Daniel ROBERT St. Imier, Switzerland m. Marie ______________ | Pierre (Peter) ROBERT b. 1656, St. Imier, Switzerland d. 1715 French Santee, SC m. 1674 Jeanne BRAYE==============================Jehu BRAYE = Susanne _____ b. Basle, Switzerland d. 1717 | Pierre Jr. b. 1675 Basle, Switzerland d. 1731 m(2)1706 Judith DeBOURDEAUX | Jacques ROBERT b. Santee, SC 4/31711 d. 11/74 buried in Stoney Creek m. 8/26/1735 Sarah JAUDON b. 2/24/1719/20 Santee, SC d. 4/26/1779 Robertsville, SC | Judith ROBERT b. ~1757 Santee, SC d. m(1) John AUDEBERT | Rachel Providence b. Robertsville, SC, ca 1785/86 d. in Rapides Parish, LA 9/25/1820 m. SC 1/30/1806 Leroy STAFFORD b. Beaufort District, SC 4/19/1783 d. Greenwood Plantation near Cheneyville, LA, 4/10/1835
Source unknown (transcribed on 5/7/2000 from typed text on old yellowed paper in Mary Kate CROW Sinclair’s possession)
Some of the Ancestors of Mary Kate CROW of Galveston, Texas
First Generation
The founder of the House of Robert in the United States was Pierre (Peter) ROBERT, a native of St. Imier, Switzerland, where he was born in 1656. He was a son of Daniel and Marie Robert of that country who were French Huguenots. In 1674 he married Jeanne BRAYE, daughter of Jehu and Susanne Braye, of Basle Switzerland. The Robert family was originally from Wales and was then spelled RHOBERT.
Due to religious persecution they left their native land and went to France and Switzerland. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Pierre Robert, now a minister, was forced to leave Europe with all other French Protestants. With his wife and his son, Pierre Jr., he came at the head of many of his congregation to Charleston, South Carolina. They settled in St. James Parish in what is known as "French Santee." He was the first French Huguenot minister in the Carolinas and was for many years the spiritual leader of his flock there. In the only Huguenot church in America, today, which is in Charleston, S.C., there is a tablet on the wall with his name on it. The following inscription is on it:
Rev. Pierre Robert died at French Santee in 1715 and his wife in 1717. They had three children: Pierre Jr., Jean (John), and Elias.
Second Generation
Pierre Robert Jr., son of Rev. Pierre Robert and Jeanne Braye, was born at Basle, Switzerland, in 1675. He came to South Carolina with his parents in 1686 when between ten and eleven years of age. He was twice married, first in 1701 to Marie Louis LE GRAND, and second in 1706 to Judith DeBOURDEAUX. There was only one child by the first marriage, viz Pierre Robert III. By the second marriage there were three children: Jacques, Elizabeth and Madelaine. Pierre Robert Jr. died at Santee, S. C., in 1731. His wife, Judith is mentioned in his will so she must have been living when he died in 1731.
Third Generation
Jacques (James) Robert, eldest child of Pierre Robert Jr. and his second wife Judith DeBOURDEAUX, was born at Santee, SC, on April 3rd, 1711, and died in November 1774. He was buried in Stoney Creek churchyard. He married on August 26, 1735, Sarah JAUDON, daughter of Daniel and Elizabeth Jaudon. The Jaudons were French Huguenots from the Isle of Re which is in the Bay of Biscay just off the west coast of France. The first of the name we are familiar with is Elie (Elias) Jaudon, who married Sara BERTONNEAU, daughter of Jacques and Elizabeth Bertonneau. They had two children, Esther and Daniel. After Elie Jaudon’s death, his widow married Pierre MICHAUD and came to South Carolina with him, bringing her two children. Daniel Jaudon married Elizabeth ______ about 1707 and had eight children. It was her sixth child, Sarah, who married Jacques ROBERT. She was born in Santee, SC, on September 24, 1719, and died near Robertsville, SC, on April 26, 1779. Seven children were born of this marriage: James, Peter, Elizabeth, John, Elias, Sara, and Judith.
Fourth Generation
Judith Robert, seventh child of Jacques Robert and Sarah Jaudon, was born at Santee, SC, about 1757. She was three times married: first to John AUDEBERT; second to John CHENEY, and third to John CALLIHAM. We have no record of the date of her death. She only had children by her first marriage, there being two: Rachel Providence Audebert and John Audebert.
Fifth Generation
Rachel Providence Audebert, daughter of John Audebert and Judith Robert, was born at Robertsville, SC, about 1785 or ’86 and died in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, on September 25, 1820. She was married in South Carolina on January 30, 1806, to Leroy STAFFORD, son of Seth Stafford and Amanda Maner. Leroy Stafford was born in Beaufort District, SC, on April 19, 1783, and died on Greenwood Plantation, near Cheneyville, LA, on April 10, 1835. His father, Seth Stafford, served in the Revolutionary War as is proven by the records in the South Carolina Historical Commission at Columbia, SC, and was a son of William and Elizabeth Stafford of New Hanover County, North Carolina. He came to South Carolina just prior to the Revolution with his brothers William and Samuel Stafford. His great-great grandfather, William Stafford, came to Virginia at the age of fourteen on the ship "Furtherance" in 1622, and there married Frances MASON. Leroy Stafford’s mother, Amanda MANER, was a daughter of William Maner of Bertie County, North Carolina, where she was born about 1761. Her grandfather was John Maner, the first of the name we are able to trace. He was born in 1665 (probably in Virginia) and then moved to North Carolina where we find him a Justice of the Peace in Bertie County in 1711. He died there in 1729 and his will was probated in the May term of court of that year. His will mentions three sons: Henry, William and Jacob. There has always been a tradition in the Maner family that the first of the name came from Wales to Virginia. Ex-governor Pat Neff of Texas married Myrtle Maner, daughter of Nicholas Jacob Maner and Ella NEALMS. Leroy Stafford and Rachel Providence Audebert had eight children.
Sixth Generation
Josiah Seth Stafford, second child of Leroy Stafford and Rachel Providence Audebert, was born in Beaufort District, SC, on May 3, 1808. He died near Houston, TX, on May 6, 1862. He married in Rapides Parish, LA, on December 18, 1832, Jennetta KIRKLAND, daughter of Edward Kirkland and Celeste VILLAIN. She was born in Rapides Parish in 1818, and died near Houston, TX, on September 24, 1870. Both are buried in the old Catholic cemetary (Our Lady of Guadalupe, Jensen Street) in Houston. Seven children were born of this marriage:
Laura Celeste Stafford - born November 20, 1835
Isaac Caldwell Stafford - born August 25, 1837
Josiah Seth Stafford - born December 2, 1839
William Maner Stafford - born April 25, 1843
Eugene Audebert Stafford - born August 8, 1845
Jeannetta Kirkland Stafford - died in infancy
Howard Kirkland Stafford - born May 25, 1857
Seventh Generation
William Maner Stafford, fourth child of Josiah Seth Stafford and Jeannette Kirkland, was born on Greenwood Plantation, near Cheneyville, Rapides Parish, LA, on April 25, 1843, and died in Galveston, Texas on Friday morning, November 21, 1930, at the advanced age of eighty-seven. He married in 1876 Kate VEDDER who died in Galveston on February 14, 1910. They had five children (two died earlier: William Maner and Margaret King):
Earl Zimby Stafford - born December 19, 1877
Kate Vedder Stafford - born April 13, 1880
Josiah Seth Stafford - born January 18, 1884
Julia Laura Stafford - born November 10, 1885
Margaret Jeannetta Stafford - born October 26, 1889
Eighth Generation
Margaret Jeannette Stafford, youngest child of William Maner Stafford and Kate Vedder, was born in Galveston, TX, on October 26, 1889. She was married on April 25, 1911, to Asa Lee CROW of Galveston, Texas (b. Tallahatchie county, MS). She died 30 Apr 1973. They had two children.