I have just been working on the profile of my xxx great-uncle by marriage, and saw that there had been affixed to it the {{Huguenot}} category and sticker, as on his children.
There's a problem with this. While he may have been baptized in a Calvinist church, not disputing this, his marriage contract clearly stipulates that he was getting married in a Catholic church, and his wife was Catholic to start with. One of his daughters actually became a Catholic nun!
I believe my friends in Huguenot project may have gotten over-enthusiastic on the subject. While there were religious wars and persecutions etc, this was certainly not the only reason people emigrated. This man for instance is found here in 1647 already. We have quite a number of people who came here as emigrants who were baptized as Calvinists. Many of them came as contracted workers on 3 year contracts and decided to stay. Others came as soldiers in various units, whether regular garrison soldiers or Marine companies.
To classify these people as having left France due to religious persecution is drawing conclusions from insufficient data. I think this needs to be reviewed. My sample profile on the subject may have renounced Calvinism in France before ever setting sail; the records of abjurations are haphazard in France. I've found one man who abjured who actually bore the same name, it isn't the same man from all evidence, birth place is different and his abjuration is just a couple of months before my guy shows up in records here. Not impossible, but no evidence to say it's the same man.
Discussion is in order.
