Fishing for descendants of the actor James Finlayson
I’ve long searched for possible descendants of James Finlayson. His 1919 marriage to Emily Cora Gilbert ended childless after less than five years and he never remarried. Nevertheless, rumours have persisted of offspring in either England or France perhaps the result of a romantic dalliance while in London or Paris, both cities where he enjoyed holidaying.
Today, I can exclusively put those rumours to bed!
DNA Testing
I share ~12.50% of X-chromosome DNA with James Finlayson, our common female ancestor being Isabella Todd Henderson née Wood, maternal grandmother of ‘Fin’ and my great-great-grandmother (on my mother’s side).
I took a DNA test with FamilyTreeDNA some years ago, initially to find more about my paternal line via Y-chromosome DNA. Later, I upgraded to autosomal DNA testing, and I subsequently uploaded the results to the genealogy site MyHeritage where I have had some success confirming matches with second and third cousins.
I recently had a match with a Madame Mabel from Normandy. I was puzzled at this as I’d only previously had matches with Baltic Sea nations such as Germany, Denmark, Poland, Sweden, Finland and Latvia. These matches had made sense as my great-great-grandfather James Henderson, who was a ship’s captain, had visited ports in these countries (and had clearly created a few non-paternity events!), but I wasn’t aware he had ever sailed to France.
However, I knew from passenger list records that his grandson had…
The French Connection
On 16 August 1924, age 36, James Finlayson arrived at Ellis Island, New York on the ship Paris from Le Havre in France.1 His marital status was single, his occupation was actor, and his last permanent address was Hotel Rochambeau in Paris, France. His final destination was his home at 1515 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California and he had previously resided in the U.S. from 1911 to 1924.
This was the return leg of a trip James had made to Scotland, when he had delivered a film lecture at the Stenhousemuir Picture Palace.
The address given in Paris on the ships’ manifest should actually have said Hôtel de Rochambeau which is named after a lieutenant general who fought alongside George Washington in the American Revolutionary War. The building is located at 40 Rue du Cherche-Midi.
Nine Months Later
Near this address is a church called Eglise Saint-Ignace. It was here, on 1 April 1925, that an infant was baptised.2 Of course, April 1925 is almost nine months after James Finlayson left France in August 1924…
The discovery I have made in the Paris Archives – thanks to Madame Normand – has a record type of ‘Naissance‘ (French for birth).
The baby girl is named ‘Avril Deau‘ – her first name after the month in which she was born (Avril being French for April). Her middle name – pronounced d’oh! – is perhaps a maternal ancestor’s surname linked to the town of Deauville in Normandy?
The mother is recorded as ‘Marie Mosquini Poissonnier‘ and was unmarried. She was the daughter of a fishmonger (Poissonnier – French for fishmonger – is an occupational surname like Smith, Archer or Taylor).
The father is recorded as ‘Jacques, fils de Finlay’. His occupation is given as ‘acteur de cinéma’. So, Avril D. Poissonnier was the child of the actor James Finlayson. Sacre bleu! Or should that be Holy mackerel?
Notes
- Hook, Line and Sinker (1922) was a Hal Roach two reeler staring Snub Pollard and featuring Marie Mosquini and James Finlayson. It is going to appear on a planned Snub Pollard 2 disc Blu-ray set produced by Dave Glass via Kickstarter funding.
Sources
- “New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924”, database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JNH4-QMW : 30 January 2018), James Finlayson, 1924.
- 1925 Birth of Avril Deau Poissonnier in Paris, France; Archives de Paris, Actes d’état civil, Actes de naissance.