Boichat

Recorded as Boichat and Boichot in France and as Boicat in England where it has become fused with the surname Boycott, this is a French surname. Sadly French register recordings are generally very poor, the majority being deliberately destroyed during the famous Revolution of 1789 - 1794 as instruments of the dreaded secret police of King Louis XV11. In England and perhaps surprisingly in Germany, these church records can be found back to medieval times and certainly the reign of King Henry V111th of England (1510 - 1547). It is not generally known that in France the church itself was completely banned for ten years until restored by Napoleon Bonaparte. Therefore often such records as survive are either from regions outside of the main stream of the Revolution and which may well have been hidden by the priest although at the risk of his life, or they post date the Revolution itself. In this case we have an interesting recording from the absolute end of the 1st Empire, when Anne Boichot married Francoise Gitton at Crepey, Meurthe-et-Moselle on June 28th 1814. The name is probably occupational and a derivative of Boisart or Boisot, meaning a forester.