| De Saussure family | |
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| Patrician family | |
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| Place of origin | Saulxures, Lorraine, France |
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The De Saussure family is a family from the Geneva patriciate of Huguenot origins hailing from Lorraine, France but being settled in Switzerland since 1556. An American branch was established in South Carolina in the 18th century by Henri de Saussure; among his descendants were Chancellor Henry William de Saussure and US Senator William F. De Saussure. [1] [2]
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The family originally hails from Saulxures in the Lorraine region of France. During their service as falconers to the duke he ennobled them in 1506. Due to religious persecution for being Huguenot they emigrated to Lausanne and Geneva, where they became citizens in 1556 respectively 1636.
In Switzerland they soon became politically and socio-economically active holding a variety of public offices. Théodore de Saussure became the mayor of Geneva, his son Nicolas de Saussure, a politician.[ citation needed ]
Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740 – 1799), an 18th century naturalist, was probably the most notable, his portrait was on the 20 Swiss Francs bill series which were in circulation from 1979 to 1995. [3] His daughter Albertine Necker de Saussure (1766-1841) became an advocate for women s education and his son Nicolas Théodore de Saussure (1767 – 1845) a plant physiologist.
His grandson was Henri Louis Frédéric de Saussure (1829 –1905) an entomologist and mineralist.
His 4 great-grandsons were: Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913),an important linguist and semiotician. [4] followed by Horace de Saussure (1859-1926) a painter, their younger brother Léopold de Saussure (1866-1925) a sinologist and their youngest brother René de Saussure (1868 –1943) was a mathematician and Esperantist.
A 21st century descendant of this branch, is Jacques de Saussure, who was a part-owner in private bank Pictet Group and current[ when? ] owner of the hôtel particulier of the family. [5]
Henri de Saussure (anglicized to Henry de Saussure, d. 1761), a scion of the Lausanne branch of the family, emigrated from Vaud in the Old Swiss Confederacy settling near Charleston, South Carolina. [6] The four sons of Henri fought in the American Revolutionary War with only his son Daniel surviving. Daniel was the father of Henry William de Saussure, d. 1839, a notable jurist in the early days of the American republic and chancellor.
Another William F. De Saussure (1792 – 1870) became US Senator.
Louis D. DeSaussure, d.1888, was a slave trader. [7]
There are still several descendants living with the current spelling being DeSaussure, deSaussure, or Desaussure in the United States. [8] [9]
Geneva is the second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in the French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Republic and Canton of Geneva, and a centre for international diplomacy. Geneva hosts the highest number of international organizations in the world.
The Huguenots are a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Besançon Hugues (1491–1532), was in common use by the mid-16th century. Huguenot was frequently used in reference to those of the Reformed Church of France from the time of the Protestant Reformation. By contrast, the Protestant populations of eastern France, in Alsace, Moselle, and Montbéliard, were mainly Lutherans.
The House of Guise was a prominent French noble family that was involved heavily in the French Wars of Religion. The House of Guise was the founding house of the Principality of Joinville.
François Hotman was a French lawyer and writer, associated with the legal humanists and with the monarchomaques, who struggled against absolute monarchy. His first name is often written 'Francis' in English. His surname is Latinized by himself as Hotomanus, by others as Hotomannus and Hottomannus. He has been called "one of the first modern revolutionaries".
Henri Louis Frédéric de Saussure was a Swiss mineralogist and entomologist specialising in studies of Hymenoptera and Orthopteroid insects. He also was a prolific taxonomist.
Henri David Gagnebin was a Belgian-born Swiss composer.
Marc-Auguste Pictet was a Genevan scientific journalist and experimental natural philosopher.
Albertine Adrienne Necker de Saussure was a Genevan and then Swiss writer and educationalist, and an early advocate of education for women.
Henry William de Saussure was an American lawyer, state legislator and jurist from South Carolina who became a political leader as a member of the Federalist Party following the Revolutionary War. He was appointed by President George Washington as the 2nd Director of the United States Mint, was a co-sponsor of the legislation that established the South Carolina College which was to become the University of South Carolina and was given the title of Chancellor as a justice of the SC Equity Court, also known as chancery court. In this capacity he wrote and codified much of the state's equity law still in use today. He served as Intendant (Mayor) of Charleston while his son, William Ford de Saussure, likewise, served as Intendant (Mayor) of Columbia, SC.
The Pictet Group, known as Pictet, is a Swiss multinational private bank and financial services company founded in Switzerland. Headquartered in Geneva, it is one of the largest Swiss banks and primarily offers services in wealth management, asset management, and asset servicing, to private clients and institutions.
The Lombard Odier Group is an independent Swiss banking group based in Geneva. Its operations are organised into three divisions: private banking, asset management, and IT and back and middle office services for other financial institutions. In 2022, the bank had total client assets of CHF 296 billion, which makes it one of the biggest players in the Swiss private banking sector.
César-François de Saussure was a Swiss travel writer.
Aloïs Humbert was a Swiss naturalist and paleontologist who specialized in the study of myriapods. He also described new vertebrates, molluscs and flatworms.
The Coppet group, also known as the Coppet circle, was an informal intellectual and literary gathering centred on Germaine de Staël during the time period between the establishment of the Napoleonic First Empire (1804) and the Bourbon Restoration of 1814–1815. The name comes from Coppet Castle in Switzerland.
Jacques-André Mallet ; also Mallet-Favre; 23 September 1740 – 31 January 1790) was a Genevan mathematician and astronomer.
The Mallet family is a family of French businessmen and bankers.
Adrien Louis Jean François Sumichrast was a Swiss-Mexican naturalist and zoologist. Working mostly in Mexico, he collected specimens for museums and published descriptions of birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles. He is commemorated in the names of several taxa including Sumichrast's wren and Sumichrast's garter snake.
Saussure, de Saussure, or DeSaussure is a surname of French origin. Notable individuals with this surname include:
Isaac de Thellusson was a Genevan diplomat and banker.
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