Look Sideways

Sometimes siblings hold the key to a breakthrough

With a name like Armand Laplaigne, actor Derek Jacobi’s great great grandfather surely had to have French ancestry. The proof came when we located Armand’s elderly sister Hannah residing at the French Hospital in 1891. Founded in 1718, the hospital provided support to persecuted Protestants and their needy descendants. Hannah’s application form detailed her Huguenot ancestry and affirmed she “descended from Joseph de Laplaigne who refuged in England in the year 1702”.