Q: So, let’s start with the name; Christine DePesan; does it have a bit of a history connected with it, or is it just coincidence that it has echos of the early 14th century feminist Christine De Pisano?
: Well, yes, there is some history there, I’m just not entirely sure it’s mine. My mother certainly thought so, but I haven’t been able to confirm anything genealogically.
Why is that?
Part of the problem is that, according to my mother, the name descended through the female line as a first and middle name set, the eldest daughter in each generation taking the name “Christine DePesan Whatever”, with the ‘whatever’s roaming pretty broadly over the genealogical map, until my mother, who officially changed her surname to DePesan and passed it to me.
You can imagine the difficulty of trying to track a middle name or initial in the female line back several generations. No easy task. But yes, my mother always claimed we are descended from Christine de Pisano, daughter of the court astrologer to Charles IV of France. How we got from De Pisano to DePesan, I can’t tell you, but she insisted there’s a connection.
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