church in Amsterdam in the Amsterdam Archives which listed the name of her mother – Antonia Voogt – as well as her father, Guillaume Leignes. I subsequently found the “Ondertrouw” registration (somewhat like a marriage license in the Netherlands) for Antonia Voogt and Guillaume Leignes also in the Amsterdam Archives and this stated that Guillaume was born in the Dutch city of Groningen. The document also listed the names of both parents and put me on the trail of Guillaume’s father, Pierre Leignes and his mother Marie Madeleine Rey.

This information led to the subsequent discovery that Pierre Leignes w was from the Castrais region in the Languedoc province of Southern France and arrived in the Dutch City of Groningen somewhere near the end of the 17th century. He was a protestant or Huguenot refugee from France after his religion had been outlawed there following the  Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 by Louis XIV.

Further searches delivered corroborating information from French sources, such as the the following from a very rare book published in 1924 titled “LES REFUGIES DU PAYS CASTRAIS. Notices biographiques et généalogiques revues et publiées par Gaston Tournier. Ouvrage réservé aux souscripteurs” by DUMONS GERAUD (Capitaine REY LESCURE), which provided the following regarding the Leignes and Rey family connection:

Translation:

Pierre Rey, from Revel, emigrated around 1686; he sought refuge in the Netherlands, as well as his wife Marie Pons, and would receive citizenship in Groningen in 1701: he was a wigmaker.  His daughter Marie-Madeleine had settled in Groningen, having applied to work there as a seamstress; she married Pierre Leignes from Sorèze. A son, Jacques, also lived in Groningen in 1723; he applied for citizenship in 1730 in that city where – having become widowed – he had remarried in 1726. One son of Pierre Rey, citizen of Revel, left France following the Revocation.

This site shares most of the information I have accumulated over the years regarding the Leignes family,  and the families that became connected to them  through marriage since arriving in the Netherlands in the late 1600. This includes the Lutheran Goedhuijs (Guthaus)  family who have a  German  origin and and would have settled in the Netherlands around the same  time.

If you would like to get in touch with me regarding any of the family names mentioned on this site you can  do so via the Contact Form link off the  main menu.