Moving Back to Their Roots: Expats Who Rediscovered Their French Ancestry

Gill Harvey meets three people with French ancestry, who made the move to France – back to their roots – and never looked back.

‘I embraced my french heritage‘ Ianthe Roper, Poitou-Charentes. When Ianthe Roper moved to France in 2003, she was aware that there might be some French in her background. “My great grandmother’s maiden name was Deverinne, although she was born and brought up in India until the age of eight when she moved to a boarding school in the UK. She believed the original Deverinnes had been an aristocratic family who’d fled from Paris to India at the time of the Revolution, setting up as planters. But I didn’t know if there was any truth in the tale.”

However, her main motivation for moving was to buy a large property with her then partner, Richard. “I was a freelance trainer at the time and realised that I could buy a place in France big enough to create a training centre, for the price of my property in the Chilterns.” She eventually decided to run a gîte in the Poitou-Charentes region, as regulations around running the centre, proved overly complex.

After her mother’s death in 2008, when she’d been in France for five years, Ianthe was prompted to look more into her past. “I inherited all the family photos and realised I hadn’t a clue who most of the people were. It made me realise how little I (and my mother) knew about our roots.”

After joining a popular genealogy site, Ianthe soon found that at least some of the rumours and family stories that she’d grown up with had been true. “The family did indeed originate from Paris, although they were wine merchants rather than aristocrats. And while they had moved to India, the first Deverinne moved there in the 1760s, before the Revolution.”

She also discovered that once in India, the family had become intertwined with another family – the Italian Savis – through several marriages. Armed with this knowledge and with the help of some family connections she’d discovered online, Ianthe was able to trace her line back through the 18th century.

“The first Savi to reach India was John Angelo Savi, a surgeon who married a girl called Elizabeth Corderan. She was the daughter of a military general, André François Corderan, who was in charge of the naval fleet in India, a man once presented with a gold pencil case by Napoleon.

“There was a sense of completeness in finding out I had French ancestry, even though the family hadn’t lived in France for centuries,”says Ianthe. “In fact, when I went for naturalisation in 2019 I mentioned I was descended from one of Napoleon’s generals and all the French were terribly impressed.”

After splitting up with her then partner in 2009, Ianthe met Jean-Paul, and the pair were together for five years until his death in 2015. “Being with him also made me feel more integrated, more French,” she recalls.

Ianthe closed her gîte business in 2017 and moved to a new home from which she taught English. Now retired, she’s recently been made a municipal councillor and is busier than ever.

“As for genealogy, there are still some things I’d like to explore, but research has come to a natural end until more documents become available. Still, it has given me a sense of belonging – in fact, chatting to some of my French friends, I’ve discovered I probably have more French ancestry than they do!”

MY FRENCH ANCESTRY WASN’T THE ONLY DRAW

Sam Parry lives in Corrèze with husband James Interior designer Sam Parry had always known that her family had French roots, but it wasn’t a deciding factor in her move to the country in 2008.

“I’d long known that my family, the Bous-elds, can be traced back to Normandy, and came over to Britain with William the Conqueror,” she says. “A distant family member is a historian, so has done a great deal of research, and has written books on the subject. There’s even a town called Bouville in Normandy where they think the name originates.”

“There was a sense of completeness in fi nding out I had French ancestry

While Sam admits that she wasn’t particularly investedin this family story, she did have fond childhood memories of France. “My aunt lived in Paris until I was eight, so we used to go over there for holidays. Interestingly, I visited years later and could still remember certain streets, like a déjà vu experience.”

But none of this was a factor in Sam’s eventual move to France with husband, James, and children, Will and Ben. In fact, the decision came out of the blue while they were holidaying there. “In 2007, we had a family holiday in the Corrèze region. We just fell in love with the area straightaway.

“Gradually, holiday conversations about what it might be like to live here led to a decision to up sticks entirely and give it a go! It was as if the universe had spoken to us!”

At the time, Sam’s business partner had just announced his decision to step back from their interior design company for personal reasons, which made the move more clear-cut. “We also felt that the children, aged seven and 10 at the time, might be able to integrate more easily than they would if we waited. As it was, the first year for them was quite difficult, but they settled eventually.”

While their decision to relocate was spontaneous, Sam and James spent a great deal of time planning how they’d make a living once they’d made the move, putting together a business plan and investigating rules and regulations before taking the plunge.

“We decided to operate cycling holidays. James is a keen cyclist and we thought we’d create a place that was a bit like a ski-chalet holiday, but for cyclists. When we opened in 2011, we were one of the first places in France to offer holidays of this type.” correzecycling.com

Sam’s French connection may date back to 11th-century Normandy, but it is Corrèze that has stolen her heart. “I become homesick when I leave Corrèze!” she says. “I really feel part of the local community. I’ve just been re-elected as a councillor after serving from 2014 to 2020, and having to step back while I awaited my French nationality. I’m very excited to serve the area again!”

Still, the anecdote about her past was a great conversation opener when the family first moved. “I used to joke to locals that I was ‘coming home’ by moving to France,” she says.

Our leap into the unknown paid off

Courtney Price lives in Haut–Saône with partner Steve Ruth Courtney Price was in high school in New Jersey, US, when she found out about her French roots. “My mother is a great fan of genealogy and she traced our family tree back several centuries. With no websites to help, she did it all through personal research.”

Unexpectedly, the family discovered they were related to someone who had made it into the history books: Marie Warenbauer Ferree, who had fled France in the late 1600s and founded a town in Pennsylvania named ‘Paradise’.

Arriving in the states alone after her husband Daniel died, Marie was able to secure a land grant from William Penn, the English theologian and Quaker, who oversaw the founding of Pennsylvania – an unusual feat for a woman. “We’ve got a copy of the land grant somewhere. It was drawn up in her son’s name, but handed to her.”

But Courtney’s journey to France wasn’t linked to this discovery. In 2022, she and Steve decided to move abroad, tired of the political and financial situation in the US. They considered many places and were struggling to decide.

“In the end Steve told me his wish list for a home – it had to be in a village or town, with certain amenities, for a certain price. I found what he was looking for in Hauts du Val de Saône in France, somewhere we’d never been.”

As it was during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 and travel was out of the question, the couple took a leap of faith, selling one of their properties to buy the house sight unseen.

Having arrived in the town of Jussey (Franche-Comté) in May 2022, the pair set about renovating their home, which had been a shop previously, before subsequently purchasing another property in the town and moving to renovate that. Despite “constantly living in a construction zone” and arriving knowing little French, the couple have settled well into their new life, spending their time renovating and getting to know their new country.

“We’ve learned quite a bit of French. I still do online lessons and we go out and about to vide-greniers, talking French as much as possible to the stallholders. We have great knowledge of language when it comes to building materials!”

“My ancestor fl ed France in the late 1600s and founded a town in Pennsylvania named Paradise

And the pair feel very much at home. “We have French friends, Swiss friends, Dutch and English friends. People often ask us how we found this area, as Americans who knew little of the country. It’s quite tucked away.”

While Courtney credits the people and the relaxed pace of life in France for her current contentment rather than any ancestral connection, she does believe that she’s inherited something from her famous relative. “Marie was an incredible woman to achieve what she did at a time when women were barely listened to. My family has a lot of strong women, and we attribute that to her!”

Perhaps it is this that helped Courtney to make a success of her move overseas and settle so well in a completely new location. “We’re both so happy, less stressed. It was a leap into the unknown, but it’s really worked out.”