One Huguenot’s Flight from Religious Persecution Creates the Bondurant Family in America

Bondurant Family History Books


The Bondurant's of Genolhac, France [Vol. 1]

By Mary Bondurant Warren

Written by BFA historian Mary Bondurant Warren, after numerous researching trips to France and Switzerland, this is a history of the ancient ancestors of our immigrant ancestor, JEAN-PIERRE BONDURANT. He was an apothecary, born in Genolhac, France, who landed at Jamestown, Virginia, on 20 Sept. 1700. A chapter entitled "Our Ancient Ancestors" was contributed by Jeff Duvall, and takes the Bondurant family back 30 generations from Jean-Pierre to Charlemagne. We learn of French, Spanish and Neopolitan ancestors we didn't know we had, and in the process a lot of French history. Along with family history and family trees, photographs of the sites and documents relating to the family, maps, a detailed driving tour of the Languedoc area of southern France allows you to visit at your leisure the important places associated with the Bondurant family ancestors and the Huguenots.
The Bondurants of America - Jean Pierre and Ann [Vol. 2]

By Mary Bondurant Warren, with Ruby Talley Smith and Amy Warren Sanders
The Bondurants’ “First Hundred Years” in Virginia. Here is the story of Huguenot Jean Pierre Bondurant’s life after he landed in 1700 at Jamestown. How did this French exile adapt to an English-speaking society? What was his life like in the colony? Meet his wife Ann Tanner, and learn more about their five children, and grandchildren. Watch the Bondurant family grow with the colony, move into new lands, and new occupations. Hardbound, 218 pages including maps, illustrations and a full name index.
The Bondurants of America - Ann Tanner's Ancestors [Vol. 3]

By Mary Bondurant Warren, with Ruby Talley Smith and Amy Warren Sanders

Jean Pierre Bondurant married into established English families in tidewater Virginia: Tanner, Hatcher, Jones and Lound. These are the stories of his wife Ann’s ancestors who had been in the colony two or three generations when the Huguenots arrived. Learn more about the parts Ann’s ancestors played in Virginia’s early history and where they lived. Hardbound, 173 pages including maps, illustrations and a full name index.
The Muse of Freedom: a Cevenoles Saga

By Jules Larimore

IN THE MYSTERIOUS CÉVENNES MOUNTAINS OF LANGUEDOC, FRANCE, 1695, Jehan BonDurant, a young nobleman forcibly held in a Dominican prieuré as a child, comes of age only to inherit a near-derelict estate and his Huguenot family’s dangerous legacy of secrets. While he cherishes his newfound freedom apprenticing as an apothecary, his outrage mounts over religious persecutions led by King Louis XIV’s Intendant Basville, who is sent to enforce the King’s will for “One King, One Law, One Faith”.
The ensuing divisions among families and friends and the gradual revelation of his own circumstances lead Jehan to question his spiritual choices. He embarks on an odyssey, in pursuit of his life’s purpose and the meaning of love, that unfolds in a way he least expects. Deep in the enchanting Gorges du Tarn, he discovers his muse and soul mate, Amelia Auvrey, a free-spirited, mystic holy woman who offers guidance, revealing ancient healing practices and spiritual mysteries.
Along the way, they befriend young Huguenot peasants and inspirés, a Roma couple, and the Commandeur of the Knights of Saint Jean Hospitallers, and learn of Jehan’s Jewish and Cathar ancestors. Together, Jehan and Amelia quest for peace and spiritual freedom by aiding the persecuted until the Intendant’s spy reports their activities and the King’s dragoons are sent out after them. To retain their freedom, they must choose to live in hiding in a remote wilderness, join a festering uprising or fight against it, or flee their cherished homeland with thousands of other refugees in search of hope.
Inspired by the true story of Jean Pierre Bondurant dit Cougoussac, distilled and blended with Cévenole magic lore, this is a vividly told coming-of-age adventure and family saga of courage, tenacity, and the power of love.
The Wettest County in the World

By Matt Bondurant
*The inspiration for the major motion picture Lawless*

Based on the true story of Matt Bondurant’s grandfather and two granduncles, The Wettest County in the World is a gripping and gritty tale of bootlegging, brotherhood, and murder.

The Bondurant Boys were a notorious gang of roughnecks and moonshiners who ran liquor through Franklin County, Virginia, during Prohibition and in the years after. Howard, the eldest brother, is an ox of a man besieged by the horrors he witnessed in the Great War; Forrest, the middle brother, is fierce, mythically indestructible, and the consummate businessman; and Jack, the youngest, has a taste for luxury and a dream to get out of Franklin. Driven and haunted, these men forge a business, fall in love, and struggle to stay afloat as they watch their family die, their father's business fail, and the world they know crumble beneath the Depression and drought.

White mule, white lightning, firewater, popskull, wild cat, stump whiskey, or rotgut—whatever you called it, Franklin County was awash in moonshine in the 1920s. When Sherwood Anderson, the journalist and author of Winesburg, Ohio, was covering a story there, he christened it the “wettest county in the world.” In the twilight of his career, Anderson finds himself driving along dusty red roads trying to find the Bondurant brothers, piece together the clues linking them to “The Great Franklin County Moonshine Conspiracy,” and break open the silence that shrouds Franklin County.

In vivid, muscular prose, Matt Bondurant brings these men—their dark deeds, their long silences, their deep desires—to life. His understanding of the passion, violence, and desperation at the center of this world is both heartbreaking and magnificent.