Divorce in Switzerland Co, August 1830
Please please please, I'm hoping that some wonderful individual out there in Switzerland county could do a look up for me?
I hoping that someone could look up the records pertaining the divorce of Sophia Guerraz vs. John/Jean David Guerraz in July and August of 1830 in Switzerland County, Indiana.
I just found a newspaper article in "The Republican" (Madison, Indiana) dated July 15, 1830.
"State of Indiana, Switzerland county, ss. In the Switzerland Circuit Court..
Sophia Guerraz, vs. John D. Guerraz - Onpetition for Divorce.
On the 5th day of July 1830, the above named Petioner to wit, Sophia Guerraz by Stevens her attorney comes before John Wilson and Joseph Malin, Esquires, the associate Judges of the Circuit Court of said county of Switzerland; and it appearing to the satisfaction of said Judges, by the affidavite of J. F. Dufour, that the said defendant John David Guerraz is not a resident of the state of Indiana, and it further appearing to the satisfaction of said Judges that said Petitioner's petition was duly filed in the office of the clerk of said court in vacation, to wit, on the 5th day of July 1830.It is ordered by said Judges that the pendency of said petition be duly published for four weeks successively in the Indian Republican, a weekly newspaper, printed and published in the town of Madison, Jefferson county in the state of Indiana, before the first day of the next term of said Circuit court, to be began and held on the 3d Monday in August 1830, notifying said defendant that unless he appear thereto on the said first day of the next term of said court, that the matters and things therein contained will be heard in his absence.- By order of said associate judges.Teste.I. R. WHITEHEAD, CLE. July 7, 1830."
John David Guerraz is my ancestor and he has been EXTREMELY interesting but his origins have been elusive.Other than this the earliest record I have for him is a newspaper article in 1828 in Baltimore saying that he was a servant the Chevalier Huygens, minister to the United States for the Netherlands.He, along with to other servants, stole several hundred dollars and were arrested the next day.Until this divorce we had no record of him until his marriage to Elizabeth Bridges in Clay County, Missouri in 1835.He and Elizabeth had several children and moved to California which, eventually, leads to me.According to later death records he was born in Geneva, part of French Occupied Switzerland, in 1805.Family rumors say that his father was some sort of military official under Napoleon.
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.