Born: Abt. 1545 Avesnes, Hainaut, France

Married: 5 Jun 1570

Died: 1606

FATHER

Melchior De Forest

MOTHER

Catherine du Fosset

WIFE

Anne Maillard

CHILDREN

1. Melchior De Forest
    b. Abt. 1572

2. Jesse De Forest
    b. Abt. 1575
    m. 23 Sep 1601 Marie Due Cloux in Sedan
    d.  22 Oct 1624

3. Gerard De Forest
    b. Abt. 1583 Avesnes, Hainaut, France
    m. 15 Jul 1611 Hester de la Grange in Leiden   

4. Anna De Forest
    b. 1587 Avesnes, Hainaut, France
    betrothed 1 Oct 1606  to Jan Le Febure
    married: 21 Jan 1607 Amsterdam

5. David De Forest
    bap. 13 Apr 1603 in Leiden, Netherlands

Jehan De Forest
by Susan Brooke
Mar 2021

 On 28 Jan 1572 the mother of Jehan De Forest, Catherine Du Fosset, describing herself as the widow of Melchior de Forest, assigned an annuity of eighty livres to his and her children, Balthazar, Anthoine, Jean, Jacqueline and Franchoise.  Another son, Jaspard, obtained no share in this division. (1) Since his parents were married in 1533 and  it is assumed  that Jehan was the last son/child born to Melchior De Forest and Catherine du Fosset. (2) Jehan was probably born around 1545 in Avesnes, France. (3) .
Jehan married Anne Maillard about 1570. (4) An unknown source said they married 5 Jun 1570.  He was a merchant in Sedan by 1601. (5)
Some have reported that Jehan De Forest died 22 Oct 1606.  His daughter, Anne, was betrothed 1 Oct 1606 and she was required to produce a written consent from her father, but instead produced the signature of a minister. (6)

Sources

The Deforests of Avesnes and of New Netherland: A Huguenot Thread in American Colonial History, 1494 to the Present Time  – 1900

(1) page 30 He (Melchior De Forest) must have died this year, thirty-eight years after his marriage, and probably not much above the age of sixty.  On the 28th of January, 1572, Catherine Du Fosset, describing herself as the widow of Melchior de Forest, assigned an annuity of eighty livres to his and her children, Balthazar, Anthoine, Jean, Jacqueline and Franchoise.  Another son, Jaspard, obtained no share in this division, doubtless because he had an income as canon of the chapter of St. Nicholas at Avesnes.

(2) page 42
After the fashion of junior sons in those times, and indeed own to quite modern times, he received fewer parental favors than his elder brothers.  He was not betrothed into a family of gentlefolks, like Baltazar. He did not get to be alderman, nor fief-holder sur plumes, like Antoine.  He was not educated for the church and made "my lord canon,:" like Jaspard. A wife was selected for him (doubtless by his mother, more gallico) from the substantial but hardly aristocratic family of Maillards, residing in the neighboring unwalled town of Felleries, where Michel Maillard became mayor in 1572.

(3) page 44 Gerard, while living in Leyden, twice recorded himself as "a native of Avesnes in the country of Hainaut" and Anne, in her act of betrothal at Amsterdam, gave herself the same birthplace, and her birth-year as 1587. These statements are extremely important as proving the geographical origin of our ancestors.

(4) page 29   It must have been not far from 1570, say two years after the rout of Orange, that Jean de Forest, the presumed youngest son of Melchior, married Anne Maillard, daughter of Michel Maillard, a person of considerable note in the neighboring town of Felleries.  But this date is purely a matter of estimate, for the church registers of Avesnes do not go back so far.

(5) page 46    In the month of September 1601, we find Jean de Forest established as a merchant at Sedan, and obviously a professed Protestant already.  It is impossible to state the circumstances under which he turned his back upon his birthplace and his old religion.  His children at this period were strangely dispersed.  Jesse was with him, but Anne was at Amsterdam; Gerard was probably at Leyden; Melchior was at Lille.

page 47 The civic records of Sedan do not mention Jean de Forest, which leads one to suspect that he had but a brief residence there.  The church registers mention him for the first and only time in 1602, as "a merchant of this city" marrying his son Jesse to the daughter of another merchant.

(6) page 48  In 1606, October 1st, "Anne des Forests of Avesnes, aged nineteen years, for five years at Amsterdam," was betrothed in the presence of her mother, Anne Maillard, to Jean Le Fevre, caffatier, resident of the Weaveries at Leyden,.

page 49 Anne de Forest was instructed to procure a written consent to the betrothal from her father.  The required document came to hand with the signature of Gerardus Schopenius, minister at Vosmeer.  Was Jean de Forest dead, or too ill to write?

Gerard, when he made a will (not his last) in 1633, left two hundred florins to his mother Anne Maillard, but said nothing of his father.

The mortuary records of the Walloon churches in Holland fail to mention Jean de Forest. It is probable that he died long before his wife, who was buried at Amsterdam, April 21, 1640.