Finding Your Roots

I watched Finding Your Roots, hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on PBS the other evening. One of the featured guests was Téa Leoni who was searching for information about her mother’s birth parents. Her mother’s mother was Abilene Gindrat, a Huguenot descendant. The program did not trace the Gindrat lineage, but I was curious, so I did.

Abraham Gindra(t) and Susanne Marguerite Tallet, Protestants from Berne, Siwtzerland were accepted as ancestors by the Huguenot Society of South Carolina in 1932. They were among the French-speaking Swiss settlers of Purrysburg, SC between 1732 and 1738. Abraham Gindra(t) wrote his will in 1760 and had died in Purrysburg by 4 Jun 1767, leaving his wife and several children.

Leoni’s lineage comes through Daniel Henry Gindrat and his wife [Mary] May who moved to Georgia and then through their son John and his first wife Margaret (surname unknown). She died in Georgia and John Gindrat moved to Alabama with his second wife Sarah Stallings. They lived in Montgomery, AL and entertained Gen. Lafayette when he visited there in 1825.

The line then goes through Joseph Henry Gindrat and Martha Evans, who married in Baldwin Co, GA in 1827. Joseph Henry Gindrat died in 1834 and his widow married George T. Wood in 1837. They are listed on the 1850 US Census for Polk County, TX with their children and her Gindrat children.

David Shelton Gindrat (1831-1903), son of Joseph Henry Gindrat and Martha Evans, married Frances Scott Sutton (1841-1908). They lived in San Jacinto Co, TX and had at least seven children. Their youngest son was Henry Isaac Gindratt who married Ruth Irene Franklin, parents of Abilene Gindrat.