I have a very vivid memory of arriving to school one day when I was six or seven and being asked to spell my last name for the teacher. I would go: “D-E-capital J-A-R-N-E-T-T-E.” As always, whoever was on the receiving end of this would ask, “Is that French?” Being a child and not particularly interested in the details, I would usually shrug.
Despite being well-trained in making sure people capitalized the “J” it wasn’t until much later that I came to be interested in learning the history behind my last name. Driving through Virginia, one might see a number of signs for businesses and public spaces bearing the name, “DeJarnette.” My family, it seems, is a fairly prolific clan in that state.
A while back, I was able to establish a genealogy that connects myself to the “ur” DeJarnette (then deJarnat), Jean. This site exists to further expound up his experiences as a French Protestant who settled in North America. As I gather more research, I will share it here and try to help put his life, and the lives of other early Huguenot settlers, into perspective.
By most accounts it is agreed that my 7th Great-Grandfather, Jean deJarnat, arrived in 1699 with a group of 600 French Protestant refugees sent by King William to Virginia. (1)
These French Protestant refugees were known as Huguenots and had been frequent targets for religious persecution by the Roman Catholic clergy. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685, the Huguenots found this curtailing of religious freedom intolerable and emigrated in large numbers. More than 400,000 left France for the Netherlands, Prussia, or England. From England, many continued on to North America. (2)
It’s hard to say, after a point, which bits and pieces of family history are the most historically sound. Context clues tell us that Jean deJarnat was indeed what many people in my family claim he was. I will try to be as thorough and ethical in my explorations as possible and hope you will enjoy reading about the topics I will be sharing here!
Sources:
1.Frost, Earl C., and May M. Frost. DeJarnette and Allied Families in America (1699-1954). Redwood City, CA: Pacific Coast Publishers, 1954. Microform.
2.Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2016. s.v “Huguenot | French Protestant.” Accessed September 4, 2016. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Huguenot.
Réformées in the New World 