The starting point of our Mellier family is Jehannod Mellier, who lived in the late 14th or early 15th century. His son Jaquet and grandson Jehan were winegrowers in the region of Bevaix. Little is known of the early members of the family, and their wives' names are unknown. Jehan had a son named Anthoine, and a grandson named Pierre, who married Jehanette Veillard. Their son Lienhard owned fields and vines at Bevaix, for which he paid dues to Marie de Bourbon.
Lienhard's son Guillaume lived in the second half of the 16th century, and had a son, Pierre, and a grandson, Josué. Josué married a distant cousin, Ester Mellier, whose father Gabriel was pastor of the church at Bevaix. Josué and Ester's son Josué was an elder in the local church, and became "gouverneur" (a kind of village mayor) in Bevaix. He married Salomé Pettavel in Bevaix on 3 August 1677, and they had eight children.
Josué and Salomé's second child, another Josué Mellier, was christened in Bevaix on 5 October 1679, and married Marie Ribaux
(daughter of Claude Ribaux) on 27 February 1711. They had nine children, all christened in Bevaix, including David, who was christened on 31 August 1726, and married Elisabeth Marguerite Ribaux (possibly his cousin) on 13 December 1755.
David and Elisabeth had six children in Bevaix: their son Abram (christened 20 October 1765) left Switzerland to live near Lyon in France, where his family were involved in the calico printing industry. Abram's older brother David Mellier (christened 12 November 1758), however, remained in Bevaix, and married Rose-Madelaine Bachmann there on 10 September 1785. Rose-Madelaine was christened in Travers on 30 May 1761, and was the daughter of Jean-Jaques Bachmann, whose ancestors came from Langnau in the canton of Bern, and Marie-Judith Greset from an old Travers family.
The fifth of their seven children, Josué Mellier, was born in Bevaix on 4 December 1799, and was well-regarded in the local community, becoming an elder in the church as well as a kind of Justice of the Peace. He married his third cousin Jeanne-Marguerite Porret on 16 May 1829, and the couple had eleven children. Jeanne-Marguerite was born in Bevaix on 28 June 1804, and was the daughter of Jean-Pierre Porret and Marie-Marguerite Contesse, whose roots in the region go back to the 13th century.
Josué and Jeanne-Marguerite's third child, Louise-Cécile Mellier was born in Bevaix on 22 November 1832, and married Antoine-Samuel Grandjean, a baker from Salavaux in the canton of Vaud, on 25 October 1862. They had four children, and the youngest, Rose-Adèle Grandjean, (born 14 March 1867) married Paul-Emile Roulet in Bevaix on 1 March 1889.
|
