Restieaux

This is a French surname, which is now widely recorded in the surviving church registers of the diocese of Greater London. When found in the British Isles, it is of French Huguenot origins, that is to say that it is a protestant refugee surname, and one from the estimated fifty thousand such people, who fled to these shores between 1580 and 1750. This was to escape persecution for their beliefs, although it must be said that catholics from Britain were also moving in the other direction. Restieaux is a locational or topographical name from the west of France, and it appears to describe a person who lived at a place called Restiaux, of which there are a number of examples in the departements of Sarthe and Maigne. The name seems to mean a prominent house, but this may have referred to an inn or small hotel. We expected to find recordings of the surname in the Channel Islands, but were unable to find any examples. The French registers are not good, many were destroyed in the Revoltion of 1792, but an example is that of Guillen Restieaux at St-Martin-de-Aussac, Haute-Vienne, on December 13th 1740, whilst in England, James Restieaux, the son of Andrew Restieaux and his wife, the former Magdalen Mignot, was christened at St Ann's church, Soho, on January 6th 1766.