Terrebonne Genealogical Society

TGS Newsletter
Vol. 23 No. 9 January 2005

Visit our home page at http://www.rootsweb.com/~laterreb/tgs.htm

Membership, book orders and/or 
     address changes, contact: 
      Corresponding Secretary: Jess Bergeron 
      Email:  jessndot at juno.com
      Phone (985) 876–2348 
      TGS, Station 2 Box 295, Houma, LA 70360-0295 
News items or events, contact: 
     Newsletter Editor  Ed Hicks
      5306 Hwy 1, Raceland, LA 70394-2033 
      E-mail: edhicks at mobiletel.com
      Phone: (985) 532–3586 
NEXT MEETING:
Happy New Year!!! Saturday, January 29, 2005
Main Library, Houma LA 1:00 p.m.
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

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