[Ancestor] Boucher

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Husband [Ancestor] Boucher

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Children

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1 M Daniel Boucher ^{1 2 3}

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General Notes: Husband - [Ancestor] Boucher

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The name Boucher is purely a French name and not German in any sense. That the first ancestor spoke the German and not the French language may be better understood by a brief reference to history. During the persecution of the Huguenots in the seventeenth century many of them were banished from France and driven to Lorraine and Alsace, two sparsely settled provinces belonging to the German empire. The persecution was carried to such an extent that these countries became densely populated with French refugees. For this and other reasons Louis the Fourteenth claimed these provinces and, taking them from Germany, they remained under the French dominion until the close of the Franco-Prussian war. While living in these "German States of France" the banished Huguenots learned to speak the German language. It is very common in American biography to find families of French extraction whose ancestors spoke the German language. [BHCWC, 530]

The name Boucher is purely of French origin, although the first ancestor in America spoke the German language. This was likely brought about by the family being among the Huguenots, who were banished from France by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Otherwise he could scarcely have come to America with a French name and a German tongue. But this is entirely speculative and the family has long been recognized as distinctively Pennsylvania German. It was a numerous one in Westmoreland County in the mid 1800s, particularly in Ligonier Valley, but they who bore that name then were nearly all gone by the end of the century, and their descendants were scattered throughout the western states. [HWC 1906 ii, 8]

1 Samuel T. Wiley, Biographical and Historical Cyclopedia of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: John M. Gresham & Co., 1890.), Pg 531.

2 John W. Jordan, History of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, Genealogical Memoirs, Vol. II (Chicago, IL: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1906), Pg 8.

3 Fenwick Y. Hedley, Old and New Westmoreland, Vols. III & IV (New York, NY: The American Historical Society, Inc., 1918), Pg 283.