Blanchard is my maiden name; it’s a good Cajun name shared by many people in southern Louisiana. In recent years I’ve become interested in finding out who came before me. Maybe it was fueled by a desire to connect with my roots since I had torn myself from Louisiana soil and moved to the Pacific Northwest. It may also have something to do with the heightened awareness of Cajun Louisiana in the rest of the country. In any case, I found out that my family goes back more than 200 years in Louisiana, back to the time when Acadians and French first settled on the banks of the Mississippi River.
As most of the family was also Roman Catholic, researching through the Catholic Church records has provided most of what I’ve discovered about the people who came before me. Anyone with Cajun roots can find lots of information at Acadian Memorial.org, which has a searchable database of people who settled in Louisiana after leaving Acadia. Please email me (cindy at cindyhudson dot com) with questions about the following family names in Iberville and West Baton Rouge parish:
- Blanchard
- Rivet
- Hooper
- Orillion
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