My Yorktown ancestor was a member of a Virginia militia after emigrating (legally) to America from France. He helped serve as an interpreter between the French and Americans at Yorktown. He ended up on the Frontier of what is now West Virginia engaging in an occasional skirmish with the Shawnee.
Fascinating and very elegant. Virginia was mother’s side
The Va. Gazette, Williamsburg, Nov. 27, 1778 published in National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 10, Nos. 1 and 2, pp. 80, 85
A list of men that were taken prisoners by the British, belonging to the 1st Va. regiment taken on board the Muskio, and part of whom we pressed on board King’s ships:
Henry Butridge, my 3rd great grandfather, mother’s side
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My only French ancestry is French Canadian, something I haven’t investigated much because of the language difficulty.
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Since we’re talking Yorktown, that probably means your ancestor was connected to General Lafayette, who commanded my ancestor, Gerrit G. Lansing, during that battle. In 1825, during Lafayette’s trip around America, he was entertained by Colonel Lansing in Oriskany, where the town turned out for a luncheon on Lansing’s lawn.
The father of Colonel Lansing’s daughter-in-law, Arthur Breese, also entertained Lafayette in Utica during that trip. Arthur Breese was married to my 4th ggmother, the daughter of Henry Livingston, whose 1st cousin, Colonel Henry Alexander Livingston, ALSO entertained Lafayette in the home he bought of my 6th ggfather’s in Poughkeepsie. Lafayette DID get around.
My grandmother told her daughter-in-law, my mother, family stories in her letters. One was that she had inherited the wine glasses from which Lafayette had drunk but it was long lost which glass it was. And I never heard which of my ancestors’ glasses they were.
Before Lafayette was at the Battle of Yorktown, he served at Valley Forge during That Winter. Another 5th ggfather, Henry Bicker, was also there, commanding the 2nd NY in June of 1777 for a year. So if your ancestor was there with Lafayette’s 2200 men, another set of our ancestors might have shared a camp.