François du Plessis, III Lord of Richelieu, Neuville, Beçay, Vervolière & le Petit - Francois' lineage

I still live in SA, Nicola - in the middle of the 'melting pot' as it were.

Hi Nicola! I live in England...have done for most of my life, only lived in S.A. for a couple of years with my mother, & her family, in Sutherland, from the age of eighteen months to about four...so I really regard England as my home; but familywise: S.A.!...I was hoping to go to France myself in September, to do some research, but we are now unsure about Jean's parentage, so I think more digging still needs to be done....Need some French (in France, du Plessis'!...they are there!)......

PS Did you try Roglo, Nicola?...For French sites/genealogy...Just type Roglo on Google, & you will get French ancestry. etc.

I lived in the Melting Pot (20 yrs in Cape Town & 20 yrs in Gun City) before making the move across the pond. Im hoping to go back to SA on holiday in March next year and intend spending time in the CT archive as well as going to the churches to see what I can find on other Bensimon ancestors. I think I did try to find Roglo but didnt have much luck. I'll see what I can find re churches that would have been active in Poitiers back in the mid 1500's. Even if the du P's were huguenots back then, they may have been baptised in the catholic church if that was the only church around. Also - they didnt necessarily live in Poitiers itself - they may have been in one of the many villages nearby. There is a small village called Richelieu near Poitiers which I assume must have something to do with the Richelieu branch of the family. I looked on google maps to get an idea of the area and what is around there. I looked for places that crop up in their titles eg Carreliere etc. If they were du Plessis de Carreliere and le Thou & de Breux etc - those must have been place names dont you think? Or at least the names of the estates they owned. The title Seigneur means "Lord" so he was Lord of Carreliere etc. The title Escuyer means Squire.

I know there has been a bit of discussion about who Judith Ann du Mornay was, if indeed she existed. What is currently on Geni lists her as one of Phillipe du Mornay's children, but since he was born in 1549 and she was allegedly born in 1555, this cannot be possible. His birth date is what is on Wiki so therefore I would assume it is true, so either her birth date is totally wrong or she was his sister and not his daughter. Any further comments in this regard from anyone? If she is his daughter, his other children were born in the 1570's, and this would make more sense if Charl du Plessis (her son) was born in 1600. Maybe her birth date was meant to be 1575 and not 1555?

Nicola Bensimon - here is the Discussion http://www.geni.com/discussions/106997 you're looking for on
Judith Anne de Liénard du Mornay#

I'll add your comment there & tag Danielle le Marais and Leith Barnes- both of whom have expressed interest in sorting out her line on Geni.

She is very close to my heart, since I read her mother's diary (available online: http://www.archive.org/stream/huguenotfamilyin00mornuoft/huguenotfa... ), so I'd love you gals to take a look at how we get this right in Geni.

Sharon, I'm struggling to follow your logic and would appreciate an explanation.

What is the objective with Judith Anne de Lienard, are you confident that we are going to find her name connected to our stamvader? I don't know of anything that links her to the South African Du Plessis family. What's the plan? I would like to assist.

I will read the link about the diary. I have done some reading about Phillipe du Mornay & he is an interesting character. What I find interesting is that he too, has the Plessis name. (Marly-Plessis - which must be a place name)
I was hoping to find mention of a Judith in my reading about Phillipe but so far there is nothing. He was a staunch Huguenot. I will let you know if I find anything. Alexander, do you live in France - that would be so useful right now!

Oh I see now (just started reading Sharons link about the Memoirs) - Plessis-Marly was the name of his estate. Thanks for the link Sharon - I am glad it is in english! My knowledge of Francais is limited to rude scratchings on school desks.

Private User, she's in Dr Jean Prieur du Plessis, SV/PROG line on Geni as his grandmother - So, presumably someone at some stage must have thought they had evidence/reason to connect them. I was reading her diary to find out clues. eg They were Huguenots- as opposed to the de Richelieu cousins who persecuted them - so it isn't unlikely... but that's all we've got so far.

Nicola - my French is limited to the French words in English, so the rude scratchings on school desks are even beyond me :-)
If you've read about Phillipe - you'll really enjoy her diary & the intro that went with it. It isn't actually that long.

Can we post all further thoughts on her on this discussion - http://www.geni.com/discussions/106997? Just so that when we all decide to come back to researching her in a year's time, we don't miss out out on the thoughts we had now.
(Even, or especially, the kind that say, 'Why are we even looking at her?' and the kind that say, "I've heard about him" - Because they're the ones that make this kind of record of research accessible to other people who might come along later and think its all too dry to bother to read.
& they're the ones that mark our reasons for, & jump off points into, researching the aspects we did.)

I hate the idea of wasting good research energy re-inventing the wheel - as you can see :-) - so the record keeping of the research process we followed is an important aspect of all of this for me; just so that we/ or anyone else in the future, can take up where we left off when we come back to it.

I would like to put in my piece of the cake :

I have it as follows :
FRANCOIS DU PLESSIS II, Lord of the Du Plessis, the Breux, de la Carreliere and Thou Estates) (1510 – 1560)
He was married three times.
Marriage 1 was to D'anne Le Roy (1512) and had a son
Louis du Plessis who married FRANCOISE DE ROCHECHOVARN
They had a son Francois who married SUZANNE DE LA PORTE DE VEZAIS
From this line stem Armand Jean du Plessis (Cardinal de Richelieu).

The third marriage was to FRANCOISE DE CHARGE (she was the same age as his first son from his first marriage).

To them was born Jean du Plessis who married JUDITH ANNE DU PLESSIS DE MORNAY

They had a son Charl du Plessis whose wife's name unfortunately I do not have

Their son Jean-Prieure du Plessis is the prognator of the South African du Plessis' clan.

That's fascinating input, Ria Stoddart, Thankyou for joining in the Discussion. - Can you post your sources as well?

Thanks Mart. We just might.

Returning back to an old discussion!..Were any records or confirmed information on Jean du Plessis ever found?..What has constantly bugged me is that although he is listed as born in 1548, his Younger brother Francois (born 1561) inherited the title, as well as his father's name...The only possible way I can think of this happening is if he was illegitimate..So Francoise de Chargé would not be his mother...Can anyone throw any light on this problem?

I have always wondered about the earlier DU PLESSIS ancestry as my maternal grandmother had been one. Thanks for this interesting discussion. I could perhaps add that we have some DU PLESSIS Y-DNA profiles at my Cape Dutch Stamvader Y-DNA Project at https://www.familytreedna.com/public/CapeDutch?iframe=yresults You will notice two South Africans and an matching American DUPLESS. Unfortunately Mr DUPLESS do not have his ancestry further back than "Louis F. Dupless 1820-1895", but at least we seem to have confirmation of the old DU PLESSIS haplotype..

Now just to find a Richelieu descendant willing to take the test....

Thanks for the heads up, Jaco - I'll add the duPlessis SV to the Y-DNA project - unless you save me the work by adding him there yourself :-).