Origin of Surname
This name derives from the old French bailli, which became Jersey's bailiff, meaning someone responsible for upholding the King's justice or being guardian of a fortified place. This explains the confusion in many transcriptions of documents involving early Jersey documents - when was a guardien a Warden or when was a bailli a guardian?
However, the family name did not necessarily originate with an office holder, but more probably with someone who conducted themselves as if they were of that importance.
Le Bail is probably not a variant, and appears to have first arrived in Jersey in the 1890s, but family gravestones are included on this page for the time being. It is said to be derived from the Breton name for an animal with a white patch on its front, although how this developed into a surname is uncertain.
Early records
Although it does not appear in early medieval official records, it is undoubtedly an old Jersey surname. Payne (see below) suggests that the main Jersey family originated with Huguenot immigrants, and that an earlier Jersey family spelt its name Le Bailiff, which was subsequently corrupted to Le Bailli. This is strange, the word commonly in use in Jersey from very early times being bailli, but it is partly born out by early records - see Variants below. This is perhaps another example of the inbuilt snobbery in Payne's work, by which he attempts to set apart families paying him for inclusion from others who undoubtedly had a longer pedigree in the island.
Records for early baptisms can be found with variations in spelling within the same family.
- Geoffry Le Bailly was born in Jersey about 1488 and married Peronnelle Malzard. (See tree link below)
Payne's Armorial of Jersey
The area near the small town of Condé-sur-Noireau, in Normandy, was the original place of settlement of this family, now represented by Joshua Le Bailly, Jurat of the Royal Court. Possessed there of considerable landed property, its representative formed one among the numberless Huguenot fugitives, who in consequence of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and in spite of the merciless statute to the contrary, hazarded their lives and sacrificed their wealth by flight, in order to enjoy even in a foreign land, in poverty, and amid strangers, that priceless boon — liberty of conscience. In common with a large majority of these refugees, both in England and in Jersey, the sojourn of this family in its new home has been marked by prosperity; a circumstance the more worthy of note, when it is considered that, unaided by connections, and crippled, in many instances, by abject poverty, the French Protestants owe their worldly success chiefly to those virtues, the exercise of which places wealth and position within the ultimate reach of all.
This family must not be confounded with an aboriginal Jersey one, of almost similar cognomen, settled from time immemorial in the parish of Trinity, the name of which, originally written Le Baillif, has been corrupted or changed to a spelling identical with the foregoing.
Variants
- Le Bailly, 1749
- Le Bailiff, 1309
- Le Bailif 1528
- Le Bailiffe 1607
- Le Baillif 1331
- Ballivus 1299
- Le Bailli
- Le Bayley
- Le Bail, possibly a distinct name rather than a variant
Family records
Family trees
Thefirst two trees cover the original Jersey family and the Huguenot immigrant family, respectively, but there are many family baptism and marriage records which do not fit into either of these trees and it has long been assumed that there was at least one other immigrant family. That was confirmed in 2021 by research into French records as the later generations in the third tree.
- Descendants of Geoffrey Le Bailly
- Descendants of Louis Le Bailly and Marie Bosdet
- Descendants of Marin Le Bailly Added 2021
Church records
- Le Bailly baptisms in Jersey
- Le Bailly marriages in Jersey (groom)
- Le Bailly marriages in Jersey (bride)
- Le Bailly burials in Jersey
Newspaper records
Great War service
Family wills
These wills created by members of the Le Bailly family are now held by Jersey Archive. By visiting the archive site and using the names, dates and reference numbers shown here, it is possible to view a copy of each will. You will have to subscribe to the Archive's online service to do this. To find out more about this collection, which covers the period from 1663 to 1980, and how to search for your family's wills there, visit our Jersey wills page
- Ann Le Bailly, 1 Apsley Place, Stopford Road, St Helier - 9 July 1912, D/Y/A/71
- Ann Le Bailly, 17 Regent Road - 3 June 1927, D/Y/A/87
- Anne Le Bailly of St Helier, desires to be buried in St Helier's Cemetery, bequeaths to the poor of St Helier, £16 of the order of the King 12 August 1806 - D/Y/A/17
- Anne Le Bailly of St Helier, desires to be buried in St Helier's Cemetery, bequeaths to the poor of St Helier, 5s sterling and to members of her family a number of English Funds 2 October 1820 - D/Y/A/19
- Elizabeth Le Bailly of St Helier, desires to be buried in St Helier's Cemetery, bequeaths to the poor of St Helier, 5s 26 December 1848 - D/Y/A/26
- George Le Bailly of St Helier - 8 February 1888, D/Y/A/47
- George Le Bailly, son of Jean, of St Helier, bequeaths to the poor of St Helier, £4 tournois of the order of the King 26 March 1803 - D/Y/A/16
- Jane Le Bailly of St Helier - 22 April 1875, D/Y/A/38
- Jean Le Bailly of Clairval, St Saviour - 8 December 1865, D/Y/A/32
- Jeanne Le Bailly, widow of Thomas Denton of St Brelade, desires to be buried in St Brelade's Church, bequeaths to the poor of St Clement, £20 sterling, and to the poor of the 11 other parishes of Jersey, £1,000 sterling to be divided between them, to St Aubin's Hospital, £1,500 sterling 21 May 1770 - D/Y/A/12
- Margueritte Le Bailif 28 December 1689 - D/Y/A/1
- Peter Le Bailly, St Brelade - 24 January 1929, D/Y/A/89
- Pierre Le Bailly of St Brelade 31 May 1759 - D/Y/A/10
- Sara Le Bailly of St Mary, now of St John, widow of Jacques Le Brun, bequeaths to the poor of St John £4 - 20 November 1869, D/Y/A/34
- Susanne Le Bailly 6 February 1723 - D/Y/A/5
Burial records
Family homes
Family businesses
Family album
Auguste Jean Le Bailly (1893-1980) and Victorine Marie Louise, nee Goudre (1901-1980), married in Jersey
Francis Benest and Mary, nee Le Bailly
Therese Melanie Jouanne, nee Le Bailly with her grandchildren
Therese Melanie Jouanne, nee Le Bailly
Therese Melanie Jouanne, nee Le Bailly
Jouanne and Le Bailly family in 1910
Paul Oke Dart and Elizabeth, nee Le Bailly
Auguste Jean Martial Le Bailly and Victorine Marie Louise, nee Goudre
WW1 commendation for Auguste
WW1 commendation for Auguste
.jpg)
.png)
%26Grandchildren.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
Family gravestones
Click on any image to see a larger version. See the Jerripedia gravestone image collection page for more information about our gravestone photographs
Trinity Church cemetery
St Peter’s Church cemetery
Old Mont a l’Abbe cemetery
Le Bail, St Ouen parish cemetery
St Ouen parish cemetery
St Brelade Church cemetery
St Brelade Church cemetery
St Brelade Church cemetery
St Brelade Church cemetery
St Brelade Church cemetery
St Brelade Church cemetery
St Brelade Church cemetery
St Saviour's Church cemetery
St Saviour's Church cemetery
St Saviour's Church cemetery
The grave of Jessie Grace Edith Maude Le Bailly in Bisley Cemetery, Stroud
Tips
The church record links above will open in a new tab in your browser and generate the most up-to-date list of each set of records from our database. These lists replace earlier Family page baptism lists, which were not regularly updated. They have the added advantage that they produce a chronological listing for the family name in all parishes, so you do not have to search through A-Z indexes, parish by parish.
We have included some important spelling variants on some family pages, but it may be worth searching for records for a different spelling variant. Think of searching for variants with or without a prefix, such as Le or De. To search for further variants, or for any other family name, just click on the appropriate link below for the first letter of the family name, and a new tab will open, giving you the option to choose baptism, marriage or burial records. You will then see a list of available names for that type of record and you can select any name from that list. That will display all records of the chosen type for that family name, and you can narrow the search by adding a given name, selecting a parish or setting start and end dates in the form you will see above. You can also change the family name, or search for a partial name if you are not certain of the spelling
The records are displayed 30 to a page, but by selecting the yellow Wiki Table option at the top left of the page you can open a full, scrollable list. This list will either be displayed in a new tab or a pop-up window. You may have to edit the settings of your browser to allow pop-up windows for www.jerripediabmd.net. For the small number of family names for which a search generates more than 1,500 records you will have to refine your search (perhaps using start or end dates) to reduce the number of records found.
New records
Since August 2020 we have added several thousand new records from the registers of Roman Catholic, Methodist and other non-conformist churches. These will appear in date order within a general search of the records and are also individually searchable within the database search form
A--B--C--D--E--F--G--H--I--J--K--L--M--N--O--P--Q--R--S--T--U--V--W--X--Y--Z
