TERREBONNE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY
TGS Newsletter
Vol. 26 No. 3 May 2007
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:    Saturday, May 26, 2007       Main Branch Library, Houma, LA 1:00 p.m.

At the April meeting we were treated to a very interesting book talk. Juliet HENRY told us how it was that she came to write the book In the Shadows of the Trade Winds: Voisin’s Story after researching her family’s history. She also told us about the court battles over ownership of Last Island (Isle Derniere). Those battles continue to this day, because Voisin’s story is also the story of Last Island. Yes, that’s the island which was devastated in the hurricane of August, 1856, killing over a hundred people (the body count varies from story to story) who were vacationing on that barrier island off the Terrebonne coast. If you are interested in learning more about it, there exists an account from a survivor, and it is on the internet. Put this address in your browser: http://lafourche.com/presbyterian/lastisland.htm or, if you want to know something about the big hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast, try this one: http://www.npr.org/ templates/story/story.php?storyId=4821848

Don’t miss the next meeting (Saturday, May 26). We hope to have several guests from the Canary Islanders Heritage Society of Louisiana to explain the purpose of the group and to show us how our present-day Louisiana culture has been influenced by the gifts of the Canary Islanders (IsleZos). If you suspect you have any ancestors from the islands, better make the meeting. And bring any relatives or friends who are trying to trace their ancestry to individuals named CABALLERO (or CAVALIER) CORVO, MARRERO, FALCON, SANCHEZ, SUAREZ, DIAZ, DOMINGUEZ, LOPEZ, RAMIREZ, GONZALEZ, GARCIA, PEREZ, HERNANDEZ, RODRIGUEZ, FERNANDEZ, MARTIN, MARTINEZ, HIDALGO, DELGADO, MORALES, TORRES, TRUXILLO, ACOSTA, ALEMAN (or ALLEMAN) and PLASENCIA (or PLAISANCE). That’s a wide net, so look around. You may help to infect someone with the dreaded GENEALOGY BUG. If your frie nd is on a strict diet to lose weight, you may not want to mention that we hope to have a "real chef" prepare our snacks for the meeting. (My definition of a "real chef" is one who gets paid to cook or has his or her own restaurant.) See http://www.canaryislanders.org/

COLLATING THE QUARTERLY: Thanks to all who helped with the collating: Beverly ALFORD, Jess BERGERON, Sandra C. BOUDREAUX, Blanche M. BROWN, Godfrey BUQUET, Marcie and Essie CAVALIER, Jane and Phil CHAUVIN, Ed HICKS, Cecilia L. RICHARD, and Barbara B. WHITFIELD. We finished in record time; it was about 1:40 p.m. and we were packing up to go home.

DEATH: Our sympathies go to the family of charter member Irene RODRIGUE DELATTE, born in Chackbay, LA. She was a longtime resident of New Orleans and then Sorrento, LA. She passed away on Tuesday, May 8, 2007, after a long battle with pulmonary fibrosis. She was preceded in death by her husband, Vernon DELATTE, a daughter, Darlene MYERS HUTTON; her parents, Leonie and Helene ROBINSON RODRIGUE and two sisters, Leonaise VILLENEUVE and Gladys MOTICHEK. She is survived by three daughters: Charlene DELATTE MINNICK, Shirlene VANDERWALL, and Angelene GORDON; two sisters: Vernia LANDRY and Noradean ALBRECHT. She is also survived by eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren as well as numerous nieces and nephews. She retired after many years from the Tulane shirt factory and several years with K-Mart. She was an amateur genealogist and a faithful member of the Holy Rosary Church in St. Amant, LA. She was a kind and generous person of great pers onal strength and courage, and will be dearly missed by all who knew her. She was a 1942 graduate of St. Amant High School and attended business college in later years. Interment was at Holy Rosary Cemetery.

OUR INNOVATIVE WEBMASTER, Tim HEBERT, has designed a new look for our website. Check it out at http://www.roots web.com/~laterreb/tgs.htm Yes, that’s the same URL as the old site. He has included our hard-working president’s list of conveyances from 1822 to 1837 and our production of LaVse Ledet’s book, They Came They Stayed, as well as the usual data and news. I’m sure you will be pleased. I was, and I’ve seen a few websites in my day.

BOOK COMMITTEE: Please forgive me if I tend to repeat myself. I just want to make sure you got the message. We have a Book Committee which was formed to help the library select useful books for the Genealogy Department. If you have been wanting to use a book which might be helpful to others, you can suggest to our newest board member, Wanda MOORE, that the library obtain the book and put it on the shelves. Just be sure to include ordering information, such as the publisher, author and title. The price would be helpful, too, if you know it. Contact Wanda by email at wmoore1048 (at) aol (dot) com And thanks, it would help all of us if you would take the time to do that. If you don’t have email, you may want to mail Wanda care of the Society at the address shown above, or just tell her at the next meeting. She is usually pretty faithful about attending, just missing for a good reason. Th e topics of the books you recommend should have something to do with Louisiana history or genealogy (of any area).

PRESENTING YOUR LIFE STORY: There are different ways you can tell your story. And Wanda (MOORE, see above) can recommend the most eye-catching way. She made a CD, complete with sound and pictures, for a family get-together recently and said she can recommend the product at this website: http://www.tellingstories.com/ and if you go there now you can take a tour of the software that helps you tell your story. As software goes, nowadays, it is not expensive at all. And the results seem to be impressive.


Terrebonne Genealogical Society, P. O. Box 20295, Houma, LA 70360-0295

Copyright © 1997-2007 Tim Hebert