It is difficult to know where to begin because there are so many twists and turns to the trail of the Behagues. Perhaps we should start with the results of a burst of activity on the part of the Brighton Behagues - John, Madeline, Anne, Susan and Peter - in July 1971.

We were on holiday in Norfolk and were able to venture across the county into Cambridgeshire in our search for evidence of early Behagues. From our perusal of the records at the Shire Hall, Cambridge, Norwich Reference Library and St. Wendreda's Church at March in Cambridgeshire, we gleaned a few details.

It seems more than likely that the first Behagues arrived in England from France or the Low Countries in the early 1600s. The records show the arrival of two Behagues - Peter and John - in Cambridgeshire at about that time. They had possibly fled from Compiegne, in Picardy, to escape persecution by the Catholics.

Documents in Norwich Reference Library show that Peter was not the best quality of migrant. In May, 1632 he was told he would be expelled from the city of Norwich for being "a member useless and dangerous to the Walloon Church" and ignoring an order not to draw knives or throw beer pots. His name was put up in the church as an incorrigible offender and he was ordered out of Norwich on December 19, 1633.

The name of another Peter Behague (it could have been the same one) pops up at Thorney, in the middle of the Cambridgeshire fens, in 1655. His name appears in the French Register of Baptisms for Thorney Abbey (which is now held in the archives of Shire Hall, Cambridge). The date is June 10 and there is a note of the birth of a daughter - Susan - to Peter and Susan Behague. He had two other daughters - Marie, born in 1657, and Sarah, in 1659.

Also in the French Register is the first mention of a John Behague, who could have been Peter's brother. John, according to the record, had two daughters - Marie in 1657 and Susan in 1667. His wife's name was Marie. There is also recorded the name of Daniel Du Bo married to a Catherine Behague who had a son - Peter.

There are gaps in the register and it is far from complete. We found no record of any male births to any of the Behagues in it. The strangest thing was that when we dipped into the register, three names kept repeating themselves - Ann, Susan and Peter. These, of course, are the names of our own three children.

Many of the present inhabitants of Thorney descend from the original Dutch and Walloon or French speaking Hollanders from Picardy and Northern Flanders. Some came over with the original drainers of the fens, large numbers were Huguenots fleeing persecution.

For nearly a century they had their own church and own French minister. They had their own peculiar French patois, and some failed to grasp the English language. Even in Britain today, there are immigrant communities in which people cannot speak English. It seems ever thus. However, the Thorney records say the newcomers were nearly all industrious, quiet and well educated people, able to read and write in an age when such accomplishments were rare. Peter, the thrower of beer pots, must have been the odd man out.

Our researches at St. Wendreda's Parish Church in the small village of March in Cambridgeshire, yielded information on another Peter and John Behague. The crumbling pages of the church register there date back to 1802 when a Peter Behague is recorded to have married Susan Barlow. They had six children - Elizabeth, Thomas, Robert, Ann, Jane and Susan. Their fate is uncertain. Few people lived past 30 in those days, and there are infant deaths galore.

Peter later married Hannah Hill in 1812. The births of two children named Thomas are recorded in 1818 and 1820. The first Thomas probably died early on and the second was not baptised until he was seven. John Behague married Mary Brittany in 1819, and they had one daughter, Ann, who later married George Blackson.

It is interesting to note that Peter Behague was unable to sign his name in his marriages to Susan and Hannah and had to resort to crosses. This may have resulted in a change of family name, for when his daughter Susan signed her name in the register some years later, she spelt it Behag. It seems that this spelling was picked up by at least one branch of the family. Many Behags are now resident in East Anglia, and to start tracing down that line would require great keenness and a team of investigators.

Further research at St. Wendreda's Church is called for before too many records turn to dust. In particular there should be a closer inspection of the Churchwarden's Book which opens in 1681 and contains the name Behaggue, alongside such names as Le Plas, Bautre and Courage. It is clear that many French refugees lived in the area in those early days. There is an epitaph to the Reverend Ezekiel Danois, said to be the first minister of the French Colony, which began to gather at the nearby Thorney Abbey in 1652. Other churches in nearby Whittlesey might provide more details.