For the second week of my internship I began at Jersey Arhcives in the morning to order my copies of two documents; Francis Le Feuvre’s will & testament, as well as his German Occupation Registration Card. I registered as a Jersey Archive member in which I recieved a started pack and watched a short 5 minute video outlining the process and consideration of using the ‘reading room’.

I then went up to the reading room and ordered the two documents I needed. I found the process to be difficult to follow at first because I had never been exposed to such an environment before. The staff there however were really friendly and hellped me out a lot.

I then reported my findings to Gareth back at the Société Jersiaise and we had a brief chat about my views of this experience and my evaluation of my findings.

• The reading of Francis’ will (saw the original copy in the archives)was fascinating to explore and divulge into. Although I already knew this, it was interesting to see that my Granddad was not included in the testament. I suppose seeing the document in person made such a concept more real and graphic as I could see the exact nature of what was intended  and written. We both decided it would be a good idea to trace evidence with relates to such reason, which I speculate from what I heard was to do with my Granddad’s decision to join the Salvation Army.
• The registration card was equally a fascinating and insightful document to study. The glaring presence of Francis in the image very much impimises  the characteristic of what I have heard about him, a stern and foreboding character! Again, as Gareth also noticed, I can see firm Le Feuvre family residence

I spoke to my Nan about the image in question of Jack, David and Edward Le Feuvre – of whom all emigrated to New Zealand. She stated clearly that this had no connection to possibly my Granddad’s brothers.

• Although she stated the he did have a brother named Edward whom was sent to Australia after getting into trouble and encountering some  difficulties, of which my Francis decided in this instance to send him away. 
• This finding in itself was interesting in formulating a viewpoint of my Francis of which I can use to articulating an interpretation of his relationship with his other children, and thus my Granddad.

On this note, we decided to venture downstairs to the Societere library where I went 2 years prior with my Dad and Uncle to view (a very large!) Le Feuvre family tree. This family tree was created by renowned Jersey-French author George Le Feuvre (1891-1984), known professionally under his pen name ‘George d’la Forge’. D’la Forge was distant relative of the family. My Nan recalls providing hospitality for him on a few occasions he visited the family in Kenya.

The aim of this visit was to confirm some of the discoveries we have made in the last week. We wanted furthermore to establish the identity of the three Le Feuvre brothers who emigrated to New Zealand.

The tree, consisting of 7 A1 Pages, is an extensive record of the genealogy of the family, dating back to to the mid 16th Century with our oldest ancestor on record, Pierre Le Feuvre. We sourced my Granddad on the tree and his  direct line. From this line we established that the three boys in question on the photograph were my Granddad’s first cousins. This may be a possible link to follow in my coursework, however I am unsure whether I have sufficient time to do.

After looking at the family tree, Gareth then got me to complete a task, as a way of furthering my understanding of working life at the Societere. He asked me to fill in a survey looking at the portrait collection of Henry Mullins. I had to source every single photo and then fill on the survey the gender of subject and the backdrop of which their portrait was taking. This proved to be quite a repetitive task and as Gareth jokingly put it “this is the boring side of working at the archives” . Nevertheless it was still fastinating to see the extent of the detail taken at the societere to ensure the photographs and photography collections are as detailed, tracked and monitored as possible. It has made realise quite how obsessive and methodical Gareth is in his approach to running the photo archives.

Afterwards Gareth invited me to read  a couple of extracts in a book looking at prominent Jersey people. There we two Le Feuvre’s documented on this book: George Le Feuvre (who wrote the family tree) and Philip Le Feuvre (of which Philip Le Feuvre house is now named after).

Evaluation

Again, I enjoyed my two hours I spent down at the Societere Jersai. I found reviewing my family tree to be very interesting and I forgot just have large it is. My time down archives before the internship to order the registration card and will, was a new and challenging experience. It was interesting to see how the archives centre works, I was surprised quite how simple it was to register to the system and make use of the extremely large quantity of resources on offer.

 

Internship

Today was my first day as an intern at the Société Jersiaise Archives. I am undergoing a 6 week internship (over the course of half term). The idea of the internship is to spend a couple of hours each week down at the archives, in order to aid my studies for my Personal Study project.

I am working with the Société Jersiaise Photographic Archivist Gareth Syvret. He is assisting and guiding me in my studies and providing me with resources the archive has to offer with relevance to Le Feuvre family.

Review

This first session was very much an introduction to the course of the six week internship.

To begin with Gareth showed me a copy of two photographic books. The first book was by French photographer Camille Silvy who took portraits of around 17,000 people in London during the Victorian Period. For comparative purposes Gareth then showed me another collection of photographs, this time by Scottish born Jersey based portrait photographer William Collie. Gareth explained the difference in the two photographers in how they documented their work. While Silvy made his photographs in chronological order with specific dates and a coding system to organise the archival documentation of what was made, Coille was perhaps more artistic in his approach – ordering the pages of his album in terms of status order in which the highest status individuals in Coille’s opinion is at the front of the album, descending down in terms of wealth, power and importance as the book progressive – On reflection whilst it can be argued that Slyvie’s is a collection of images is simply an objective documentation of who lived in London at the time, Coille’s collection on the other hand can be viewed more subjectively from a socio-political stance, his own artistic interpretation being used possibly to challenge and drew questions surrounding the nature of class division within 19th Century Jersey Society.

After this introduction to how the archives operates, we then sat down at the Archive Database in an attempt to uncover archival information about my Grandfather. After a few minutes it was apparent that  we couldn’t find much out about my Grandfather. We instead decided to find out information about his father, Francis Vibert Le Feuvre.

A lot more information about this ancestor (my Great -Grandfather) could be sourced. It was revealed that my Grandfather was born in St Peter, Jersey – 1871. In a short space of time we found a stack of archival material relating to my Great Grandfather and other members of his family. In total we found  the following;

• 4 Census records, ranging from 1881-1911.

• The Resigration Card of Francis Vibert Le Feuvre (Ordered)
• The Will of Francis Vibert Le Feuvre (Ordered)
• List of Jersey Jurats 1665-1972

• Group Portrait of Francis with fellow Jurats in 1910

• Documentation of Francis’ membership in the Societe-Jersiaise 1933

• Group portrait (potentially) of three of Francis’ son Phillip, Edward and Jack – need to check authenticity

Quick Biography of Francis V. Le Feuvre

1. From what we have gathered he was the son of Philip and Ester Le Feuvre from St Ouens.
2. Born in 1872 or 1873.
3. Philip died some point in the period of 1881-91 – lived alone with mother Ester in St. Ouens.
4. Francis began to work as a farmer at around the age of 18 (as shown on the 1891 St Ouen’s Census).
5. Married  Lydia Vibert in 1903.
6. (According to 1911 Census) 5 children; Jack (not mentioned on Census), Dorothy (7), Enid (6), Edward (3) and Edna (1).  His mother, Ester Le Feuvre and aunt Elize Le Blancq + 2 servants also lived with the family.
7. Occupations: Farmer ( Listed 1891 + 1911), General Merchant (Listed 1901)  + Chief de Police = Honorary Police Force (Listed 1911).
8.  My Grandfather born 1921 – youngest of 9 children.
9. Became ‘Jure-Justicier de la Cour Royale’ (Jurat of the Royal Court) in 1931.
10. Died 1952 (age 79).

Evaluation

I found this research to be extremely useful and interesting. I have seen first hand the effectiveness of using archival material to get accurate and clear evidence. It is also very interesting to see this evidence directly – documents from the past have a certain haunting presence to them, the sense of re-animating the past into the present. The document which I found particularity interesting were the series of 3 Census’ which Gareth uncovered, ranging from 1881-1911. It was really fascinating to see this Census document because it showed direct evidence of the ages, occupational and status of my ancestors. Which family members (and others) lived in the family home at particular times is a useful indication of how the structure of the family unit operate at different times, and thus how various circumstances effected this.

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