Its been a while since my last post. I have been busy researching and writing a family history book...It is finally done, published and available at Amazon.com and in digital format for Kindle.

Link to Amazon.com

It is called "The Pinel Family - from France to Brazil" and at the moment it is only available in English, my next project will be to translate it to Portuguese.

Book summary:

Our Pinel Family started with Scipion Pinel born in 1660 in Saint-Paul-Cap-de-Joux, France. Scipion was the great-grandfather of Philippe Pinel, the Psychiatrist in charge of the Parisian Hospitals Bicêtre and Saltpêtrière from 1792 to 1826. 

His son Charles Pinel moved to Brazil in 1830 and married Marie Catherine Rime, who emigrated from Switzerland to Brazil with her family in 1819. Their descendants are numerous and still strong in Brazil.

My worldwide Pinel family

Searching for my roots has been an incredible experience, I have found "family" all over the world that have become my friends in Facebook, we have exchanged pictures of our children and grandchildren, congratulated each other on special occasions, offered comforting words in sorrowful times, learned about each other's countries, exchanged genealogical data and overall participated in each others lives like real family. I will be forever greatful for this "family" I discovered!

This past week I received an email from one of my "family" member, Paule Valet, providing me with date of birth of my ggggrandmother Jeanne Françoise,

  ... "J'ai ici l'acte de naissance de Jeanne Françoise  le 27 Aout 1751 à Gevingey Il me faut votre adresse mail Contactez moi ...


I sent her my email and she sent me copies of the Baptismal records of the town of Gevingey. How great it is when you have friends likes this to help you out!


Merci mon ami Paule, je suis éternellement reconnaissant!

The Swiss in Brazil

Photos courtesy of the government of Nova Friburgo, RJ, Brazil

“Memorial da Colonização Suíça”

Urania

Last names of the first “Colonos Suíços”  arriving in 1818. 

Note my families last names "Pinel, Rime" underlined.

Nova Friburgo Sua Origem - in Portuguese

Unchainer of the Insane

I ordered the book "Philippe Pinel Unchainer of the Insane" by Bernard Mackler (1968) just to read the references to my ggggrandfather's brothers and sisters - I have to get information from wherever I can - and I ended up enjoying the reading, specially the following passage:

"...Present day psychiatry can look proudly at his view of moral treatment for, in many ways, his ideas are finally being put into use. Pinel tried to abandon the inhumanity of his time..."

"...We no longer need to break the chains of mental patients, thanks to Pinel and others, but we still must learn how to care for one another. Pinel left a rich heritage in his idea of moral treatment for it applies both to abnormal and to normal behavior... "

Time Travelling

Looking back on my first post and how excited I was to find oldest ancestor Philippe Pinel (ggggrandfather-5 generations), I realized how far I came in such an short time.

Today my oldest ancestors are 8 generations away, my gggggggrandparents, Scipion Pinel + Susanne Oliene (Olieve), Antoine Bugard + Catherine Fabre, Francois Vincent + Claire Charriere, Jean Patrus + Denise Janetjean, all from the mid 1600's. Still missing 4 sets of gggggggrandparents!

This journey through time helped me learn  about their lives and the history, religion and customs of the era, not to mention the big improvement it effected in my ability to read (sometimes decipher) French.

It still awes me that I am reading things handwritten in the 1600's! Not books about the era but books that were written at the time, with all the differences throughout the years, like the Republican Calendar with their Vendemiaire, Brumaire and Frimaire, which halted my progress for a while.

Read about the the changes during the French Revolution in this link to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar

Tree Updates

This week I found new information on Barthelemi Pinel and Marie Scribe (Escribe). They moved from Saint-Paul-Cap-de-Joux to Damiatte (just across the river Agout), France, where records from the Tarn Archives shows more children:

Charles Pinel (brother of gggggrandfather-6 generation), married and buried in the Eglise Saint-Martin of Damiatte. He was married to Margueritte Ribayran on Feb 13, 1760 and had five children baptized at the church, they were:
               Marie - 12/26/1760
               Jean - 12/6/1762
               Anne -11/28/1765
               Marie (again, so assume the first one died early) - 6/14/1767
               Jean (again, so assume the first one died early) - 9/4/1769

Anne Pinel (sister of gggggrandfather-6 generation, born in Saint-Paul-Cap-de-Joux), married to Jean Louis Ribayran also on Feb 13,1760

Hippolite Pinel (sister of gggggrandfather-6 generation, born in Saint-Paul-Cap-de-Joux) - died March 4, 1791 buried at the Cemetiere de la Eglise Saint-Martin, married to Jean Durand on Feb 19, 1737

That's it, more branches for my family tree! Now adding the surnames Ribayran and Durand and when my eyes rests I will return to the archives to see what else I find.

Source: Compiled from information found in the web: http://archives.tarn.fr and other locations.