The Gresley Apartments in Manchester

The Gresley Apartments in Manchester, NH were built by Edwin Lee Le Gresley in 1904. The current owner was just in contact...

"There are  2 identical buildings.  One is called the Belmont and the other the Milton.  Named after the current streets in Manchester NH."

  

She is trying to put the buildings on a historical registry and would like to get as much information as possible.

  "Very curious how long it took to build these beautiful buildings,  I was told they were always apartment buildings." 

Edwin Le Gresley (grandson of Joseph de Mouliped) moved to California before 1930. However, he was still listed in the Manchester Directory as of 1921. He had a son Reginald, and a daughter Vivian. It seems Reginald perhaps did not marry, but more research is needed.  Vivian graduated from UCLA around 1934 and married Pierson Forderer.  They had Yvon Forderer around 1938 according to a 1940 census, living at: 384 Santa Anita Avenue Pasadena Judicial Los Angeles, Ca. Yvonn married David Arnold Todd II and is now living in Oklahoma. More on this family lineage at a later date.

If you have any information you can contribute, please comment. 

The apartments have a lovely website: http://www.pillarmanors.com/.  They have been beautifully restored and are quite elegant.

Descendant List of deMouilpieds

Well here it is. Not exactly what I had in mind but I was not able to attach it in slide show format. However, I believe this is at least readable for you. Pardon the scribbles from over the years however they might be helpful. We do have more details in proper genealogy format thanks to cousin Kathy which is available and will be in the future, so stay tuned.

Please note that half way down the page, a Nicolas b. 1819, generation 9, son of Nicolas and Rachel Martin is the father of the Mid west deMoulpieds. Just below him is Jean b. 1822, who went to Australia. On the second page below you can see Joseph b.1829, father of the East Coast deMouilpieds. The common grand parent these 2 lineages share goes back to Nicolas b.1721, generation 6, married to Rachel Thoume.

As you can see this needs modernizing! But for the moment, where do you fit in?

de Mouilpied Descendants

From de Mouilpied Descendants

To Capitalize or Not - That Is the Question

It has been...shall we say...interesting having a name that begins with a small "de". Luckily we have a large French influence here so people aren't too weirded out by it. But go outside the safety of New Hampshire and most people don't know what to do... cross out the big "D" they just wrote even though you said "small" "de"...they hesitate, look at you for assurance and wait for more instruction. Or how about trying to figure out where to alphabetize it. Does de Moulpied go under "d" or "m"?

I can see the temptation of changing the small "d" to capital as in Demouilpied. And then there is the decision to make the "m" small. For me, I am glad I kept my name original, at least how it came to me.

Now comes the other problem. Do you put a space in between the "de" and "M" as in de Mouilpied? Or not? I can tell you the original, way back on the Mother island, is with the space separating the "de" from the "M". This list of names from a book about island life in the late 1800's has many "de" names, http://history.foote-family.com/hugo/hugod.htm This should not be confused with Victor Hugo who was actually exiled on Guernsey around the same time.

I haven't made that big of a deal about the space. I suppose I do use the space, but I don't make an issue out of it. (the small "d" on the other hand I do fuss a bit about) As you can see in the blog, there are inconsistencies about the space - it's my way of making everyone feel welcomed!

So do you capitalize the "d"? Do you have "the space"?

Pronunciation from a Guernseyman

I received a lovely quick note from a Guernseyman named de Mouilpied. He confirmed the name translation to "of wet foot". He also said that he, and assuming most de Mouilpieds still on the Mother Island, pronounces the name "du mul pee-ay".

So there you have it, live from a Guernseyman on how to pronounce de Mouilpied. Sounds romantic, doesn't it?

What Does de Moulpied Mean?

Starting with the shortest version which is prevalent in the U.S., the name maintains the beginning and the end translations. The "de" means "of" or "from" which is how the French hundreds of years ago created their last names/surnames. In my neck of the woods in New Hampshire we have a lot of French last names so I am very used to names beginning with "de".

The ending "pied" means "foot". I always thought that was kind of nice since I like to dance and took ballet which uses a lot of "pied".

Now the "Moul" takes its origins from "Mouil". I am not sure how or why that first "i" was dropped but in the East Coast deMoulpieds, it was dropped the generation after Joseph, a little over 100 years ago. The Mid West de Moulpieds also had the "i" dropped within one or two generations based on records. On one reference it's there, on the next reference it's gone.

"Mouil" is alive and well in Guernsey and other places like England and Australia as well. "Mouil" survived, according to records, from the early 1600's. Even on the island, the records get loose in their writing once you go back to the 1600's, sometimes phonetic but closer to original. The early records do show some transitioning from Mouillepied to Mouilpied.(thank goodness, imagine the length). This is also verified by cousin Deborah from Maine, who has copies of the Coats of Arms and was told by her insisting mother that the original name was spelled de Mouillepied. Personally I am fascinated how Deborah's mother knew this - had she seen the Coats before? Was it such strong pride that this information was sure to be passed down the generations? Cousin Kathy has also been to Guernsey and has copied records showing very early genealogy entrances "Mouillepied" then switching to "Mouilpied". In Addition, "Mouil" is tough to translate. Typing it in does not offer anything but other suggestions, one of which is "mouille". So I am confident that to derive meaning from the name, we need to go back to the original spelling, so "mouille" it is.

Mouille does translate into "wet", also closely associated with anchor, port, water damage, river, and spring fed. My Dad used to say moldy which prompted a yuck. But he would quickly switch to liking the thought that it meant athlete's foot (another yuck). Since he was a runner (qualified for the 1934 Olympics, but so did 6 other people) that made sense. I always thought we were on the low end of Guernsey, perhaps surrounded by swamps but luckily that is not the case. If we take the original name "Mouillepied", assume its origins are as they say on the description of the Coats of Arms, this takes us back to the area in France called Mouillepied. And voila, the area, including a lovely Chateau named de Mouillepied, is spring fed with bubbling fresh water coming out of the ground, some even feeding fountains. (by the way, I hear the Chateau is up for sale!)

So there you have it "of wet foot" relatives. Any thoughts?

deMoulpieds in the USA

Hello all. I and some cousins have been researching the deMoulpied family in the USA and Guernsey for a few years now. I will briefly go over what I have pieced together so far.

The deMoulpied line in the USA I come from originated with Joseph deMouilpied, a minister, who came to Canada around 1853, eventually having 6 children. Three of his sons came to America, 2 settling in Manchester, New Hampshire. I will call this the East Coast deMoulpieds.

Joseph had a sister, Charlotte, who also spent time in Canada and married Francis de la Mare. Joseph and Charlotte's parents were Thomas deMouilpied and Marie Blondel back in Guernsey. THAT will be another blog.

A couple of generations before Joseph, a Nicolas deMouilped, came to the USA and settled in Wisconsin. I will call this the Mid-West deMoulpieds.

Both Joseph and Nicolas are from the same lineage, a few generations apart but related for sure. I am fairly certain that these are the only 2 deMoulpieds who came from the Isle of Guernsey to the USA. Please let me know if you know otherwise. So, I guess we are all related!

Both Nicolas and Joseph originally had the Island spelling of deMouilpied. It can be tracked which generations dropped the "i" before the "l".

Also from this lineage, a brother of Nicolas went to Australia and there is a line there too. Other deMoulpieds might have also gone to Australia but I do know this one related line.

My circle of cousins and I have compiled quite a comprehensive family tree which I hope to get on line soon. The East coast deMoulpieds are fairly well accounted for. The Midwest group, well we need some help. I have LOTS of fantastic photos starting with Joseph and even his Parents in Guernsey. Again, I will try to get these on as soon as I can.

Back in Guernsey, we have the family lineage well established back to the late 1500's. The deMouilpieds were land holders and enjoyed good status on the island. We have copies of the family shield and motto. There is a road and section of the island named after the family name, and beautiful still standing homesteads.

The shield that so many different cousins have/had are all the same. It says in french the name is actually Du Port, Lord of Mouillepied and le Bois Masson. It also says he was a Marquis. So our detective brains have concluded that deMouilpied came from the La Rochelle area of France and owned the Land parcels of Mouillepied and Bois Masson, and his name was actually Du Port. Du Port fled to Guernsey because of the first wave of Huguenots slaughter and upon arriving in Guernsey, changed his last name to, from where he came, de (from) Mouillepied. This was a very common way to name yourself back then. Now check this out: Chateau Mouillepied

This is all very exciting. Hope to hear from you! Debby deMoulpied