The GUILLORY families of Louisiana can trace their ancestry to a couple whose marriage is recorded in the Mobile, Alabama Church Archives on Aug. 1739. Gregoire (Joseph) GUILLORY, a resident of Dauphine Island at that time, was a son of deceased Francois GUILLORY of Montreal and Jeanne MONFORT of Belle Isle en Mer, Diocese of Vannes, France. His bride, Marie Jeanne LACASE, daughter of Jean LACASE and Marie Ann FOURCHE, had been born in Mobile on 20 Mar. 1726 and baptized that same day. She married in 1737, Joseph STAMEYER dit Chateauneuf, a soldier in Lesuer's company; but was soon widowed. She was not yet fourteen years old at the time of her second marriage. By the time of her death in April, 1764, she produced at least eight children, only one of these pre-deceasing their mother (Marie-Louise, b. June 1748, d. May 1749. Her parents were living at Fish Island at that time.) These records are from the Mobile, Alabama Church Archives.

It is not known where the parents of Gregoire GUILLORY married. The Mobile marriage records before 1724 are no longer exist. It is possible that Francois GUILLORY married Jeanne MONFORT in France since there were several ships sailing between Mobile and France before 1709, the probable year he moved to Massacre Island and began planting vegetables. By 1710, he had built a house on the eastern end of that island, on the point given the name POINTE A GUILLORY. (The Names Pointe a Guillory, Passes a Guillory, and Isle a Guillory, appear on a map done in 1718, Jay Higginbotham, Old Mobile. Mobile City Museum, 1977, pp. 271, 345, 391, 393, 397f, 447f: Appendix, n.p.) However, it is possible that he remained unmarried for several years after founding a habitation on the island.

Francois GUILLORY, a sailer (mentioned as "matelot" on a note taken from page 27 Rencensements, a manuscript copy of French Archives at the Louisiana Historical Museum Library in New Orleans, LA.), seems to be the Francois baptized on 18 Mar. 1767 at Montreal, the son of Simon GUILLORY and Louise BOUCHARD. Certainly, Simon and Louise were parents of the early settler in the Louisiana Province, although he may have been a younger son also named Francois. Simon is the only GUILLORY listed in Tanguay (Dictionnaire Genealogique des Familles Canadiennes I, IV, 1957 reprinted) in the appropriate generation.

Simon GUILLORY arrived at the city of Quebec on 25 May 1664 aboard the ship "LE NOIR", which had sailed from LaRochelle, France. (letter from R.J. Auger, Archives du Quebec, to Byron Smith of New Orleans, LA., dated 29 Jan. 1975. Our thanks to Mr. Smith for sharing this with GUILLORY decendants.) On the 1666 Census of Montreal, GUILLORY is listed as a domestic employee of Charles LEMOYNE. (Father of Bienville and Iberville. Bienville was four years younger and Iberville was fifteen years older then Francois GUILLORY.)

Simon GUILLORY was christened on 16 Feb. 1646 at the church of St. Sauveur in Blois, department of Loi-et-Cher, France. Blois is a city on the Loire River - 172 kilometers southwest of Paris. The historic chateau dates from the 15th century and has been a well-known center since the Middle Ages. (Reconstructed in the 17th Century, general restoration in the 19th and 20th Centuries: See Guide Bleu, France, 1977, p. 742-745)

All GUILLORY decendants owe a debt of gratitude to Wade Hayes of Vidor, Texas who shared the findings of professional research done in France, under the direction of the French and Mediterranean Genealogical Research Association of Salt Lake City, Utah.