Thank you, Soosi!
I am just starting to learn my way around French records and only just found the departmental records for Thiers on-line. You clearly know your way already! Could you advise me on where to find other records on-line for France?
Yesterday I plowed through departmental civil records to find the marriage records going back several generations of Gonon men. (I couldn't figure out how to attach the records to my tree so I'll be going back to get them later.) Then I got stuck in the French Revolution. Antoine Gonon married Michelle Dujoux no later than 1797 (when a child was born in Thiers.) They both died in Thiers. So it's likely they married there. But the civil records seem to end there and the parish registers on the site are not indexed. So where to look if I don't want to slog through the parish registers page by page?
How did you determine that Antoine and Joseph had no other siblings? I learned that Antoine had a brother-in-law and sister-in-law named Penot from his funeral announcement. They must then be on his wife's side if you're sure there was no sister.
It's so generous of you to respond to my query. Obviously I'm at the baby-steps stage of researching in France. Any advice you can offer on where to be looking will be very much appreciated.
Thanks, again,
Lise