With the exception of one great-grandfather who was born in ship's steerage of German parents on their way to America in 1843, all of my ancestors in North America began their sojourn here long before the American Revolution. They tamed a wilderness and helped create a Nation. Human frailty notwithstanding, they were a noble people, and I am so proud that their blood runs through my veins.

Native American

An early Native American ancestor, called by Jesuit missionaries "Catherine, the beloved child of God (Annennontak) a Huron girl," was a descendant of the Huron Nation. The Christian names of Catherine’s parents were Nicolas Arendanki, meaning "He who comes from beyond Arenda," and Jeanne Otrihondi. In 1649, the Huron Nation was almost anihilated by the Iroquois and Catherine's father was killed. Catherine, a new-born infant, and her mother took refuge with surviving Jesuit missionaries. When her mother died, Catherine, age 5, was taken by the Jesuits to Quebec, where she became a protege of Madame de la Peltrie, the founder of the Ursulines in Quebec, and the ward of Venerable Mere Marie de L’Incarnation at the convent.   Catherine was called "Catarine, the little creature of God" when she married first to a French settler, Jean Durand. She signed her marriage contract as "Catherine, Huron." After the death of Durand, Catherine, "the beloved child of God," entered into a contract of marriage on June 28, 1672 to Jacques Couturier, my ancestor, son of deceased Jean Couturier and Marie Aumont, a native of the parish of St. Martin de Queneville in Caen, Normandy, France. Catherine Annennontak's descendants appear in my family lines through my maternal great grandmother, Odilia Savoie, and are represented in my families Coutourier, Malbrough, Martin, Savoie and Falgout.

French Canadian

My French Canadian ancestors began their sojourn in North America in the early 1600's. As time passed, the sturdy, stout-hearted French Canadians, plying their trade of fur trapping and trading with the Native American tribes, explored the Great Lakes area and the Mississippi River, where they founded settlements and cities in America's heartland. They eventually made their way down to New Orleans from the Illinois Country, where they met with the descendants of the early French and German settlers of the lower Mississippi Valley. Among my French Canadian ancestral lines are Beauvais, LaCroix, Chauvin, Turpin, Belanger, and Dufresne.

Acadian

My Acadian ancestors began arriving in the Nova Scotia area in the first half of the Seventeenth Century. Isolated from other Frenchmen on the North American continent, they soon became self-sufficient, prosperous farmers. In one of the most shameful incidents in all of history, the Acadians were expelled from their homeland in 1755 by the British, who sought to anihilate the Acadians as a people. Tragically, families were torn apart, husband from wife, children from their parents, and they were dispersed without forewarning to the American colonies, to England, and to France. Their homes and churches and crops were burned, and their cattle left to starve. Hundreds of the exiles died from disease caused by poor food and overcrowded conditions in the cities where they were sent, and on the long, crowded ocean voyages - many died from heartbreak. They were forced to live as charity cases, and some who went to England were imprisoned.

My Acadians roamed the face of the earth in exile, a scarce few coming to rest in Louisiana in 1765, ten years after the Diaspora. The majority, in France for three generations, came to Louisiana in 1785 at the invitation of the Spanish government to come and cultivate the land. They came, eagerly, in seven ships, to join those who had come before. Here, in Louisiana, they found a home and a measure of peace. Their descendants, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, are called "Cajun" today, a corruption of the word, Acadien. Among my Acadian ancestral names are Arsenault, Babin, Barriot, Bellemere, Bergeron, Blanchard, Boudreaux, Bourg, Bourgeois, Brot/Breau, Brun, Chiasson, Commeau, Corporon, Cyr, Darois, Doiron, Doucet, Dugas, Duon, Dupuy, Forest, Gaudet, Gauterot, Girouard, Hebert, Landry, LeBlanc, Martin, Petitpas, Pitre, Poirrier, Richard, Robichaux, Roger, Saulnier, Savoie, Theriot, Thibodaux, Trahan, and Vincent. I gain strength of soul and spirit from my Acadian ancestors, those proud people who refused to die. Known today for their joie de vivre, who would guess that their past was so tragic?

The French and Germans of early Louisiana

The Frenchmen of the lower Mississippi area began coming in 1699, when Iberville founded the colony. They came in greater numbers in the time period between 1718 and 1722, when France became serious about colonizing the lower Mississippi and exploiting the resources found there. Under John Law's Company of the West, hundreds of Frenchmen came and settled on land concessions around the little city that Bienville founded in 1718, New Orleans. Once here, they suffered hardship and deprivation, and political abuse and neglect, and attacks by unfriendly natives and beasts. Still, they stayed, and grew prosperous, and founded family dynasties that include thousands of Louisianians - and transplanted Louisianians - today. French settlers to the early Louisiana colony included my ancestors, Champagne, Falgoust, Castan, and LaRoux. 

With the Frenchmen, came Germans settlers recruited by John Law. Just when they arrived, Law's Mississippi Bubble burst, and they were left to manage on their own. Strangers in a strange land, many of them died due to exposure to the elements and starvation and overwork. But through their courage and sheer hard labor, by the second generation, many of the German families had grown prosperous, and early travelers down the Mississippi River above New Orleans marveled about the prosperity of the people and their farms. More than once, my Germans saved the French colony from starvation by providing food from their gardens and meat from their hunts.  They were almost totally assimilated through marriage into the French culture by the third generation. In many instances, even their names were changed. But in years to come, people would not forget their tenacity, and when faced with a formidable task, the popular expression among people of the River was "It takes a German to do that." Among John Law's Germans represented in my family tree are the families of Toups (Dubs), Streumpfl, Haydel (Heidel), Waguespack (Wagensbach), Rommel, Edelmayer, Vais (Weiss), Hauptman, Antoni, Schaaf, Materne, Huber, and Grabert (Greber).

Many of my early Frenchmen and Germans, and some Acadians, too, fought under the Spanish Governor Bernardo Galvez during the Revolutionary War, destroying English forces in Manchac and Baton Rouge, two early English outposts in Louisiana. Their descendants, too numerous to count, are eligible for membership in the Sons or Daughters of the American Revolution.

English

My earliest Buford ancestor - my only English line - was Richard Buford, who came to Virginia from England in the mid Seventeenth Century. My Buford branch followed others from the Eastern Seaboard west after the Revolutionary War, coming to settle in Louisiana. Buford ancestors fought in the American Revolution, and a Buford cousin, General John Buford fought for the Union at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Portugese, Azorian, Irish

I can also claim the odd Portugese ancestor who came to South Louisiana, Joseph Darce, who married a French-Canadian ancestor, and the Irishman, Roger Caissey, who founded my Acadian family dynasty of Roger. There was also the ancestor from the Azores, Emmanuel Mirande, who found his way to Acadia, and whose daughter married into my Irish Roger family. 


Historically, it was reported that when Louisiana was transferred to the United States after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the French people of Louisiana cried. The French ways were strongly ingrained in the generations that followed, to the present day. Courageous in defending their beliefs, my people fought with General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans, with the 26th Louisiana Regiment at Vicksburg in the Civil War, in the two World Wars of the Twentieth Century, and in Vietnam. One member of my Falgout family was the first American killed in the Second World War.