Swiss watchmakers of the end of 18th=beginneng of 19th century. Georges's and Jean-François's father, François, and presumably his entire ancestry, lived in Dauphine, more particularly in Isere, towards Aosta. He was a librarian and emigrated to Geneva with his sons, probably because of their religion (they were Protestants). It was their father who taught them the watchmaking and founded the first company named ACHARD ET FILS, with his son George. Georges ACHARD married in 1771 in Geneva to Catherine BONTOUX, with whom he had six children, the eldest died however before getting 12 years old. Following the death of his wife, he returned to his hometown to remarry in 1785 to Anne TAVAN(may be related to the famous watchmaker Antoine TAVAN, from the same Aosta village and who went to practice his activity in Geneva too). He had a single son before his wife died in 1794. In 1786, George ACHARD created his own brand, which he named GEORGE ACHARD ET COMPAGNIE. He sold watches but also jewels and goldsmiths. His brother seems to have been associated with this company until 1796. They manufactured then "complicated watches and decorated with enamel" as well as watches with automatons and repetition of the quarters on bells. In 1796, after getting married a third time and just after having married his daughter to a clockmaker, he foundeda new brand: GEORGES ACHARD ET Cie, with his son-in-law Antoine LUYA, which became Ge ACHARD ET FILS and where manufacturing and sales went to the very top of the range: "automatic watches, skeleton watches, fancy watches". The suffix ET FILS probably concerns his third son, Antoine Marie ACHARD born in 1778 and getting about 20 years old when he entered the family factory. We quote an excerpt from the dictionary of Geneva watchmakers putting the brand back into its commercial context: "Geneva watchmaking was struggling everywhere, often victoriously with the English industry. It often happened that watches made in Geneva engraved London's indication instead of Geneva, on the orders of traders who wanted to compete more easily with their English rivals. In 1806 again, merchants of Geneva, including Georges Achard father and son, imitated the watches of the factory Higgs and Evans of London and sold them, in Spain and in the Spanish colonies, at the price of 115, 120 and 130 francs, then that the English factory could not deliver them below 200 francs. The same Achard house, in 1806, had 600 watches built on a model bought at the Georges Prior factory in London. Achard father and son offered their watches at Smyrne, at the rate of 116 francs each, while Prior could not yield the same model at less than 168 francs. "