Where we find some LeMessiers in France
Where do we find the LeMessiers?
What I call the land of the ancestors is a triangle of St-Denis-le-Thiboult, Vascoeuil and LaHaye. It is a part of the country located at the edge of the area with high Viking penetration. It is also at the intersection of Bray, the Norman Vexin and of Caux country where even today. there is a cauchoise language. The first LeMessier seems to be born out of this triangle. Six generations of LeMessiers lived in this triangle about four by ten kilometers before Michel and Jacques, our first ancestors, crossed the Atlantic.
It was after 911, this area was part of the duchy of Normandy. Later Vascoeuil be granted to the Duke of Normandy. Before 1452, the ancestors lived at Rouen. There are several place names with a northern origin which confirms the presence of Vikings in these places. We even found traces of the Roman occupation in St-Denis-le-Thiboult.
The first Messier known
A contract dated 1312, introduced me to Guillaume LeMessier. This is the first LeMessier known to date. He just bought a land at Perriers-sur-Andelle town located at four kilometers south of Vascoeuil. He is from Renneville, located about two miles southwest of the location of his land, where he was born there around 1284. Where did the ancestors of Guilaume come from? There are not more than six LeMessier generations between the first of that name, and Guillaume. I think that research has limitations. Only chance can bring us additional informations.
In order to determine the dates of births and marriages, I take information provided by my correspondent in France. French researchers have agreed to evaluate 28.8 years, the average age of marriage for men of that period. Personally, I value the birth of children in the fifteen years following the marriage of the couple.
I spoke earlier of the first known LeMessier. The man I consider to be our ancestor, not a distant cousin, Colin LeMessier. It is in Rouen he remains in 1446.
LaHaye on the road to Val St. Pierre
Morville, Jehan LeMessier's land
Let us imagine that Guillaume is 28 years of age and plans to marry in 1312, the year of purchase of his land. Between that date and the birth of Colin around 1395, there are eighty-three years. If this is our ancestor Guillaume, two generations separating him from Colin, that is to say, his father and his grandfather. Where the two men lived? If the grandfather is the son of Guillaume, he was probably born in Perriers-sur-Andelle, but nothing tells us where he lived after her marriage.
The ancestor of Colin may be the brother or uncle of Guillaume. The LeMessier have not increased, as we have seen in Quebec, before the 20th century. There was always at least one that has survived wars, famine or disease. One thing is certain: if Guillaume is not our ancestor, it is a close relative.
Believe that by 1349, between Guillaume, who may still be alive, and Colin LeMessier, plague killed one person in three in Europe. The plague ended, Normandy suffered the Hundred Years War that began in 1350 and ended in 1450 This period has not favored the birth and proliferation of LeMessier.
Text comes from the volume of Gilles Messier : Les Messier et leurs ancêtres, 700 ans d'histoire.