Le Claire

Ancien Régime

Pierre-Nicolas Le Clerc

1692, 1762

Lorraine

One of the earliest clearly documented members of the later family branch, the generation that bridges the historic Le Clerc de Pulligny lineage and the emergence of the Leclaire surname in eighteenth-century records.

The Name Through History

A single continuous line, recorded under many forms as it passed through Lorraine, France, the Rhineland and Britain.

  1. De Parroye / de Haute-Pierre

    before 1310

    Seigneurial houses of Lorraine from which the maternal ancestry descends

  2. Moingins dis li clers

    c. 1310 – 1400

    Lorrain vernacular byname, 1355 charter

  3. Le Clerc · Leclerc

    15th – 17th c.

    French-Lorraine seigneurial line

  4. Le Claire

    late 17th – 18th c.

    Transitional French spelling of the direct line

  5. Leclaire

    18th – 19th c.

    Napoleonic-era French form

  6. Le Clair · Leclair

    19th c.

    Rhineland branch, German civil registers

  7. Licklär

    1880 – 1970

    Germanised orthography, 20th-century Rhineland

  8. LeClaire

    21st c.

    Restored British form, House of Greenland-LeClaire

Family connection

Parents. Son of Nicolas Le Clerc (c. 1665, after 1705).

Children. Father of Pierre Leclaire.

Position in the Direct Line

Pierre-Nicolas Le Clerc is a collateral figure of the wider House and is not part of the continuous bloodline shown on the home-page pedigree. Their branch descends from Alexandre II Le Clerc in the direct line.

Historical context

Pierre-Nicolas Le Clerc (1692–1762) is the earliest figure in the post-Pulligny line for whom dates can be stated with confidence. He lived through the long reign of Louis XV, the loss of the independent Duchy of Lorraine (formally absorbed into France in 1766, four years after his death) and the consolidation of the family in the borderland between Lorraine and Alsace.

Timeline note: the family surname undergoes its most visible transition during his and his son's generations. Parish registers and notarial acts of the period record the same household variously as Le Clerc, Leclerc, Le Claire and Leclaire, the spellings drifting through clerical hands towards the single-word Leclaire form by which the next generation is consistently known.

He is the link between Nicolas Le Clerc (c. 1665) and Pierre Leclaire, through whom the line continues to Louis Jean Baptiste Leclaire and ultimately to the modern House.

Surname timeline during this generation: c. 1690 Le Clerc / Leclerc dominant in Lorraine parish hands · c. 1720 Le Claire and Leclaire begin to appear in mixed Alsatian / Lorraine registers · by c. 1750 Leclaire is the form most consistently recorded for the household.

Significance & legacy

Pierre-Nicolas is the first generation after the seventeenth-century gap for whom the family's continuity into the documented eighteenth-century Leclaire branch can be plainly traced.

Known records & evidence

Biographical, parish, notarial, seigneurial and military records of Lorraine, Alsace and the Rhineland, preserved in the LeClaire Family Historical Archive.[1],[2]

Lineage explorer

Pierre-Nicolas Le Clerc in the line

Trace the generations from this ancestor to the present day, follow how land, titles and arms descended, or open the wider network of marriages and allied houses.

No documented descent chain is recorded from Pierre-Nicolas Le Clerc to the present generation.

Related entities

Other documented people, family branches, places and armorial records connected to this entry in the archive.

Related families

Related places

Citations & sources

Each numbered reference below supports a specific statement on this page. The evidence label records how firmly that reference attests the point.

  1. 1.Parish, notarial and seigneurial registers of Lorraine, Alsace and the Rhineland↩

    Archives départementales de Meurthe-et-Moselle, de la Moselle, du Bas-Rhin; Landesarchiv

    Contemporary Record
    Full reference: Parish, notarial and seigneurial registers of Lorraine, Alsace and the Rhineland, Archives départementales de Meurthe-et-Moselle, de la Moselle, du Bas-Rhin; Landesarchiv
  2. 2.Published genealogies of the Le Clerc de Pulligny and Leclaire lines↩

    Armorials and genealogical works of record for Lorraine

    Published Genealogy
    Full reference: Published genealogies of the Le Clerc de Pulligny and Leclaire lines, Armorials and genealogical works of record for Lorraine
  3. 3.↩

    House of LeClaire

    Published Genealogy
    Full reference: LeClaire Family Historical Archive, House of LeClaire — https://leclaire.co.uk/historical-archive
  4. 4.↩

    French National Archives, sovereign and noble records of the Ancien Régime and after.

    Published Scholarly Research
    Full reference: Archives Nationales (France), French National Archives, sovereign and noble records of the Ancien Régime and after. — https://www.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/
  5. 5.↩

    Genealogy platform; use only entries that themselves cite primary records.

    Published Scholarly Research
    Full reference: Geneanet, Genealogy platform; use only entries that themselves cite primary records. — https://www.geneanet.org/
  6. 6.↩

    Open-licensed historical images, maps and document scans.

    Published Scholarly Research
    Full reference: Wikimedia Commons, Open-licensed historical images, maps and document scans. — https://commons.wikimedia.org/
  7. 7.↩

    Charles d'Hozier's Armorial général de France (1696), digitised by the BnF.

    Published Scholarly Research
    Full reference: BnF, Armorial général de France (d'Hozier), Charles d'Hozier's Armorial général de France (1696), digitised by the BnF. — https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8470253q
  8. 8.↩

    Open-licensed reproductions of French armorial bearings.

    Published Scholarly Research
    Full reference: Wikimedia Commons, Heraldry of France, Open-licensed reproductions of French armorial bearings. — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Heraldry_of_France
  9. 9.↩

    Digitised primary sources of the BnF, including charters and registers of Lorraine.

    Published Scholarly Research
    Full reference: Gallica (Bibliothèque nationale de France), Digitised primary sources of the BnF, including charters and registers of Lorraine. — https://gallica.bnf.fr/
  10. 10.↩

    Parish, notarial and seigneurial registers for Nancy and the former Duchy of Lorraine.

    Published Scholarly Research
    Full reference: Archives départementales de Meurthe-et-Moselle, Parish, notarial and seigneurial registers for Nancy and the former Duchy of Lorraine. — https://archives.meurthe-et-moselle.fr/
  11. 11.↩

    Parish and notarial records covering the Pulligny / Xirocourt area.

    Published Scholarly Research
    Full reference: Archives départementales des Vosges, Parish and notarial records covering the Pulligny / Xirocourt area. — https://archives.vosges.fr/
  12. 12.↩

    Bibliographic catalogue of printed and manuscript holdings.

    Published Scholarly Research
    Full reference: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Catalogue général, Bibliographic catalogue of printed and manuscript holdings. — https://catalogue.bnf.fr/

Canonical URL: https://leclaire.co.uk/people/pierre-nicolas-le-clerc