A Turk murderer of his wife, Hearing of May 5 and 6, 1902, Justice Court of Meurthe-et-Moselle, L'Est Républicain of May 7 and 8, 1902, Gallica.fr
The National Library of France (BNF) provides highly valuable tools for genealogy: gallica.bnf.fr and retronews.fr. There is a high probability of finding ancestors on these sites by searching in the local press or in official announcements. A few years ago, I stumbled upon a news item related to my family that I was completely unaware of in this local press.
In my Breton genealogy, I was intrigued to find two children's deaths on the same day. Suspecting illness or even an accident, I decided to check Gallica, in the local newspapers, to see if any article mentioned the family I was looking for. Indeed, a news item informed me of the whole incident: a fire had broken out in the farm, and the children sleeping there could not be saved. The newspaper articles provided details about the circumstances of the tragedy and the property owned by this family.
Even now, I still have the reflex to conduct research using these sites. In Armenian genealogy as well, research on Gallica can be highly fruitful. Two years ago, I attended a genealogy fair where I gave a presentation on the future of Armenian genealogy. At the end of our presentation, as often happens, a participant, notably the president of a provincial genealogy association, shared his personal research and his surprise at discovering in his genealogy a marriage between an Armenian student from Paris, Ruben Sislian, originally from Adana, and one of his distant cousins in the early 20th century. Indeed, his ancestors generally remained rooted in their land, and Armenians only began to migrate to France more massively from 1922 after the Armenian genocide. After this marriage, this seasoned genealogist lost track of this couple in Paris and asked me for leads to find them. Is it possible that they settled in the Ottoman Empire? I mentioned two elements that I could assume from the surname and the historical context: first, the actual presence of Armenian students in France at that time, sent by their affluent families. These Armenians then settled in Europe, the United States to trade with the Orient, or returned to the Ottoman Empire where they constituted the elite of their nation. Secondly, the surname Sislian itself provides indications of the origin of the family of this Armenian born in Adana in Cilicia. The suffix "lian" indicates a geographical origin, in this case, originating from Sis. Sis is the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Cilicia. Thus, we have an Armenian whose family, originally from Sis (currently Kozan) in Cilicia, settled in Adana, the major port of Cilicia, and sent their child to study in France.
With very few elements to start this research, the task seemed quite daunting to find elements that would allow me to find them. Back from the fair a few days later, I began this search to see if I could find anything. My surprise was quite significant when the answer to all the questions was finally provided in half a day of research.
My first discovery was finding a trace of this Armenian's mother in Constantinople. A complaint filed by her against her brother, a dragoman-translator for the French embassy in Constantinople. We had a starting point for research abroad. This research was conducted on Gallica, which also has French-speaking newspapers from the Ottoman Empire.
But the research took another turn and was mainly refocused in France following the discovery of an article in France. A news item, once again: the report of a trial at the Meurthe-et-Moselle assize court in Nancy, the judgment of a feminicide: the assassination of the wife by her Armenian husband. This astonishing discovery was once again very detailed in the newspapers, which told us the circumstances of the assassination by the woman who pointed out to witnesses her murderer. We learn the sordid details of the affair: the squandering of the woman's fortune by her husband, the abuse she suffered, and his refusal of her pregnancy, which he wanted to abort. And finally the assassination with a revolver in the middle of the street in Nancy.
Through the press, I also found the husband's sentence to 20 years of forced labor. I was then able to trace his death in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in French Guiana a few years later. In half a day, the fate of this family, who were presumed to have emigrated to the Ottoman Empire before the genocide, had in fact never left France to experience this tragic destiny.