The Importance of Finding Sources!!!

I love how my research skills have improved over the years. I’m now experienced enough to be able to project to which progenitor these mysterious people come from before finding the actual documented proof. Unlike some researchers who’d much rather sit and wait FOR OTHERS TO LOOK FOR ANSWERS, I visit the Courthouses to obtain documentation to verify my research claims. Being guided by researcher extraordinaire Christophe Landry​ has benefited the way I go about my research. There was a time that I thought Mr. Landry doubted the information I sent to him since he asked for the source behind this information. He used to get on my nerves when he asked how I knew this and that. He taught me to have documentation on what I found so that my claims could be validated.

I’ll give you an example of why it’s important to get sourced information rather than only going by the research of others. For the longest time, I assumed that my maternal 4th great grandfather, Theophile LACHAPELLE, was the son of Henriette GRADENIGO. Seeing that many users on ancestry.com had this information made it COMFORTABLE for me to go ALONG with it as well without questioning whether this was correct or not. I also saw that Theophile’s wife Julie BIROTTE’s parents were given as Francois BIROTTE and Louise GUILLORY. Having this unsourced information led me to believe that I was a GRADENIGO descendant of Bonaparte GRADENIGO and a Guillory descendant of Gregoire GUILLORY and his Negresse MARGUERITE. Oh boy, was I a proud researcher to descend from two of the affluent families of St. Landry Parish! But that would all change once I started researching at the Courthouse.

After looking through this succession: LACHAPELLE, Henriette Succ. dated 13 Dec. 1882 (Opel. Ct. Hse.: Succ. # 4387) I noticed that neither my ancestor Theophile LACHAPELLE nor his family were listed as heirs of Henriette. During a different Courthouse search I found the slave record in which the father of Henriette’s children, Pierre Hubert LANGLOIS dit LACHAPELLE, purchased her and her children without listing Theophile. This led me to believe that Theophile wasn’t Henriette’s child. I then looked for the marriage of Theophile to his wife Julie but the microfilmed copy they had available on the computer wasn’t clear. So I asked for the original copy. That’s when I discovered the mothers of both Theophile and his wife. Theophile’s mother was Josephine TESSON, mulatresse libre de St. LOUIS (not Henriette GRADENIGO). Julie’s mother was Eloise MEUILLON, mulatresse libre. The fact that Julie’s father Francois BIROTTE fathered children with two women named LOUISE probably led to the confusion between Eloise MEUILLON and Louise GUILLORY.

Who would have known that this tiny bit of information written in French would make such a huge difference in my ancestry? Now imagine if I had not gone to the courthouse to conduct research. I would have still been claiming information that obviously isn’t true. And that’s why finding sources for information is so important to a family researcher.