Ravard vs Ravare and Metoyer Connections

This will be the first in a series written by Janet Ravare Colson, retired director of the Creole Heritage Center. This series will focus on looking back at some of the over thirty years (30 years!) of projects she has worked on and how much of that information is still relevant or how it has changed as technology has changed.

Ravard vs Ravare

AND their Metoyer connection in France

Janet Ravare Colson

My family name is Ravare (or is it Ravard?). I am married to a Metoyer descendant. So the connection in France that I found was very interesting.

Back to the Ravare vs Ravard controversy. To this day, we have still not figured out why some use the Ravare spelling and others use the Ravard. Each proclaiming their way was the correct spelling. I am talking about brothers of the same father, not just cousins. One day, over 20 years ago, I came across a Latter Day Saints database online (now known as www.familysearch.org) and put in Ravare as a surname search. To my surprise there were pages of listings from as far back as the 1500’s of Ravards!! I concluded then that the original spelling must be with the “d” on the end, and not the “e” since the “d” spelling went back as far as the 1500’s. The source was the International Genealogical Index (IGI) listing which is on the site.

Never thought that much about it till years later I went searching for a particular photo in one of my many family history folders and came across an image of a map identified as “Ravare location in France”. No info on where I got this or how I even knew to label it this way. I didn’t even know where in France this was supposed to be. Came across another listing on the Family Sear site entitled “Historical Record Collections” and found a link to a census in France labeled “France, Côtes-d’Armor, Census, 1876”. Did a search for “Ravard.Ravare” and saw that the results showed a majority in the same area Department – Côtes-d’Armor, Bretagne, France*. Located a map for this area to compare to the one I found earlier and realized they were one in the same.

Cotes-dArmor-Bretagne, France – Ravard/Metoyer location

This was a very interesting find. Then, for some unknown reason, decided to search for Metoyer in this same census. Found just as many or more listings for Metoyers in the same Department. Based on the maps it seemed that they probably lived a few miles from one another. This was even more interesting to me based on a survey I did years ago regarding my 50 plus cousins and who they married. The results were that over 47% of my Ravard/Ravare cousins had married Metoyer connections from Cane River.

Being involved in genealogy research for almost 30 years I discovered the Ravard/Ravare surname is not a common name within the United States and all identified so far descend from the same common ancestor. The same is true for the all Metoyer family connections researched and documented.

*Côtes-d’Armor, formerly named Côtes-du-Nord, is a department in the north of Brittany, in northwestern France. The department is the second level of administrative divisions on the map of France. The department of Côtes-d’Armor is located in the region of Bretagne.

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