A SHORT HISTORY OF THE JAQUIÉRY FAMILY

Near the centre of Europe is a country which we now call Switzerland.  In its western part, between two lakes, Geneva and Neuchatel lies the canton (or we would say a province) which is called Vaud. People have dwelt there ever since man lived in caves and used stone tools. These people were a Celtic tribe who came to be known as the Helvetii. This long ago people everywhere were much shorter than people are today. Yet the Helvetii were taller and stronger than many of the other neighbouring tribes. They had fair hair and complexions and blue or gray eyes. For their time, they were a cultured people, as recent archeological discoveries have shown. Their strength and physique made them formidable fighters.

About a hundred years before the birth of Jesus the Helvetii fought and defeated a Roman army driving it back into Italy. The Roman Empire, however, was the greatest and the most powerful that the world had ever known. In time, its armies defeated the Helvetii and their land became part of the Roman Empire. For three and a half centuries the Romans ruled Vaud. The Helvetii gradually adopted the language and many of the customs of Rome. Some of the Roman Centurians and soldiers married young women from the local area. One such marriage between a Roman and a young woman of the Helvetii was the beginning of the Jaquiery family.

FAMILY NAMES
Many centuries ago family surnames as we know them did not exist, but the descendants of this marriage continued to live in and near the villages of Demoret and Moudon until, sometime in the 14th century A.D. they came to be called the Jaquiery family. If you go to those same villages today you will still find the Jaquiery family living there.

The earliest date shown on our family tree is A.D. 1390 when a Willermi Salaz, also known as Jaquier or Jaquiery was recorded. The names "Salaz", "Jaquier" and "Jaquiéry" were all used by our family about this time.

IMPORTANT FAMILIES
An important event in the history of the Jaquiery family took place when Jean Jaquiery who was a notary married Sara, the daughter of another notary Rodolphe Demont de Moudon and his (third) wife, Marie de Gruyère whom he married about 1542. Marie's family were nobles, Louis de Gruyère, and others. According to the historian Henri Naef the Gruyère family received its title and power from the Carolingian kings. There are records of the family as landowners and nobles in the Gruyère area as early as the 10th century. The castle on the hilltop at Gruyère, still today one of the two finest castles in Switzerland, was the seat of the Gruyère dynasty for five centuries.

The ancestors of Antoine de Gruyère of Aigremont can also be traced back through the male branch of other dynasties such as the de Salins Vaugrenant d'Alamen, the Barons of Aubonne and of Coppet, the de Joinville, the Counts of Savoy, the Dukes of Lorraine, of Thoire and of Villars, the Counts of Geneva and others. Through the feminine branch they were linked to the patrician family de Saliceto of Fribourg and the Mayor of Avenches etc.

Among the most interesting and powerful of the dynasties with which the Jaquiery family was either linked through marriage or closely associated was the House of Savoy which gained control of Vaud during the rule of Thomas (1177 - 1233) and ruled the area continuously until 1536. The territories of the first Duke of Savoy covered a vast stretch of West Central Europe. Savoy heirs were later kings of Sicily, then Sardinia and from 1861 until 1944, kings of Italy - although these developments took place long after the Savoys had ceased to be involved with Vaud.

We ourselves are direct, although very distant, descendants of Jean and Sara Jaquiery so some these famous and powerful families are rightly listed among our ancestors also.

FROM SWITZERLAND TO ENGLAND
For many hundreds of years almost all members of the Jaquiery family, like most others in Switzerland, were born, lived, married, brought up their children and died in their own villages, rarely shifting to live away from the place of their birth. This began to change following the great social upheavals throughout Europe brought about by plagues, religious reformation and revolution.

From at least as early as 1601 AD some of the Jaquiery Family went from Switzerland to England. Sometime before 1763 a Jean Pierre Jaquiery, of Moudon, the son of Charles Jaquiery, came to England and settled in London. In 1763 Jean Pierre Jaquiery, who in England was called "John Jaquerry" married Susannah Platt at the church of St Luke, Chelsea. John and Susannah had three children, one of whom was John Baptist Jaquiery (called Jean Baptiste in Switzerland). This first John Baptist (or Jean Baptiste) in turn married and had three sons. The eldest of the three was Samuel John Jaquiery who in 1848 married Rebecca Elizabeth Williams. Samuel and Rebecca had a family of seven children of whom two died when they were very young. The eldest of the surviving sons was named John Baptist (after his grand father) and became the founder of the New Zealand Jaquiery family. Other descendants of Samuel and Rebecca emigrated to Canada and the United States of America, founding the families still to be found in those countries. So it is that all the Jaquiery families in all the English-speaking countries in the world are descended from Jean Pierre and Susannah.

THE NEW ZEALAND FAMILY
In 1866, at the age of 27, John Baptist Jaquiery left England and his family to emigrate to Australia. Working his passage on a sailing ship, the Gala, he went first to Melbourne and then to Launceston in Tasmania. Here he workd as a mounted policeman and met and married Ann Eliza, the daughter of the well-known Gardam family. Their son Walter was born in 1870 and the same year the family moved to Melbourne. While living in Melbourne three more children were born, Bernard, Ann and Robert, but Ann, the only daughter, died at the age of 8 months.

In 1876 the family moved once again, to Wellington, New Zealand, travelling on the sailing ship Wallaby. John Baptist, who had been trained as a lithographer, worked at first for a printing firm and later as a prison officer. We are told that he was a very clever man and spoke seven languages. Soon after arriving in New Zealand he learnt Maori and for a time he was the interpreter for the General commanding the Government forces.

While in Wellington the last of John and Ann's children, George Frederick, was born in 1881. Four years later the Prison Service transferred them to the prison at Lyttleton where John Baptist became Chief Warder. From Lyttleton there was another transfer to the position of Chief Warder of the prison at Invercargill.

In 1890 John Baptist resigned from the Prison Service and a short time later he and his wife opened a shop on the corner of Dee and Clyde Streets, Invercargill. He died in 1894.

After John Baptist's death his widow Ann Eliza continued to run the Jaquiery Shop, eventually handing it over to her son Bernard and his wife Charlotte (nee Thorn). Bernard died as the result of an accident, but Charlotte carried on the business for many years. Ann Eliza herself lived on until 1915.

In time the family moved gradually away from Invercargill, usually in search of work or better opportunities. Robert established a business as a plumber and tinsmith in Winton until he also died as the result of an accident. The other brothers moved north. Only the youngest, George Frederick, remained in Invercargill. Although he too died at a relatively early age, he lived long enough to ensure that the Jaquiery name would not be quickly forgotten. Lake Jaquiery, the Jaquiery Stream and Jaquiery Pass are named after him.