Help translating text in an "état civil"

Bonjour,

I am doing genealogical research on the line in my family that came to the USA from Saint-Domingue, now Haiti. All the records are in handwritten French, of course. I've looked at so many, that I've figured out most of the words by now, but I've come across the most important one (the mysterious great-great-great-great grandfather), and it is written at a much later date (1807) in Spanish Santo Domingo, and not by a parish priest, so the language used is a bit different. Here is what I could use help with:

Would it make sense to say "demeurante ancien Couvent de Sainte-Claire" with no preposition to mean "resident of the former Convent of Saint-Claire"? The word "ancien" may be a different word altogether. Honestly it looks like aueuu with a dot over the e or aucuu.

Does "alguirsil" look like any word in French? The context is: "Balthazar Lus Neyes (?) alguirsil du Conseil des notables majeur demeurant a Santo Domingo..."

How would you translate "temoins par elle amenés exprès"?

I've attached the file, in case that helps.

Thanks!

Sue

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etatcivil.jpg, 1.8 MB

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on October 25, 2011 at 8:55pm

Your first case does make sense. In everyday contemporary French, it would be "demeurant à l'ancien...". But it was once common to make the gerund agree here, so that the feminine form would be "demeurante...". And at least in legalese, it's not uncommon to miss out the "à". Similarly, you might find a contract talking about a company "cis 10 rue Nouvelle, Paris" rather than "cis à...". So I think your interpretation does make sense.

I'm a bit baffled by the remaining parts you mention, though. I wonder if what you'reading as "algursil" is actually two words, with a word break after the "l". I think what you're reading as a "g" could actually be a "q" (if you look at the rest of the document, the writer seems to have loopier "g"s generally). But I'm really not sure about the interpretation of the other letters either.

I suppose at a pinch, "temoins par elle amenes expres" could mean something like "witnesses brought along by her expressly for this purpose". But I'm actually not sure about the word you're reading as "expres"-- doesn't the first letter look a lot like an "l" in this handwriting? (What that then makes the word, I'm not sure...)

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on October 25, 2011 at 8:56pm

I wonder if there's a specialist at the languages department of your local university used to reading handwriting from this period that might be interested in making a little bit of cash to help you out with this?

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Permalink Reply by Sue on October 29, 2011 at 4:09am

Dear Neil,

Thank you for the response. I read through a few more of the entries in the records, and they repeatedly use the phrase "par elle/lui amenés exprès" (the letters are clearer in some of the other entries). I also found the Spanish word "alguacil", which means judge or officer of some sort, and that makes sense given that this is on the side of Hispaniola that was Spanish territory but at the time controlled by France. Thank you for taking the time to look at the record and provide your thoughts!

Cheers,

Sue

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on October 29, 2011 at 10:41am

Interesting -- it did occur to me it might be a Spanish word, but I couldn't think what!

Sounds like the other word is "exprès" then and I suspect the meaning is as I suggested-- it effectively means "for this purpose".