Happy Bastille Day

[L Verge]

Even though "our" Surratts were in America and Maryland nearly 100 years before the French Revolution and Bastille Day, I am saluting their homeland on this July 14 anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. From what we can learn, their ancestors came from the Pyrenees region between Spain and France by the late-1600s. The first written record of them is in a will dated 1715 here in Maryland.

We have found at least eight different spellings of the name, and French authorities told one genealogist that Seurratt was likely the original spelling. In French, the "u" would not have stood alone without the "e." I'll take him at his word. BTW: It is derived from the same word as "serrated," which we translate as "jagged." That is a reference back to the jagged mountains of their region. As of the 1980s, there were still families with that name in that region as well as villages bearing forms of the name. And don't forget Montserratt.

So now that the World Cup is over - Vive La France!

After-thought - Did you know that the Old Capitol Prison has been referred to as the American Bastille? There is a fairly rare book of that title.