2010 Family Heritage Tour, Part 3

[Part 3 of 3 in a series. Part 1 here and  part 2 here. --Amy]

Yesterday was the final day in the tour of my mother's "ancestral homeland" (aka Louisiana). In the morning after checking out of the hotel, we drove out to Iota:

The town may have a big heart, but there's zero cell phone reception of which to speak. What Iota does have is a lot of rice fields:

We paid a visit to the St. Joseph church and cemetery. I've read a couple books and records that say the church was built on land my ancestors used to own. There was a big house here once upon a time.

At the cemetery, which is part of the church grounds, I showed my mom the grave site of her great grandmother, Eliza "Lizzie" Eldridge Thibodeaux Matte. At the back of this photo is also the marker of Eliza's daughter Malina Thibodeaux, who is the great-aunt of my mom.

In another section of the same cemetery, there is a marker for Josephine DeGreve Bourgaux, who is my mom's great-great grandmother from Belgium. The stone also shares the names of two of Josephine's grandchildren. Upon seeing this marker, my mom realized that her own grandmother Josephine was named for this woman:

After that, we drove around Iota, which took about 2 minutes. Then we took the slow road home.

My mom doesn't *do the genealogy* like I do, but I think she really enjoyed this trip. She had heard stories of Acadia Parish from her parents, but had never been there. Now she has pictures, memories and new cousins.  And the food...we can't forget the food!

Tombstone Tuesday: Malina Thibodeaux Edition

This is the grave of my great-great aunt at St. Joseph cemetery in Iota, Acadia Parish, Louisiana. If you do the math, you can see she was 23 when she died. 

 * SISTER *

MALINA

THIBODEAUX

DEC. 18, 1882

SEPT. 8, 1906

AT REST

In the picture above, you can see a partial view of a stone for Lizzie Eldridge. She was Malina's mother and is my great-great grandmother.

Malina's brief obituary that appeared in the paper stated that she had been ill for six months, but wasn't more specific than that.

For my family playing along, Malina (sometimes called Melanie Thibodeaux) was the aunt of my grandfather. She was the sister of Noel Holly Thibodeaux. I definitely see a resemblance.

Louisiana Death Certificates

I recently ordered some older Louisiana death certificates.

You can do the same through this page of the Secretary of State's web site.

Here's the deal:

1. You can search this page for death records between 1911 and 1956.

2. If you find what you're looking for, you can fill out a form online*, then print it out to mail.

3. The cost to obtain a death record from this site is $5. A bargain!

4. You can send up to 10 requests in the same envelope.

I ordered some records for siblings of my great-great grandparents. I'm hoping they give clues to birthplaces or other little nuggets of knowledge. Always research the siblings. You find surprises that way.

The certificates I ordered were for the Bourgaux and Menou lines. I also ordered a record for Charles Matte, who was the second husband of my great-great grandmother, Eliza Eldridge Thibodeaux. How did her first husband perish, you ask? Here, let me refresh your memory.

I'll let you know what these records hold. Louisiana usually gets these documents out within a month.

* Note: I had to exit Google Chrome and use Internet Explorer to get the online applications to pop up and print. Just a heads up.

Naming Names

Craig at GeneaBlogie had the wise notion to publicize the names he was searching and see if anyone else knows something about them. This is a great idea. I can't believe I never did it before, but I'm posting them here now:

Baerecke, Barecke (WI, IL)
Bean (TN, AR)
Bourgaux, Bourgeaux (Acadia Parish LA, Gilly Belgium)
Bourland (KY, TX, OK)
Brauckman (Germany)
Brigance (TN, AR)
Brigham (TN, AR)
Clingman (AR)
Cloyd (TN, VA)
Colbert (Chickasaw, Indian Territory, OK, MS)
Degreve (LA, Belgium)
Eldridge (St. Landry LA, Milan County TX, KY)
Hood (KY, TX)
Howorth, Howarth (SC, TX)
Jones (Chickasaw, TX, NC, OK, Indian Territory)
Jost (Austria, PA)
Legoffe (France, LA)
Lenertz (IA in 1850's, MN, Luxembourg)
Lockweiler (poss. Luxembourg)
Menou (Acadia Parish, LA, France)
Moore (MS, OK, Indian Territory)
Mitchell (NC, AR)
Neilson (NC, TX)
Perkins (KY, TX, LA)
Quesenberry, Quesenbury (AR, NC)
Shokweiler (poss. Luxembourg)
Shukeveiler (or something like it)
Smith (LeSueur MN)
Sparks (AR, poss. TN)
Tate (NC, AR)
Thibodeaux (Acadia & St. Landry Parishes LA)
Turk, Tuerk (Germany)
Williamson (AR, TN)
Yost (PA, Austria)

Ok, now I have to use the word "genealogy" so search engines will pick it up and people searching for Eldridge genealogy or such will land on this blog.

My challenges are as follows:

Any indication of a Baerecke or Barecke in Chicago in 1892.
A death date for H. H. Baerecke/Barecke.
An idea of what H. H. stands for (I think it's Harry from WI but have no proof.)

Information on the following Lenertz's all born in the 1800's:
Alex Lenertz
Alexander Lenertz
Catherine Lenertz
Frank Lenertz
Henry Lenertz
John Lenertz
Joseph Lenertz
Margaret Lenertz
Mary Lenertz
Michael Lenertz
William Lenertz

Also in search of information on the Pierre Thibodeaux born in Louisiana in 1829, not the one born in 1835.

If you have any information on these folks, or you need more clarification, please email me using the email address provided in the right column of this blog.

Mail Bag! Death Certificate for Eliza Eldridge

Louisiana is on the ball! I already received the death certificates I ordered earlier this month.

One of the certificates was for my great-great grandmother, Eliza Eldridge (1851-1937). For family members playing along, she was Floyd's father's mother. For regular We Tree readers, she was also the poor widow in the infamous "killing scrape" in my family tree.

She remarried, so her death certificate is under the name Matte (spelled Matt on the document).

Ms. Matte died in Port Barre, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana on August 12, 1937. The cause was "intestinal obstruction due to gall bladder condition." A contributing factor was "old age."

This certificate says Eliza was born in Milan County, Texas. This is news to me. Two censuses state she was born in Louisiana, but the 1930 census says Texas. Hmm...

The death certificate also says her father was Madison J. Eldridge, bithplace unknown. I have in my records James M. Eldridge. Maybe he was known by Madison? I'll have to explore that further.

Eliza's mother was Elizabeth Perkins. This I knew. However, the record also says that Elizabeth's birthplace was Louisville, Kentucky. News to me. The 1930 census for Eliza says both her parents were born in Kentucky.

The informant for Eliza's death certificate was her daughter Lula (Thibodeaux) McGee. Lula was living in Eunice, Lousiana at the time, so that's a nice tidbit of information for my timeline. This record also provided the undertaker's name and Eliza's burial location.

This is why getting death certificates in the mail is such a kick. My Thibodeaux branch of the tree, which I thought was so firmly entrenched in Louisiana for decades, might actually have a branch in Kentucky. I haven't done any research in Kentucky, but I'm happy to start. This goose chase will be fun.

Calling Baton Rouge

I ordered three death certificates today. The first two were for my great-great grandparents Menou and Bourgaux.

The third record was for another great-great grandmother, Eliza Eldridge. She is best known as the poor wife at home in this pesky homicide incident where her husband was murdered for making eyes (among other things) with the neighbor's wife. Ahhhh, family.

This is my first foray into Louisiana records requests. Because these death certificates are over 50 years old, I can request them from the Louisiana State Archives for 5 bucks each. Not bad.

So we'll see how it goes. I don't expect any surprises from these records. Just getting my facts straight.