Le Claire

Ancien Régime

Nicolas Le Clerc

⚭Anne Fériet de Lezay

1624, 1660

Lorraine

Son of Alexandre Le Clerc de Pulligny and father of Alexandre II Le Clerc; the generation through which the direct ancestral line is carried across the mid-seventeenth century in Lorraine.

The Name Through History

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

  1. Von Mengen

    before 1310

    Lords of Dalheim — Rhenish-Lorrain ministerial nobility

  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 Alexandre Le Clerc de Pulligny (1587, after 1659), Knight of Saint Mark.

Spouse. Anne Fériet de Lezay (1626, 1678).

Children. Father of Alexandre II Le Clerc (1652–1695), Minor Lord of Lorraine.

Position in the Direct Line

Generation 8 of 19 in the continuous bloodline shown on the home-page pedigree, from Mengin Le Clerc of Lorraine (c. 1355) to Brandon Noble LeClaire.

  1. Generation 5·Leclerc

    Claude Leclerc de Pulligny

    c. 1485

  2. Generation 6·Leclerc

    Claude II Leclerc de Pulligny

    1532

  3. Generation 7·Le Clerc

    Alexandre Le Clerc de Pulligny

    1585

  4. Generation 8·Le Clerc

    Nicolas Le Clerc

    1624

  5. Generation 9·Le Clerc

    Alexandre II Le Clerc

    1652

  6. Generation 10·Le Claire

    François 'Pierre' Le Claire

    1684

  7. Generation 11·Le Claire

    Jean Pierre Le Claire, Très Noble Seigneur

    1718

Historical context

Nicolas Le Clerc (1624–1660) belongs to the generation that carried the family through the most turbulent decades of the seventeenth century, the Thirty Years' War, the French occupations of Lorraine and the long pressure of Louis XIII and Louis XIV on the Duchy.

He stands between his father Alexandre Le Clerc de Pulligny, Knight of Saint Mark, and his son Alexandre II Le Clerc, Minor Lord of Lorraine, by whom the direct ancestral line passes into the eighteenth-century Le Claire family from which the modern House descends.

Significance & legacy

Nicolas is the quiet generation through whom the direct line continues from the Knights of Saint Mark of 1623 to the Minor Lords of Lorraine of the later seventeenth century.

Known records & evidence

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

Related entities

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

Related families

Related places

Sources & references

Authoritative archives, libraries and reference collections that hold — or can be used to verify, records of this entity. External sources are cited only where they genuinely support the historical record; not every claim on this page is yet matched to a digitised primary source.

  • Parish, notarial, seigneurial and military records of Lorraine, Alsace and the Rhineland preserved in the LeClaire Family Historical Archive.

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