Looking for any info on families Bacque and Servat from Erce, Ariege.

Thanks!

I saw your message, and thought I would reply. My grandparents were from Erce, their names were Jean Maury and Anna Peyrat. I have been looking for info on history of Erce. I found a good website on ariege: www.ariege.com, has some articles on Erce about the montreur d'ours. Have you visited Erce? I visited a few years ago, and my daughter and mother last spring. Do you have any remaining family there, I have a cousin, Nadine Galy.

I am tracking my Grandfather Joseph Bacque, born in 1876, in Erce. Trying to identify when he immigrated to America

I do not know if it is the same person, but I have a Joseph Bacque from Erce in my family tree.

My grandmother, Maria Servat McGrath, was born in 1910 in Erce. Her parens were Jean-Pierre Servat and Anna Bacque. Anna had a brother named Joseph. That is the only information I have on my Bacque ancestors. Unfortunately my grandmother is deceased and I have never met or had contact with any of my relatives in France. I do not speak or read French, either, which makes tracing my family history much harder.

I would really love to find out if your Joseph Bacque is related to my Bacque forbears!

There is a website in France www.memorial-genweb.org where you can find war memorials in French villages with your relatives names inscribed. In Erce, there are six male Bacques inscribed on the village's WWI monument: Antoine, two Jean's, Jean Baptiste, Jean Pierre and Pierre.

Interestingly, my grandmother's great niece on the Servat side left her home in Lyons to move to the family farmhouse in Erce in the early 1990's and got a job in the village hall of records. She still lives in the area now with her husband and two kids; her first child was the first baby born in Erce in 60 years. Sadly, she has no interest in corresponding with her American cousins, so that avenue of information is cut off to me.

I would be very interested in any information you have on your grandfather, to see if there is a connection. My grandmother, who emigrated to NY in 1928, never mentioned any other relatives who emigrated to America besides her sister Justine (1926) and an aunt (1926 or earlier). These three women arrived in New York, lived in the West 40's and worked either in the restaurant business or as domestic servants to the wealthy. Many emigrants from Erce worked in French restaurants in Manhattan and they would gather on Sunday at a huge boulder near the Columbus Circle entrance to Central Park that they nicknamed the "Roc d'Erce" to share news from home.

I did a search of the Ellis Island database, and there is a entry for a Josef Bacque of Erce, France, who arrived in New York City on Nov. 4, 1907 on La Gascogne, which sailed from Le Havre. It lists his marital status as married and the manifest line number as 0008.

If this is the same Joseph Bacque, it would make him 31 at the time of emigration.

Does this information match any that you have?

I no longer have an active Ancestry account and cannot access the full databases, but on the US 1910 Federal Census, in New York State, there is an entry for a Joseph Bacque, age 34. If you can access the US census for 1910 you can find the original paper document and that will have the person's place of birth, age, occupation, current address and members of their household.

If this is your ancestor, would you let me know? thanks.

Yes I believe that is the correct Joseph Bache, but Nov. 4 1907 would be an expected return trip to America.

He married in NYC on June 10, 1906 and then they returned to France where they had their first child, my Aunt Marie Bacque. Aunt Marie never came to America as a child.

The issue is, Joseph Bache had to have arrived in NYC prior to his wedding date,and that is the date that I am unable to locate.

I did find his bride Julie Sentenat arrived in NYC prior to their wedding date. She appears to have initially traveled to America on January 4, 1904, went back to France and subsequently returned to America on June 13, 1908.

Their names appear on a 1910 census as living in NYC.

Thank you for looking into this for me.

Ray

Yes, that would be the correct Joseph Bacque. I have been able to confirm all of the information provided in the 1910 census.

The missing link is when did he first arrive in America?

We have observed that he traveled to America in 1908 but he was married in NYC in 1906. Conclusion therefore is that he traveled to America prior to 1906. But, we cannot find out when.

Thank you for your assistance in this search.

Ray

The ship manifest is a little difficult to read because it is written by hand and there are cross-outs, but it seems to confirm that Joseph Bacque had been in America prior to this arrival at Ellis Island. Where the column heading says what year and for how long, it says 1907 and two years. It also says he had less than $50 in his pocket at the time of arrival, more like $20. Fascinating stuff. I think I may bite the bullet and rejoin Ancestry to see if I can find the date of his prior trip to America, around 1905.

If this gentleman is my grandmother's maternal uncle, that is a big breakthrough for my research! I am so thankful that you saw my post. Should you have any relevant data on the ancestors in Erce, and indeed anyone who has genealogical information, I would be so grateful to see it.

Thanks for replying.

My research into the Bacque family in France (I suspect all in Erce) provides the following:

Greatgrandfather Joseph Bacque (b. 1837) married Marie Anne Faur Pale (b. 1840).

Their children are:
Joseph Bacque (1876 - 1938) my grandfather
Paul Bacque (1865 - 1927)
Jacques Bacque (1866 - ) married Julienne Pouch
Pauline Bacque (1873 - )
Jean Bacque (1869 -)