NEXT MEETING:
Happy New Year!!! Saturday, January 29, 2005
Main Library, Houma LA 1:00 p.m.
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Dues - Are you aware dues expire on Feb. 28th? It’s now time
to renew if you don’t want to miss getting any issue of your Terrebonne
Life Lines. How can you tell if your dues are about the expire? If the
label has “EX 2/05" you need to pay NOW. If we receive your dues late,
you will have to wait until the next issue of TLL, after we receive your
dues, to get the Spring issue. We do not mail single issues out unless
you include an extra $3.50 for postage. If you want a TGS membership card
they are available, but you must send a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope
(SASE) when requesting one.
We are sorry if you missed the TGS Christmas
party on Dec. 11th. There was an abundance of presents and plenty of food.
One guest was so surprised at the friendliness of everyone there. Our meetings
are always a happy occasion to see each other and visit.
Did you have a white Christmas? It snowed
on Christmas day in this area, the first time in this writer’s memory.
My daughter called it, “A Christmas gift from God.”
TGS donated the microfilm of the “Journal
of Louis Guion” to Nicholls Archives in Thibodaux. The last installment
of the transcriptions, taken from this microfilm by Nancy L. Wright, appears
in the Winter 2004 issue of TLL, which will be published this month.
Mathurin Ayo - The old house on LA
Hwy. 308 above Thibodaux has been donated by Jack and Lorraine Wise, and
moved to the LSU Rural Life Museum in Baton Rouge. If you’ve never visited
this museum, go - it is a fun trip because you get to do a walking tour
of the grounds and visit actual old homes and see how your ancestors lived.
It’s a nice Sunday outing and there are restaurants nearby. Lorraine tells
us LSU is currently working on the restoration of this old home and there
will be a dedication ceremony later in the year. Maybe she will keep us
informed and some of us, especially Ayo descendants, can attend.
In Aug. 1999 Judy Riffel published new information in le Raconteur showing
records from France of the parents of Mathurin Ayo. She is currently working
on an article with more generations, showing the marriage of Jean
Ayaud and Marie Gingraud, in France, which will appear in a future issue
of le Raconteur.
Judy also informs us Le Comite de la Louisiane
has the index of le Raconteur online as well as tables of contents showing
the titles of articles and whether or not the issue is still in print.
A search engine has recently been added for faster searches of these files.
The site is http://www.sos.louisiana.gov/archives/archives/archives-comite.htm
Births - The fifth great-grandchild
of Audrey Westerman, Aiden Michael Aucoin, son of Eric Paul and Jamie (Blanchard)
Aucoin of Thibodaux, was born November 29th in Thibodaux, weighing 8 lbs.
11 oz, 20 ½ inches long, grandson of daughter Luane (Westerman)
and Arthur Aucoin, Jr. of Labdadieville LA.
Deaths - Our condolences to the families
of: Member Harold Irvin Martin, 64, native of Shreveport and resident of
Saucier, MS, died Friday, Dec. 3, 2004. He is survived by his wife, Dorothy
Hale Martin, one son, Robert Edwin Martin of Bastrop, LA; four daughters,
Linda Anne Martin of West Des Moines IO, Ruth Marie Martin of Tampa FL,
Wendy Lyn Cook of Gulfport MS, and Karen Jean Sanders of Bossier City LA;
nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Burial was in the National
Cemetery in Biloxi MS . . .
And Irene Mary Crochet Farrell, 89, native
of Houma and resident of Metairie, who died Thursday, Dec. 9, 2004. She
is survived by one son, Charles Gref Farrell, Jr. and his wife, Patricia
Dore; two daughters, Glenda Mae Farrell and her husband, Earl Anthony Surgi,
Jr.; and TGS member Beverly Ann Farrell and her husband, Robert Aristel
Louviere, Jr.; eleven grandchildren and fifteen great-grandchildren. Mrs.
Farrell was preceded in death by her husband, Charles Gref Farrell; her
parents, Mary Mabel Hebert Crochet LaFrance; her grandparents, Desire Leandre
Ezra Crochet and Amanda Arcelie Pitre Crochet; two sisters, Beverly Scherer
Crochet and Shirley LaFrance Creppel; and one brother, Joseph LaFrance.
Interment was at Garden of Memories Cemetery in Metairie LA.
ANCESTRY CARD FILE PROJECT: We are anxiously
looking forward to getting started on our new project. Basically, the thought
is this: In your research of your ancestral lines you may be beating your
head against a brick wall that someone in our membership has already broken
down, only you don’t know it. Does everybody agree that we should try to
help others who are working on the same line? We are hoping that this project
will be a help in doing just that. Some organizations use the surnames
of ancestors for this purpose. Well, in South Louisiana we are limited
to the number of different surnames available. Once you list the Acadian
surnames, that covers them all. We need something more detailed. What we
propose is a card file, like the catalog cards in libraries.
This is the way it will work. You will fill
out forms giving us the names of your fifth-generation ancestors, if you
can go back that far, along with their birth, death and marriage data.
(Dates and places for each event.) Also parents’ names, if you know them.
If you don’t know their parents, then drop down to the fourth generation.
If you have information on your spouse, do the same for her/his lines.
[Note: Please do not go further back than the fifth
generation. I’m sure you can see that if we go as far as the Acadian immigrants,
we will wind up with just a few individuals, and EVERYBODY will have those
individuals in their lines.]
We will take the information that you send
and put it into a database that can print cards or labels. That way the
cards will all be uniform in size and placement of the data.
We will then file the cards in drawers which will be housed in
the Genealogy Department of the Main Branch of the Terrebonne Parish Library.
You and other genealogists will be able to go there and do a manual search
of the file for an individual. If you are lucky, you will find someone
in your line and you will want to contact the person who submitted the
name you found in the file. Look on the back of the card. His/her contact
information will be found on the back of each of her/his cards. This may
include name and address, sometimes a phone number or email address, or
maybe just a contact number. In the latter case you will be able to reach
that person only through the Terrebonne Genealogical Society. We aim to
protect your privacy as much as you think is necessary.
If you want to take part in this project,
please contact me (Ed Hicks) by mail, email or phone (look at the top of
this newsletter for my contact information) and I will send you the necessary
forms, or, if you wish, I can attach the forms to an email letter. |