The Lehaucourt Archives at Laon, France
(Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths...)
The village of Lehaucourt was the site of the protestant church or 'temple' serving the town of Saint Quentin. [Catholic houses of worship were called 'churches' while those of Protestants were called 'temples'.]
Amazingly the official church records for the protestant temple at Lehaucourt have survived despite the numerous wars and conflicts that have ravaged this part of the world over several centuries. They record the baptisms, marriages and burials during the period of the temple's existence. The temple of Lehaucourt was demolished shortly before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, but its records were preserved.
Laon, a major city in Picardy, [that region of northern France which includes the current departements of Aisne, Oise and Somme] now houses these registers at its Archives Departementales de l'Aisne. These records are available for public inspection and the catalog references are given below. On this website we include some examples of the pages pertinent to the Crommelin family. They may be the earliest records of our family's history still in existence.
From what we have studied, no new family information has been forthcoming which means that previous generations have done a fine job in documenting the Crommelin genealogy, in particular Jacob Crommelin who wrote a comprehensive family account in 1712 - ref. Scheffer, 1878.
The term 'baillage' mentioned above is believed to be an administrative region similar to the 'bailiwick' in England - a precinct in which a bailiff had jurisdiction. A bailiff was a civil officer or sheriff's deputy; a court officer who executed writs, processes and arrests.
Presumeably the Lieutenant-General was the bailiff for Lehaucourt who inspected the Lehaucourt church registry annually for compliance with some bureaucratic regulations in force at the time. Reference is made to the Lieutenant-General in the preface to various volumes of the Lehaucourt registers. Once he was satisfied with the authenticity of the previous years' records, he would affix his official seal of verification.
"The undersigned Samuel Mettayer, minister of religion living at St. Quentin, certifies that the Register presented of baptisms, marriages and deaths, inspected by the Lieutenant General of St. Quentin for the year 1674 is true and faithful to which I hereby sign at St. Quentin on the 24th of January, 1675 - Mettayer"
Samples of the Lehaucourt Temple Records