LA FAMILLE BAUDOUIN EN LOUISIANE

Revised January, 2009

INTRODUCTION However you want to spell it: Baudouin, Baudoin, Bodouin, or even Beaudouin, and if your family originated from St. Charles, St. John, St. James, Lafourche or Terrebonne Parishes, chances are, you descend from François Baudouin. But who was he, the first of our Baudouin family to set foot in Southeast Louisiana?

When did he arrive? Where did he come from? Regardless of the who, the what and the where, François Baudouin created a family whose legacy began with the founding of Louisiana as a French colony during the early eighteenth century. Fortunately, most of the family stayed in the St. Charles Parish area since that time and keeping track of them has not been difficult

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 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 could 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 don't 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 a lot of concrete information on these individuals' ancestry. However, I recently obtained several pieces of information which have led me to OUR family's ancestral "home town". I have also been able to add a few names and dates. I am still not yet able to connect to any of the many Baudouin lines which emigrated from Normandy or to any of those still in existence today. 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 incorrect! This is not because anyone intentionally mislead you, it's just that some of the data was incorrectly translated from the original French or Spanish documents. Complicating the issue, many of the archives which would be most helpful were written during the time of the Spanish possession of the Louisiana Colony. Frankly, the Spaniards murdered the names of the French colonists, making some of them unrecognizable. Well, actually, the Spaniards murdered a lot of the colonists themselves. Finally, the climate of South Louisiana, being quite hot and humid, does not lend itself to the preservation of old documents. Many of the old records have deteriorated over time and through handling, and are either illegible or crumbled to dust over the years.

SO WHAT'S NEW?

I have not updated this sheet since I first created it, but that doesn't mean I stopped looking. I have not found much, but what i have found is very interesting. I have located our family's original home town in France. I have been able to track back a couple of generations into France.