Five young people gather documents on the history of Vierville

In January 1978, five young people wishing to meet and lead a common project began photographing Vierville to make a montage for the inhabitants. The work led them to study local history. Jean-Marie Oxéant, Rémi Hardelay, Didier Deboté, Évelyne and Lydie Bunouf had already gathered documents in the bulletins of the Antiquaires de Normandie, at the Bayeux library and at the town hall.

They solicited people with books, photographs or other archives to enrich their research. They wanted to present an audiovisual montage to the Viervillais and the summer visitors, but also sought technical help for the projection of the slides and the recording.

Two tracks were mentioned. A family tree starting from Guillaume de Vierville in 1165 indicated the departure of this family from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. A branch would have reached Ohio; according to the hypothesis reported, Neil Armstrong might descend from that branch through his maternal grandmother, described as a member of the de Vierville family. The denomination does not provide the documents to establish this relationship.

An antiquarians’ bulletin also traced the existence of a port that would have disappeared in 1765. Its ruin was probably attributed to the competition of Port-en-Bessin and Grandcamp and the cost of maintenance. The Allied artificial port project of June 1944 was thus reconciled with this ancient maritime tradition.

Jean-Marie Oxéant hoped to complete the assembly for the following summer and make it an opportunity for a meeting between the inhabitants.

Reconstructed or uncertain passages:
- The date of disappearance of the port is 1765 on the scan, and not 1675 produced by the OCR. Kinship with Neil Armstrong remains a hypothesis of the article; it is not transformed into an established filiation.

Archive image: https://vierville.cordelle.eu/PhDoc10/1979Fevr28-HistVV.jpg