My ancestors

As I have already said, I was born in France. All my known ancestors were French, born in France.

I know that because my mother is an amateur genealogist and in the 80's she has established our family tree on many generations.

Both my parents had nine siblings.

I never knew my paternal grandmother as she died before I was born.

My paternal grandfather Leonce was an archivist, and he worked all his life at the Archives nationales in Paris. His last job there was the "general inspector", the second in rank, after the director. He had a house in Le Chesnay, near Versailles. He was a heavy smoker and he died, probably from smoking too much, when I was 14 years old.

My maternal grandmother had Parkinson's disease before I knew her. My paternal grandfather Henri became a Navy officer in 1910 by chance, and I may explain later how that happened. He later became an hydrographer and he ended his career in the Navy a three star general officer as the director of the Navy Hydrographic Service, that later became the SHOM. He spent most of his time taking care of my grandmother until she died. He had a house in a sea resort in Brittany where we have spent many summer vacations. He was a very kind person, but when we were young children we were terrified of him. We later realized as teenagers that it was simply a facade. He died at the beginning of the 80's.