Person:Aaron LeStourgeon (2)

Aaron LeStourgeon first appears in Amsterdam, Holland, where on 1 February 1685, he became a "Poorter" or bourgeois citizen and is recorded as coming from Dieppe, France. It is probable that at that time he was at least twenty years old. He had first gone to La Rochelle, France, for on 3 February 1686 ye was admitted to membership in the Walloon Church, Amsterdam, on the testimony of a letter from the church at La Rochelle. He next appears in the register of La Patente, London, as a sponsor at the baptism of Elizabeth Judith Winn. He appears twice on the register of Threadneedie French Church, London: on 7 March 1696, as a sponsor at the baptism of Marie Anne, eldest daughter of William Jourdain and Anne LeStourgeon; and again on 22 September 1700 as a sponsor at the baptism of Pierre Aaron, son of William Jourdain and his wife Anne.

Mr. Hoobler believed that Anne Jourdain was Aaron's sister and that Jacques and Jean LeStourgeon were his younger brothers. He bases his opinion on the facts that they all came from Dieppe and all participated in the christening of Anne's children in much the same way that Anne's parents would have, had they been alive. Unfortunately he could not verify the supposition because all of the Dieppe records were destroyed when the town was burned by the English and Dutch fleets in 1694. The Dieppe records might have thrown a great deal of light on the early LeStourgeons. Jean LeStourgeon's descendants, the Grelliers, still live in England.

Aaron apparently was twice married, for on 29 October 1699 Anne Lormier, wife of Aaron LeStourgeon, was listed on the register of Threadneedie Street French Church, London, as a sponsor at a christening. She must have died, for on-:.6 June 1700, the first child of Aaron and Catherine DuPont, his wife, was christened at the Walloon Church in Amsterdam. Aaron may have lived in London during the 1690s, for it is not likely that he would have commuted so frequently from Amsterdam for the christening of his sister Anne's children. He and Catherine, however, lived in Amsterdam and were naturalized in compliance with the Edict of the Estates of Holland of July 18, 1709. All of their children were baptized in the Walloon Church.

1.   Percy Earl LeStourgeon, "The LeStourgeon Family: a Brief History", 1963.