Etienne Gayneau Jr (abt. 1635 - abt. 1706)

Descendants

Biography

Etienne Gayneau Jr was born about 1635 in La Rochelle, Aunis Province (today: Charente-Maritime), France. He was the son of Etienne Gayneau Sr and Marie Geneau. He was a stove-maker merchant when he married his wife, Lydia Mestereau, on 16 March 1653 in La Rochelle in the Aunis Province (today: the Charente-Maritime departement), Aquitaine, France. Etienne ("Stephen") probably would have been about 18 when he married as it would have been very rare for a man to marry earlier then.

As they were French Calvinist Protestants, aka Huguenots, they were increasingly persecuted for their religion under the Roman Catholic French King Louis XIV. The family fled France and first migrated to Amsterdam, The Netherlands, a Calvinist Protestant country, where Marie Magdelinne was born and baptized. They later to left Holland for New Netherland (now New York) in America.

Etienne Gayneau and Lydia Mestereau arrived in Nieuw Amsterdam (New York in 1664) on the ship De Bever (The Beaver) on 09 May 1661, with three of the four children who had been born in La Rochelle, France.

Apparently, starting a new life in a new country, Etienne changed the family name from Gayneau to "Gano" before his last two children were born in New York, re-named by the English who took over the colony from the Netherlands in 1664. He died about 1706 in Staten Island, Richmond County, English Colony of New York.

Sources

• Records of Etienne Gaymeau were contributed by Mrs C Harrison Dwight (Nee Virginia Moore Burke, descendant of James Gano. Some were furnished to her by the archivist, Les Archives, La Rochelle, France: others were copied by her there in 1965.

• Year Book of The Holland Society of New York, 1902, pgs 17, 18.

• Veysey, Stamp, Morgans Tree in Rootsweb World Connect Project, Friday, 11 Dec 2015.

• Grapevine Area History Sponsored by Grapevine Historical Society, Editor: Charles H. Young. Copyright (C) 1979 by Grapevine Historical Society. Printed by Taylor Publishing Co., Dallas, Texas.

• Building A Church Building A City - History Of The First Church Erected in The City Of Dallas, Texas" By Sheryl Taylor Curlee, Copyright (C) 2015 by Sheryl Taylor Curlee. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United Sate of America. hugatree194 6@sbcglobal.net

• Geneologygms@excite.com, Rootsweb World Connect Project,

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=REG&db=nancywalters&id=I3114