Category: Hebert

Jeanne Zerbine Dupuy Landry Revealed

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Photo taken from the Pierre Ferdinand Patureau Collection (AC-824) at the Tyrrell Historical Library in Beaumont, Texas.

I’ve had a hard time getting this post started.  I keep second guessing myself about declaring the identity of the woman in the photo I’m posting.  I’m pretty sure she is my great great great grandmother Jeanne Zerbine Dupuy Landry.  That’s pretty exciting to me, because I haven’t had any other photos of any of my 3X great grandparents.  This is a photo that I copied from the Pierre Ferdinand Patureau Collection at the Tyrrell Historical Library in Beaumont, Texas. (Collection AC-824)  It was in one of the family photo albums in the collection in a prominent place.  Zerbine (pronounced  Zir’bean) Landry was the mother-in-law of Ferdinand Patureau, the patriarch of the Patureau family in southern Louisiana.  But before that, she was Zerbine Dupuy.

Jeanne Zerbine Dupuy was born June 23, 1807, to Magloire Dupuy and Henriette Serrette.  Magloire was the first generation born in America with all Acadian ancestry, while Henriette was first generation born in America with all French ancestry.  By some definitions, they would be considered Creole.  The next generation was a mix of French and Acadian.  I’m not sure how they identified themselves, but they spoke French and were associated and married mostly with people I consider Cajun.

Zerbine was the fourth of eight children.  What’s really interesting is that her grandmother Anne Marie Hebert was alive until the time that Zerbine was almost 18 years old.  Anne Marie was born in Acadie.  She lived with her family there until 1755, when her family and all of the other Acadians were Exiled during the Grand Derangement.  Anne Marie was with her family during twelve years of Exile in Georgetown, Maryland.  The family made their way to Louisiana in 1767.  So when Zerbine was growing up in Brusly, she most likely visited her grandmother in St. Gabriel and heard a few interesting stories from her past.  If only those talking photos really told us things we didn’t already know!!

Zerbine’s grandmother almost lived long enough to make it to her wedding.  Zerbine got married to Elie Onezime Landry on Feb. 7, 1825, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  Her grandmother Anne Marie died two days earlier.  Onezime is one of the three sons of Joseph Ignatius Landry that I descend from.  His brother Narcisse Landry was married to Marie Carmelite Hebert.  Marie Carmelite and Zerbine were related, because Carmelite’s grandfather Pierre Paul Hebert was the brother of Zerbine’s grandmother Anne Marie.  But even more interesting, Onezime’s brother Manuel was married to Celeste Bruneteau who was the half-sister of Zerbine’s father.  Celeste was a daughter of Anne Marie.  How did I not realize how closely related these wives were to each other?  These Landry and Hebert families were very enmeshed.

This death notice of Marie Pamelia Landry is part of the Pierre Ferdinand Patureau Collection (AC-824) at the Tyrrell Historical Library in Beaumont, Texas.

Zerbine and Onezime had six children together, including my great great grandmother Marie Emma Landry Patureau.  They only had a dozen years together, because Onezime died in April 1837.  Their sixth child Marie Pamelia actually was born three months after his death.  What a bittersweet occasion that must have been.  A year later Zerbine married Louis Valsin Comeaux.  I don’t know much about him, so I don’t know if there is a Landry or Hebert connection.  Zerbine and Valsin had three children together.  They only had seventeen years together.  In an odd coincidence, Valsin died in June of 1854 a few days after the death of Marie Pamelia.  So Marie Pamelia’s birth and death are close to the deaths of both of Zerbine’s husbands.

By this time Marie Emma had been married to Ferdinand Patureau for seven years and they had four children.  Their fourth child Marie Valentine was only a year old when she died on August 4, 1854.  It was a rough time for this family, but they carried on.  Marie and Ferdinand had a few more children and in 1864 the family went to New Orleans to have a photograph of the family made.  I know this because I have a copy of that photo and I’ve shared it with everyone.

But I also think that they brought Emma’s mother Zerbine with them and had a portrait made of her as well.  The main photo of this post was taken at the same photo studio around the same time as the 1864 photo.  The name of the studio and the print on the back of the two photos are identical.  A friend of mine who loves the study of Civil War era history and fashions assures me that the photo was taken in the Civil War era.  This is based on the hairstyle and the dress she is wearing.  And as I said earlier, the photo was in a Patureau family photo album in a prominent position.  Who else would it be?  Ferdinand’s mother died in 1842.  Zerbine lived until 1886.  Plus the woman in the photo looks like she could be Emma’s mother.  These were people who saved death notices of their beloved family members, and of course they would want to have a portrait made of their mother.

So yes, I do believe this is a photo of my great great great grandmother Jeanne Zerbine Dupuy Landry.  Try not to be too jealous.

Check out the follow up  to this story:

Zerbine Was a Feisty Woman

 

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 11 – The Ones That Didn’t Make it

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It’s time to finish up my Acadian to Cajun series that I wrote throughout the year 2020.  I’ve covered all of the lines of my family that came to Louisiana from Acadie.  I’ve learned a lot while writing this series.  Before I started doing the research, I only knew that my family lines had been deported to Maryland and France.  I discovered that other family lines were deported to Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Massachusetts.  Some other family members had made their way to Ile St. Jean which was under French rule until 1758.  From those places, they made their way to England, France, and St. Domingue (Haiti) before arriving in Louisiana –  if they survived long enough. 

It’s time to talk about the ones that didn’t make it.  Obviously the ones that I descend from that didn’t make it were adults who had children already.  I didn’t talk about all of the family members who were affected by the Grand Derangement in the original installments.  Either I didn’t know about them or I didn’t want to overly complicate the stories at the time.  But they deserve a mention.

Installment 1 was about the extended families of Augustin Landry and Marie Madeleine Babin.

From Installment 1 of my Acadian to Cajun series, I’ve already talked about Pierre Landry.  He was the father of Augustin Landry who brought his family to Louisiana by way of Upper Marlboro, Maryland.  I talked about him in my post about Landry Grandfathers.  Augustin’s wife was Marie Magdelena Babin and her mother was Marguerite Bourg.  I talked about Marguerite in Installment 10.  But I didn’t talk about  Marguerite’s father Alexandre Bourg who was still alive at the time of the Grand Derangement. 

Can you imagine your whole life turning upside down  at the age of 84?  That’s what happened to Alexandre.  He moved to Ile St. Jean sometime in the early 1750s.  He was living with his daughter Anne and her husband Joseph LeBlanc in 1752 in Port Toulouse.  He somehow escaped being Exiled after the fall of Louisbourg in 1758.  He had been a royal notary for many years, so he may have still had some political connections on both the French and English sides of the conflict.  He was 87 years old at the time.  He was 89 years old when he died in 1760 in Richiboucton, New Brunswick, Canada.

Installment 2 covered the family of Antoine Breau and Marguerite Landry. Antoine’s mother Claire Trahan is listed below him. I could find no information about the ancestors of Marguerite Landry.

In Installment 2, I talked about the Charles Breaux family who was Exiled to Port Tobacco, Maryland, in 1755.  Charles died in Port Tobacco sometime around between 1763 and 1765.  His wife Claire Trahan made it to Louisiana where she lived a short while.  Claire’s mother was Marie Helene Pellerin and she was alive in 1755, but she was living in Ile St. Jean which was still under French rule.  She died August 27, 1756, at the age of 87.  She was my 7x great grandmother.

In Installment 3, I talked about the Pierre Breaux family.  Pierre was the brother of Charles Breaux.  Some of his family were also Exiled to Port Tobacco and Pierre died before 1763.  In the meantime his son Honore had been deported to Virginia and was sent on to England and France.  He eventually married Elizabeth LeBlanc.  She was the daughter of Victor LeBlanc and Marie Aucoin.  I talked about the tragic deaths of Marie, her parents, and two of her young children by her second husband Gregoire Maillet.

Installment 3 was about Honore Braud, Elisabeth Le Blanc, and their extended families

But I didn’t tell you anything about Victor LeBlanc’s family.  I doubt that anybody noticed because I was talking about so many people.  The other reason I didn’t write about it was that I wasn’t sure about his family.  When I looked around for information about him, I found different parents than what I had .  My dad had obtained that information from Acadian researcher Bona Arnsenault.  But recently more information was discovered that showed he was from a different family.  I needed time to “Let go of” his previous parents and make the changes. 

His parents were Pierre ‘dit Pinou’ LeBlanc (1685-1769) and Francoise Landry (1693-1767).  I descend from siblings of both of them, so there were no new lines to add to the tree.  Francoise was the sister of Pierre Landry who I mentioned earlier.  Pierre LeBlanc and Francoise Landry were Exiled to Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. They both showed up on a 1757 Census of Acadian Exiles, as well as another one conducted in 1763.  After the Seven Year War was over, many of the Acadian Exiles in Massachusetts decided to return to Canada.   Around May 17, 1767, Pierre and Francoise, along with the family of their daughter Angelique (married to Germaine Dupuis, the first cousin of my ancestor Joseph Dupuis from Installment 9), boarded the schooner Abigail bound for Quebec.  They arrived in Quebec on June 18.  Sadly, Francoise died a few months later on October 3, 1767, in Lavaltrie, Quebec, at the age of 74.  Pierre died on October 22, 1769, in Montreal at the age of 84.

Pierre Paul Hebert’s and Marguerite LeBlanc’s families were discussed in Installment 4.

In Installment 4, we talked about the Hebert family.  They were Exiled to Georgetown, Maryland.  If you’re keeping track, my ancestors were deported to four locations in Maryland:  Upper Marlboro, Port Tobacco, Oxford, and Georgetown.  They seemed comparatively the safest places to be Exiled.  I could be biased since my ancestors survived being deported there.  We descend from survivors of catastrophes through the ages.  Just because a person is a Holocaust survivor doesn’t mean that they had an easy time of it.  And it’s not like they had a choice.

I mentioned in that installment that Marguerite LeBlanc (the wife of Pierre Paul Hebert) was the daughter of Antoine LeBlanc and Marie Babin.  I am a bit more sure of her parentage than back then and have found out more information about them.  To make things perfectly clear, I found out that Antoine LeBlanc and Victor LeBlanc were double first cousins.  That means that his father Antoine was the brother of Pierre ‘dit Pinou’ LeBlanc and his mother Anne Landry was the sister of Francoise Landry.  Antoine LeBlanc (the grandfather of Marguerite) died before the Grand Derangement in 1739 in Grand Pre, Acadie.  His wife Anne Landry (my ancestor) was Exiled to Massachusetts like her sister.  She also died in Quebec in 1767 like her sister.  Anne was 79 years old when she died.  The younger Antoine LeBlanc (father of Marguerite) died in 1744 at less than 40 years of age.  It is believed that his wife Marie Babin (my ancestor) was deported to Virginia, which is very unfortunate.  They were sent on to England where they were treated poorly.  Many of them suffered from smallpox and died.  It looks like Marie was one of those that died in 1756 in that group.

Installment 5 discussed the families of Joseph Bourg and Marie Magdelene Granger.

In Installment 5, I told you about the very tragic story of Magdelene Granger, my 6x great grandmother.  Her first marriage was to Alain Bujol.  They had two children together in Ile St. Jean, but were later deported in 1758 at the fall of Louisbourg.  She was the only survivor of her little family due to the circumstances of being Exiled.  I found out that her father Joseph Granger was alive at the time of the initial deportations in 1755.  I descend from his first wife Anne Richard who died in 1751.  Joseph remarried shortly after that (he was 54 years old) to a Marguerite Gautrot.  They had two sons before the deportations began.  Joseph’s family was deported  to Virginia. (cue the somber music) They were on a ship that arrived in England in June of 1756.  There was no sweet reunion for Joseph and Magdelene.  When she was married in 1760, Joseph is listed as deceased.  She is my inspiration for perseverance! 

Installments 6 and 7 were about the families of the brothers Etienne and Joseph Bugeaud. I descend from both of them.

In Installment 6, Joseph Bujol and Anne LeBlanc were sent into Exile with their family to Oxford, Maryland.  I bet you were relieved to hear that they weren’t sent to Virginia!  This history is so full of tragedies.  Thankfully this little family fared well during their time in Exile.  The family stayed intact and actually grew during their time in Maryland.  This wasn’t true for their extended families.  Anne’s mother Jeanne Bourgeois was Exiled to Cambridge, Massachusetts.  She arrived in December 1755 and it was the last that was heard of her.  Three of her children died in Liverpool, England, in 1756 and another one died in France in 1759.  Jeanne was probably not aware of their deaths since those events happened across the ocean.  We know that she had died before the 1763 Census at the age of about 70.

The story in Installment 7 was about Joseph Bujol’s brother Etienne and his wife Anne Forest.  Anne was another of those with a tragic story.  She lost her first husband during the Exile.  What I didn’t mention in that installment was the fate of her parents Pierre Forest and Madelaine Babin.  They were alive when the Grand Derangement began and they were deported to Weymouth, Massachusetts.  He died within the first year of Exile at the age of 62.  Madelaine shows up on the November 10, 1756, Census in Weymouth as a widow.  There are no records of her after that time.  So she probably died shortly after that before the age of 60.

Joseph and Etienne’s extended family was not Exiled during the initial deportations of 1756.  They had several younger brothers and sisters who moved to Ile St. Jean with their parents Joseph Bujol and Josette Landry.  They were there by the time of the Census of 1752.  So while Joseph the younger and Etienne were Exiled with their families in 1755, other family members were able to stay at Ile St. Jean until 1758.  It was at this point that Joseph the elder died.  Either he died prior to the deportation or as a result of it.  He was 59 years old.  Josette and some of her children fled north with the help of a son-in-law who was part of the Acadian militia.  They surrendered to the British and were held in Nova Scotia until the end of the Seven Year War.  They made their way to Quebec and settled there.  Josette eventually died on June 8, 1778, in Bonaventure, Quebec, at the age of 77.  She did not see her sons Joseph and Etienne during the last 22 years of her life.

So that’s it.  I previously covered the extended families of the ancestors I discussed in Installments 8, 9, and 10.  I don’t think I’ll ever think of the Grand Derangement or even Acadie in the same way ever again.  Hopefully I’ll always be aware of the difficulties my ancestors had to endure in order for me to be able to call myself a Cajun.  Even though those I mentioned in this post didn’t survive the Exile to make it to Louisiana, I will still consider them honorary Cajuns!  I think of it as a title of respect and they definitely deserve it.

For other installments of the “From Acadian to Cajun” series, click on the following links:

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 1 – Landry/Babin

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 2 – Breau/Trahan

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 3 – Braud/LeBlanc/Gauterot/Aucoin

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 4 – Hebert/Melanson

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 5 – Bourg/Granger

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 6 – Bujol/LeBlanc

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 7 – Foret/Bujol

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 8 – Hernandez/Babin

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 9 – Dupuis/Dugas

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 10 – Bourg/Babin/Landry

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 9 – Dupuis/Dugas

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The Wall of Names of Acadian Exiles in Louisiana in St. Martinville. Joseph Dupuis (2) is my 5X great grandfather. Listed under him are four of his nieces and nephews.

These installments can be pretty tricky to write.  I want to be as accurate as possible, but that is really difficult to do when there is conflicting information out there.  Human memory is very much influenced by belief and the passage of time.  The Grand Derangement happened 265 years ago in another country where a different language was spoken.  A lot of turmoil was going on when it happened.  When the people eventually settled in a place to call home, they just wanted to get their lives together.

What has survived are a few old church documents and some Censuses before and during the Exile.  One of the treasured items from back then are the Declarations of  the Acadians at Belle-Ile-en-Mer in France.  The Acadian Exiles in this area were interviewed and asked to tell about their family histories.  Many of the people were able to give information about their families back to the time of the founders of Acadie in the 1600s.  Of course most of this was based on human memory, so some errors were present in their statements

The Declaration that I was most interested in was that of Marie Josephe Dupuis on February 27, 1767, at the Village of Parlavant.  I don’t descend from her, but I do descend from her younger brother Joseph Dupuis.  He is the main person I’m writing about in this installment.  Marie Josephe was the oldest of eleven children of Antoine Dupuis and Marie Josephe Dugas.  Antoine and Marie Josephe were married around 1719 in Riviere au Canards, Acadie.  Their first child (Marie Josephe) was born in 1721.

Like I said, she was the oldest of eleven children.  They were born over a period of 20-25 years.  That included two sets of twins.  Joseph and his twin brother were one of those sets.  According to their older sister, they were born in 1745.  Their parents Antoine and Marie Josephe died around 1747.  It looks like some of the older children were caring for the younger ones after that time.  Some of them were adults with children of their own.  So when the Grand Derangement happened in 1755, the family was split up even more.

So when Marie Josephe Dupuis (Theriot) made her declaration in 1767, she hadn’t seen some of her siblings for almost twelve years.  Sadly, some of them had passed away.  From what I can tell, six of her siblings had died since their Exile from Acadie, yet she was only aware of one of those deaths.  Marie Josephe and a younger sister named Ozite (and their husbands and children) were originally Exiled to Virginia in 1755.  Like other Exiles sent to Virginia, they were deported the following year to Falmouth, England, where they were treated with neglect.  Many Acadian Exiles died in 1756 from the smallpox, including sister Ozite, Marie’s husband Pierre Theriot, and several other Theriot family members. 

Evidently all that Marie Josephe knew about her other siblings is that they had been “transported to New York.”  There was another sibling (Anne Marie – the twin of Ozite) that “passed with their family to the Mississippi” and was never heard from again.  According to other sources, she died before 1767.  So that would mean that eight siblings were “transported to New York.”  Yet all other sources say that Joseph’s twin brother Jean Baptiste was Exiled with Marie Josephe and Ozite and he ended up in France as well.  Yet Marie Josephe clearly states that Joseph and Jean Baptiste were “transported single” to New York.  If he was with her in France, she would surely know about it.  She may have overlooked Jean Baptiste when talking about the twins.

So that leaves seven siblings that were transported to New York:  Joseph, Magdeliene, Antoine, Simon Pierre, Marguerite, Euphrosine, and Charles.  But they didn’t actually go to New York.  They went to Connecticut.  See how difficult it is to figure out what happened back then?  Even the ones that were living back then didn’t know what was happening.  Of course if those in charge didn’t care if the Acadians lived or died, they certainly weren’t concerned if they knew what was going on with their families.  You can only tell the truth if you know the truth.  So we can forgive Marie Josephe for any errors in her Declaration.  She went through a very traumatic time and she meant well.

So let’s see what happened to Joseph and his siblings (and their families) that were sent to Connecticut.  It looks like at least seven ships left the shore of Acadie with over 1000 individuals who were forcibly removed from their homeland.  They left sometime in late 1755 and arrived during the month of January 1756.  I haven’t seen information about where they stayed or even if they were all in the same place.  What I have found is that his sister Magdeliene died in Connecticut in 1762.  There is no more information on his other older sister Marguerite, so I’m thinking she probably died between 1756 and 1762.  His younger brother Charles survived and somehow he and some of their sisters’ children made it back up north and settled in Quebec.  So that left Joseph with Antoine, Simon Pierre, and Euphrosine.

Toward the end of the Seven Year War (in 1763) French officials were encouraging Exiles to relocate from English colonies to French-owned Sainte Dominque (now Haiti).  There they would be used as laborers on a naval base on the island with the incentive that the Exiles would be given land grants.  Joseph and his other three siblings joined a group of 180 Acadians from New England ports who headed to St. Domingue in August 1764.  It was not the best situation.  The officials sent them to Mirebalais (near Port au Prince) and did not give them the land that was promised.  The Acadians did not fare well and many of them died from malnutrition and tropical diseases.

Joseph had not married yet, nor did he have any children, so we know he survived.  How else would he become my ancestor?  But his siblings were not as fortunate.  Simon Pierre and his two older sons Francois and Firmes died within a month or two of arriving in their tropical environs. (His wife had died in 1760 in Connecticut.)  On January 4, 1765, his younger sister Euphrosine passed away at Mirebalais.  She had become a new, young mother the previous year, but her son had died a month before she did.  Then in August his oldest brother Antoine died as well.  Antoine’s wife and three of his seven children had died in September and October of 1764 in Mirebalais as well.

And then there was Joseph.  When I saw his name on the Wall in St. Martinville where the list of Acadian Exiles in Louisiana is shown, I noticed a few names under his.  I didn’t know who the other people were, but later found out that they were his niece and nephews.  “Hmm,” I thought, “That’s interesting.”  But now that I’ve found out the details of his life in Exile, I have to say that it is more than “interesting.”  It’s very touching.

Joseph was an orphan when the Grand Derangement began, but fortunately he had several older siblings who were willing to help him through those terrible times.  As they went from Acadie, to Connecticut, and then on to Sante Dominge, their numbers were decreasing.  Yet if it weren’t for them, he may not have survived.  So when he found out about a chance for a better life in Louisiana, Joseph Dupuis took action.

There was a ship of Acadian refugees that docked at Cap Francais for over two weeks.  The ship was The Virgin.  It came from  Maryland and it included my Landry ancestors who had spent their exile there.  Joseph made his way across the island to meet up with the ship.  He took along the surviving four children of his brother Antoine.  It’s what family does.

Map of St. Gabriel showing the location of the Acadians who settled there in 1767.

The Virgin arrived in New Orleans on July 23, 1767.  Joseph settled with the other Acadians in St. Gabriel.  At the end of Installment No. 4, I talked about Anne Marie Hebert being at the right age for marrying in 1769.  Her family had settled in St. Gabriel in July 1767 as well.  Her father and her brother owned property next to each other.  And the property next to her brother’s was owned by none other than our Joseph Dupuis.  She evidently came to the conclusion that he was good marriage material, because they were married on March 27, 1769.

In the 1777 St. Gabriel Census, it shows Joseph and his wife Anne Marie with their two young sons.  His nephews Jean Baptiste and Simon lived nearby.

My family tree with path to Joseph Dupuis highlighted.

For other installments of the “From Acadian to Cajun” series, click on the following links:

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 1 – Landry/Babin

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 2 – Breau/Trahan

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 3 – Braud/LeBlanc/Gauterot/Aucoin

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 4 – Hebert/Melanson

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 5 – Bourg/Granger

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 6 – Bujol/LeBlanc

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 7 – Foret/Bujol

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 8 – Hernandez/Babin

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 10 – Bourg/Babin/Landry in a short story called “Finding Home”

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 11 – The Ones That Didn’t Make It

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 4 – Hebert/Melanson

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Paul Hebert and Marguerite Melanson were my 5X great grandparents who came to Louisiana from Acadie via Maryland.

It’s time for another installment of the series about my ancestors who went through the Grand Derangement.  This was when the French-speaking inhabitants of Acadie were Exiled from their homeland by  the British.  The year was 1755 and there was a war going on between England and France.  So this made the English leery of those people who spoke funny and followed the Roman pope.  They were just altogether different and not to be tolerated.  So off they were sent with minimum belongings and maximum uncertainties.

Pierre Paul was the son of Paul Gaston Hebert & Marguerite Josephe Melanson.

The family line I’ll talk about this time is the most common Acadian/Cajun surname in Louisiana – or so I’ve been told.  I’ve always thought that the Landry name was the ‘Smith’ of southern Louisiana.  But I’ve been corrected by some of my Hebert kin.  It seems that the Hebert name is the most common.  But that’s okay with me.  I once said that I am a Patureau.  Well, now I am saying, “I am an Hebert.”  Let’s look at that connection.

Record of the 1736 marriage of Paul Hebert & Marguerite Josephe Melanson. The title of the entry shows Marie Josephe Melanson, but the body of the entry shows the correct name of Marguerite Josephe Melanson

 On April 13, 1712, my 5X great grandfather Paul Gaston Hebert was born in St. Charles Aux Mines, Acadie.  His parents were Guillaume Hebert and Marie Josephe Dupuis.  On November 6, 1718, my 5X great grandmother Marguerite Josephe Melanson was born in Grand Pre, Acadie.  Her parents were Phillip Melanson & Marie Catherine Dugas. 

Paul and Marguerite  grew up in their parents’ households in Acadie before the Great Upheaval, as did several generations of their family before them.  Their great great grandparents had founded Acadie a hundred years previously.  Many generations had been born there and died there. Marguerite lost her mother in 1733, and she would be the last of this line to be buried there.  This also meant that her mother was not present when Marguerite married Paul on May 14, 1736, in Grand Pre.

In 1737 Marguerite and Paul had their first child, a son named Pierre Paul.  He was my 4XG grandfather.  Another son Joseph was born in 1739 and I don’t descend from him.  In 1745 they had a daughter named Anne Marie.  I descend from her.  Twice.  Oh, no.  That’s not right.  I descend from her three times through her two husbands.  But now I’m getting ahead of myself.

Marguerite and Paul had a total of nine children before the Grand Derangement in 1755.  The names were Pierre Paul, Joseph, Charles, Marie, Anne Marie, Ignace, Madeleine, Jean Baptiste, and Armand.  Considering some of my ancestors that were deported to Virginia and consequently to England where there was lots of disease and disasters, the Hebert family was fortunate to be sent to Georgetown, Maryland, for their period of Exile.  It was still no picnic in the park and I wouldn’t wish their treatment on anyone that I know.  They were expelled from their homes and shipped to an unwelcoming foreign place.

1763 Georgetown, Maryland, Census

And yet the family continued to grow.  During their first five years of Exile in Maryland, Marguerite and Paul had three more children:  Antoine, Paul, and Marguerite.   They had their youngest child in 1760, which was the same year that their oldest Pierre Paul got married.  He married a fellow Acadian Exile by the name of Marguerite LeBlanc.  I’m not certain of her parents, but I think their names were Antoine LeBlanc and Marie Babin.  I do know that Pierre Paul and Marguerite had a son named Charles in 1762.

So when the 1763 Census in Georgetown was taken of the French Neutrals, there were lots of Heberts to be found.  That is easy to see from the list of names.  The first group of names starts with Francois Hebert.  He was a first cousin to Paul Hebert.  Francois’s wife Marie Joseph Melancon was first cousin to Paul’s wife  Marguerite Joseph Melancon.  The next group listed is Paul and Marguerite.  Then there is Pierre Paul, Marguerite, and their new little son Charles.  The next three families listed are a Granger, a Babin, and a Brasseux.  The next one listed is Ignace Hebert, who is a brother of Paul.  The last family group on this page starts with the name Marguerite veuve Bellony LeBlanc.  That means that Marguerite was the widow of Bellony.   She was the sister of Paul Hebert, which shows that there were many family members present with them in Georgetown.

There is not much more information about their term of Exile in Maryland.  There is a marriage registered by Rev. Joseph Mosley in his journal.  It reads “26 Dec. 1765 (Thu) married Joseph Hebert and Anne Mary Landry; witnesses John Blake, Mrs. Witherstrand, and many French; second and third degree dispensations.”  That would be Paul Hebert & Marguerite Melanson’s son Joseph.  I think the dispensation was due to fact that the two lovebirds were cousins through the Melanson family name.  I’m sure that did not deter the “many French” from passing a good time!

When we next hear of this family group, they are among the Acadian Exiles who settled in St. Gabriel, Louisiana, on July 27, 1767.  According to the records, they owned one axe and two trunks.  Really?  Couldn’t they fit that axe in one of those trunks?  That just tells me that they weren’t very good packers!  Or maybe there was some significance to the axe that I’m not aware of.

In 1769 Anne Marie Hebert was 24 years old and at a good age for marrying.  So when she met another Acadian Exile who had settled in Louisiana, that’s just what she did.

But that story is for another time.

_____

Here is my family tree showing the shortest link to my Hebert ancestors.

For other installments of the “From Acadian to Cajun” series, just click on the following links:

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 1 – Landry/Babin

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 2 – Breau/Trahan

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 3 – Braud/LeBlanc/Gauterot/Aucoin

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 5 – Bourg/Granger

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 6 – Bujol/LeBlanc

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 7 – Foret/Bujol

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 8 – Hernandez/Babin

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 9 – Dupuis/Dugas

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 10 – Bourg/Babin/Landry in a short story called “Finding Home”

From Acadian to Cajun: Part 11 – The Ones That Didn’t Make It

Marie Carmelite Revisited

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Two weeks ago my post was about my great great grandmother Marie Carmelite Hebert Landry.  Since I wrote that post, I received my DNA test results at AncestryDNA.com.  I really wasn’t expecting much there because I had tested at 23andMe previously and all of the Cajun DNA from cousins marrying cousins is very confusing.  I found a few Patureau and Landry 2nd and 3rd cousins, which was interesting.  Then I came across a DNA match who was a Wilkinson.

Marie Patureau Wilkinson and her first cousin Germaine Erie Patureau Landry in the early 1960s.

I recognize that name Wilkinson because I have a photo of our dear beloved Mee Maw (paternal grandmother Germaine Erie Patureau Landry) with her first cousin Marie Caroline Patureau Wilkinson.

I didn’t do much research into the Wilkinson line when I first saw that Marie had married a Wilkinson, but then I found another Wilkinson connection to the family.  Our cousins Byron and Dana Patureau, son and daughter of Elmo “Pat” Patureau, had a grandmother who was a Wilkinson.  When I discovered that, I was interested to see if I could find a connection between the two Wilkinsons marrying into the Patureau line.

Come to find out, Marie’s husband William was the first cousin of Pat’s mother Geraldine.  William Wilkinson, Jr. was the son of William Wilkinson, Sr and Emily Rivet.  Geraldine was the daughter of William, Sr.’s brother Herman Wilkinson.  I was glad to be able to find a connection at that time.  And then along comes a DNA match with a Wilkinson at Ancestry.

So my first thought was that this match would be a descendant of Marie.  I think I sent a message to her son at some point when I found his family tree online.  I never heard anything back.  But I knew what his family tree looked like and the Wilkinson DNA match did not have the same tree.  The thing that really struck me at first was that the common ancestors were identified as Diego Hernandez and Anne Theotiste Babin.  Remember them?  Of course you do.  Diego was the grandfather of our little Marie Carmelite.  His daughter Marie Marthe married Simon Hebert in 1800, they had Marie Carmelite in 1802, and Simon died a few months later.

Marie Marthe then married Pierre Rivet and they had three sons together.  I reported that the three sons had died as infants, but that I hoped that my information was wrong.  Well, when I looked at my Wilkinson DNA match closer, I realized that the actual common ancestor was Marie Marthe Hernandez. (They had her listed as Marie Marthe Marca Hernandez.)  And they showed that they descend from her second marriage to Pierre Rivet!  (I’m referring to my DNA match as ‘they’ because I later found that another sibling is a DNA match to me as well.)

Emily Rivet Wilkinson on the left. Her mother-in-law Frances Johnson Wilkinson is on the right and she is hold Emily’s son Joseph B. Wilkinson. Circa 1904

So Marie Marthe’s third son Auguste Rivet did not die as an infant.  His full name was Auguste Valmond Rivet and he lived long enough to have four children of his own.  So our Marie Carmelite had a brother that survived to adulthood and she was aunt to his children.  That’s nice to hear after the many tragedies in her early life.

Auguste Valmond’s second son was Joseph Premelia Rivet and he married Marie Amanda Landry (his second cousin through Diego Hernandez!).  They had a daughter name Mary Emily Rivet.  And when little Emily grew up, she married a Wilkinson.

I know you saw that coming.  I already mentioned Emily Rivet marrying William Wilkinson, Sr. earlier on in this post.  So come to find out, Mee Maw’s paternal first cousin Marie Patureau married Mee Maw’s maternal half third cousin William Wilkinson, Jr.  I wonder if she was aware of that?  She might have been because she was into family history and family connections.  I know her brother Vincent would pick her up in Lake Charles and they would visit cousins in New Orleans, which is where Marie lived.

One of the fun things about this discovery was the old photo of Emily with her son and mother-in-law from 1904.  And since Emily’s brother-in-law was Herman Wilkinson, she is not an ancestor of Byron and Dana (and others in the line of Elmo Leobon Patureau, Sr. and Geraldine Wilkinson) and neither is Marie Marthe.  But Frances Johnson Wilkinson is.  The woman in the old photo holding the little boy is their great great grandmother.

Since this family line (and DNA match) comes from Mee Maw’s Landry side of the family, it is also in Pee Paw’s line as well.  No wonder we have common DNA with them, we got a double dose of it.  But since they are half cousins, that should reduce the amount of DNA that we would have in common.  I will leave it up to you to determine the relationships involved and what the expected amount of DNA in common should be.  Get your calculators out and have a few aspirins ready!

 

Marie Carmelite’s Story

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My dad Robert Joseph Landry, Jr.’s family tree showing his paternal great grandmother Marie Carmelite Hebert.

Marie Carmelite Hebert was born on February 3, 1802, in Brusly, Louisiana.  Her parents were Simon Hebert, 24, and Marie Marthe Hernandez Hebert, 21.  This was during Spanish rule of Louisiana and Brusly was a small town on the west bank of the Mississippi River in what is now known as West Baton Rouge Parish.

Though Simon and Marie Marthe look like they might not be related since their last names are Hebert and Hernandez, they are in fact related.  They were third cousins through their common Acadian great great grandparents Anthony LeBlanc and Marie Bourgeois.  They also have common Landry, Dupuis, and Babin lines.  Marie Marthe, though, was the daughter of Diego Hernandez, who was seemingly Spanish.  His ancestry is not known.  Her mother was Theotiste Babin, an Acadian Exile.

On April 17, 1802, Simon Hebert died.  This left young Marie Marthe a widow with a two and a half month old daughter.  There are court documents that discuss Simon’s inheritance and the guardianship of Marie Carmelite.  Her paternal grandfather Pierre Hebert was named guardian.  On March 5, 1806, Pierre appears in court and relinquishes guardianship and passes the responsibility over to is son Ely Hebert.  Pierre then dies some time within the next ten days.

I’m not really sure why Marie Carmelite needed a guardian since her mother Marie Marthe was alive during that time.  In an 1803 court record it shows that Marie Marthe received her own share of her husband’s property and that Pierre Hebert received Marie Carmelite’s share since he was the guardian.  I don’t know the dynamics of the relationships nor am I familiar with all of the Spanish laws that were in effect at the time, but it sounds like it could be a difficult time for the young mother and her daughter.

Marie Marthe then married Pierre Rivet in 1807.  Her brother was also married to a Rivet.  Marie’s brother was married to Pierre’s sister.  Marie Carmelite was an only child until this point.  Her mother did have three sons with Pierre Rivet.  Pierre was born in 1808, Louis was born in 1810, and Auguste was born in 1812.  According to my information they all died within a year of their births.  That sounds really tragic, so I hope the information I have is wrong, especially for little Marie Carmelite’s sake.  If it is correct, at the age of 11 she would have experienced the death of her father, her grandfather, and all three of her siblings.

I thought about warning you that this was a sad story, but I held back on that.  I only have birth dates and death dates available to me, so I really don’t know the overall experiences of her life.  But having your father die at an extreme young age is rather sad.  At least she had her mother for a dozen years.  That’s right.  Marie Marthe died in 1814 at the age of 33.  So that left Marie Carmelite an orphan at the age of 12.

Marriage record for Narcisse Landry and Marie Carmelite Hebert in St. Gabriel, Louisiana.

She still had her grandfather Diego, but then he died the next year as well.  At least her grandmother Marie Theotiste Babin Hernandez survived until Marie Carmelite had reached adulthood and gotten married.  From the court documents it seems like the different family members in both the Hebert and Hernandez families were willing to help.

She married Narcisse Landry on February 13, 1819, in St. Gabriel.  As you can see in the marriage license, both of Narcisse’s parents were deceased at the time of their wedding.  He was 10 years older than she was and did not lose his parents at as young of an age.  Still, he was only 27 and both of his parents had died.

I hope they had a happy life together.  During the next 25 years they brought 8 children into the world.  I’m glad they kept going until #7 and #8, because #7 is my great great grandfather Trasimond Landry and #8 is my great grandfather Alcide.  It was a different life, though.  Her whole life was spent during slavery times in southern Louisiana.  She and her husband lived on a plantation in Brusly that incorporated slave labor.  It was a terrible institution to be involved with.

She died in 1856.  I am glad that it looks like she did not have to experience the death of any of her children.  With such an abundance of deaths to deal with in her early life, that was a relief to find out.  I wish I had a photo of her and old Narcisse.  They are the only two great great grandparents that I don’t have photos of.  As it is, I only have one photo each of the two sons I descend from.

Of course, photos were not as widespread as they are now.  I suppose there could be a portrait of them somewhere out there, but I haven’t heard of such.  We’ll just have to be satisfied with the few bits of information about them that we can piece together.  So ends the story of Marie Carmelite.

The story continues…

The Ancient Family Plot

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Van Landry taking selfie with great great great grandfather Amedee Bujol at St. John the Baptist Catholic Cemetery in Brusly, Louisiana.

Most of my posts are about photos of my ancestors, which is somewhat limiting because photography hasn’t been around very long, genealogically speaking.  I don’t have any photos of my great great great grandparents.  I have photos of most of my great great grandparents.  The only set of great great grandparents that I don’t have photos of happen to also be my great great great grandparents.

The couple in question are Narcisse Landry and his wife Marie Carmelite Hebert Landry.  They were Pee Paw’s (my paternal grandfather) grandparents and Mee Maw’s (my paternal grandmother) great grandparents.  There, that makes everything clear.

Since I don’t have photos of the individual, sometimes I’ll take selfies with their headstone.  Isn’t that sweet?  Or is it morbid?  Either way, I do it.  I have one of myself with Martha Ann Cook Keys and now I have one with Amedee Bujol.

I took this photo almost two weeks ago.  It was a Sunday afternoon and I was thinking to myself, “I want to take a picture of myself with dead people!”  No, not really.  I had a few spare hours and thought I’d take a quick hop across the Mighty Mississip to check out the Brusly cemetery.  I knew that we had some ancestors buried out there and it was a nice overcast day.  Cemeteries are downright miserable in the summer.  Out in the burning heat and there are usually no trees for shade.

Graves of several family members are located in this small area of the cemetery.

But on a day like that, it is perfect for ‘digging up bones’ as my mom liked to call it.  It took me maybe 15 minutes to get from my house to the spot that I parked in that you see in this photo.  I just pulled in a little ways into the graveyard and got out of my car to start looking.

It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for.  I actually couldn’t have parked any closer.  The main person I was looking for was 1) Marie Francoise Leveque Bujol, my 4th great grandmother.  Francoise was the mother of 2)Amedee from the selfie and he was the father of Amelie ‘Belite’ Bujol who married Trasimond Landry.  They were the parents of Marie Therese Landry Patureau, who was Mee Maw’s mother that died in 1909.

I had seen photos of Francoise’s headstone, so I knew what to look for.  The marker has the writing “Veuve Sylvester Bujol” which means the widow of Sylvester Bujol.  I didn’t see his headstone, but I know that he died in 1824.  With her death given as 1875, that means she had been a widow for over 50 years when she died.

Her son Amedee’s wife Anna Adele Landry also outlived her husband.  She was known as the Veuve Bujol as well and is referred as such in the book about Trasimond Landry called “The Tirailleurs.”  Her grave is not at this cemetery.  (2020 Update – I found the death notice for Anna Adele Bujol, so now I know that she outlived her husband by almost 42 years.  It states that she was buried in this cemetery, yet I haven’t been able to find it.)

It is rumored that Trasimond is buried at this cemetery.  There is a headstone for his mother 3) Marie Carmelite Hebert Landry.  She was the wife of Narcisse Landry.  The rumor also states that Narcisse could be buried here as well.  The rumor comes from family members who have been searching for those graves.  When you look at Marie Carmelite’s grave, you can see plenty of real estate around it.  It is thought that Narcisse and Trasimond are buried on either side of her.

Marie Carmelite and Narcisse are my great great grandparents because they are the father of Simon Alcide Landry.  He moved to the western part of the state in the mid to late 1880s with his family and he was buried in Lake Charles.

And though Narcisse may not have been buried in the St. John the Baptist Catholic Cemetery, we know for sure that some of his brothers were.  I found two of their graves.

The most important brother that I found was Narcisse’s half brother 5) Emmanuel Landry.  The reason I claim his importance is because I also descend from Emmanuel.  He was the father of the Anna Adele that I mentioned earlier.  Not only that, he was the father of Clarissa Doralise and Marguerite ‘Baselite’ Landry, the two wives of my great great grandfather Joseph August Leveque (also buried in Lake Charles).

His wife 4) Celeste Bruneteau Landry’s headstone is at this cemetery as well.  As you can see from the photos, they are large concrete graves that are above the ground.  Sitting on top of Celeste’s grave was a broken marker for Valerien Landry.  His grave must be nearby.  He was another brother of Narcisse Landry.  I don’t descend from him.  Imagine that.

So I descend from Narcisse through two of his sons.  Then I descend from his half brother Emmanuel through two daughters.  Through these connections, I am my own double half 5th cousin once removed.  And that’s not all.  I descend through Narcisse’s brother Onezime through his daughter Marie Emma Landry, the wife of the Patureau immigrant Pierre Ferdinand.  They are the progenitors for all of the Patureaus in southern Louisiana that I know of.

J. H. Amedee Bujol died June 28, 1857, in his 42nd year. He was full of honor, esteemed, loyal, always sincere. He was always a good son, a good husband, and a good father. (roughly translated)

So the people in these graves are part of the great entanglements in my family tree.  I can’t really complain about any of that, because if any of that would have been different, I wouldn’t be here.  And neither would a lot of you reading this.

It’s always interesting to me to see the final resting place of some of my people.  Even though it is a place for the dead, I know that many of my family lived and breathed at this same location.  Mourning their loved ones who came before them.  The cycle continues.

I thought I’d put the family tree for my paternal grandmother on here since all of the graves I found are in her tree.  I also thought I’d add the numbers that are associated with the graves pictured in the second photo on this post.

Family tree showing my grandmother’s ancestors. One correction – I have since found that her maternal great grandmother Anna Adele Landry died on Mar. 13, 1899.