| LA FAMILLE BAUDOUIN EN LOUISIANE |
| HOW DID I GET
INTERESTED IN THIS? I was raised in Metairie, Louisiana (a suburb of New Orleans), and every year I made an annual trek with my father, and one or more of of his brothers, to the old Red Church Cemetery (St. Charles Borromeo) in Destrehan, Louisiana. Our visit took place before All Saints Day so that we could clean up the old family plots where, daddy would say, our ancestors were buried. Our family has plots in two areas of this cemetery, and more in the Holy Rosary Cemetery over in Taft just across the river. Every year it was the same ritual. In those plots toward the back of the cemetery, we had to move head stones, and blood weed, blackberry bushes, and wild onions had to be cut and hauled off to the dump. Sometimes, the old wrought iron fence around the plot needed mending, or a little painting. Some of these plots are marked only with initials like "T.T.B" and "F. P. B.". Some aren't marked at all, but daddy can still tell me who is buried in them. Toward the front of the cemetery are the really old ones. These tombs are made of brick and marble and date to the 1700s. Some of these older tombs have been painted so often that the names and dates were covered over. But we knew who the were, they contained names like Baudouin, Rome and Toups, among others. These were the sons and daughters of the early French and German families who colonized the German Coast and cleared the land by hand. Anyway, while I was supposed to be helping, I was usually running around looking at names, trying to figure out who was related and who wasn't...but I wasn't writing anything down. I'm going to be working on this from time to time, adding more information as I can find it. One thing I would like to find out, the two largest lines all descend from either François or Nicolas. François' descendants mostly remained in the St. Charles, St. John, Lafourche, Terrebonne, and Jefferson parishes. Nicolas first appeared on the German Coast, but moved west toward Lafayette where the largest number of his descendants remain today. I suspect they were related, possibly as brothers. I doubt doubt they knew each other. Face it, there just weren't that many people living in the area at the time. One thing both families have in common: I have not been able to find any concrete information on these individuals' ancestry. If you would like to collaborate, you can contact me at baudoit@worldnet.att.net |
SO WHAT DO WE KNOW (OR
THINK WE KNOW)? I am not going to publish our Baudouin family genealogy here for several reasons: First, there are already several versions out there, just waiting to be snatched up by someone who is more than willing to copy and sell this information. I'll publish some links if you want to see them. Second, this family is alive and well, and many family members don't appreciate having their names and personal information published on the Internet. Third, some of the published genealogical data available is just flat WRONG! This is not because anyone intentionally tries to mislead you, it's just that some of the data was incorrectly translated from the original French or Spanish documents. We have found records for five distinct, father-son individuals named François Baudouin: |
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