Louisiana Early Inhabitants

Profile managers: Jacqueline Girouard [send private message], Louisiana Families Project WikiTree [send private message], and Louisiana Categories Project WikiTree [send private message]

Early Inhabitants

Louisiana has always been a melting pot & this page is where to start your search - for the Native Peoples, pioneers, explorers, refugees, settlers, slaves, immigrants, soldiers, and deportees who contributed to the rich culture that has condensed into a much smaller area.

If you're looking for the earliest inhabitants, you'll find categories for Native American Tribes of Louisiana, but not very many people in those categories. The Native Americans Project may have resources that could help your search.

Among the first Europeans in the area were French trappers - coureurs des bois^[1] - coming down from Canada, and Spanish settlers and soldiers along the Gulf Coast. I'm pretty sure there are categories for these groups - I just need to find them. ~ Noland-165 12:58, 6 July 2017 (EDT)

See the Spanish Louisiana project and Category: Luisiana, Nueva España, and check out other pages included on Category:Louisiana (below the categories).

For folks just passing though, check out the Westward Ho! project - a subproject of Westward Ho! is Category:US Pioneers and Settlers. And there's also a Lewis & Clark Expedition project.

Louisiana First Families

The heart of the Louisiana Families Project are the folks who stayed - Louisiana's First Families. Category:Louisiana First Families is for the earliest known heads of families, male and female, in Louisiana. For later immigrants, they should have arrived in time to be in the 1900 US Census. People in this category need to have a place of birth outside of Louisiana or be the earliest known member of the family in Louisiana. See details on the Louisiana Families project page.

Neutral Ground Settlers

Click here for more information about this fascinating slice of Louisiana that officially existed outside the jurisdiction of both Spain and the United States from 1806 to 1821.

Acadian Refugees

The Wall of Names at the Acadian Memorial

This group of settlers, although they came to Louisiana, are more strongly associated with the Acadians Project, but they are dear to us, so they get their own heading (two of them!).

The Wall of Names at the Acadian Memorial

The Wall of Names lists approximately 3000 persons identified as Acadian refugees in early Louisiana records - we would like to have profiles for all of them.

Louisiana Slaves

Tracing your roots when your ancestors were uprooted and sold is, to say the least, difficult. WikiTree is working to make that easier with projects and categories. Under the US Black Heritage Project are by-state categories, including Category: Louisiana, Slavery, and the project page has some excellent resources listed, both general and by state: see Louisiana.

Louisiana Immigration

Additional categories for specific pioneer groups have been or are being developed. They include

• Category: German Coast Settlers, for the pioneer first families of St. Charles, Parish, Louisiana (see this G2G post, Jan. 7, 2016).
  • coordinator: Jacqueline Girouard
• Migrants from Canary Islands to Spanish Louisiana. Settlers from the Canary Islands became a distinct ethnic group living in Louisiana and were known as Isleños (Category:Islenos). See also this G2G post, June 19, 2016.
• Louisiana Acadian Coast Settlers (see this G2G discussion, March 17, 2016).
• Mississippi River Migration and Settlements (see this G2G discussion, March 18, 2016).
  • coordinator: Liz Shifflett
• Routes to Attakapas and the Acadian Prairies, April 2016.
• Irish in Louisiana (see suggestions for categories below also), sub-project started July 28, 2017.

These come under the Louisiana Immigration category, which also includes categories by nationality (e.g., Louisiana, New France, Immigrants from France).

Suggestions for additional categories?

• Category:New Orleans, Irish Channel or Irish Channel, New Orleans ?
  • See this G2G post.
  • See Wikipedia: Irish Channel, New Orleans
• Category:... Redbones / Category:... Melungeons
  • See this G2G post
• Category: Louisiana Neutral Ground (created); Category: Texas Neutral Ground ?
  • See this G2G post
  • See Wikipedia: Neutral Ground (Louisiana)
• Category:Vietnamese Immigrants to Louisiana - with major immigration to Louisiana in 1970s, they're not "Early Inhabitants", but Vietnamese immigrants definitely have joined Louisiana's melting pot!
  • See New Orleans' Vietnamese.
  • See Wikipedia: Vietnamese in New Orleans

Y'all Come

Project:Louisiana covers everything and everyone: Did you step foot in Louisiana? Did you stay? You're family. Were you born here? lived here? married here? died here? You're family. Did you come bearing arms agin us... well, maybe not. But we might have a category for you: Check out Category:Louisiana Warriors. Not a category for people but a gateway to projects, categories, and pages related to Louisiana Warriors — those who fought for Louisiana from its earliest days on through modern wars, when fighting in defense of your home expanded to defending your homeland far from your own home.

So if you're from Louisiana or live in Louisiana, or have an ancestor who was or did, this sticker's for you:

{{Louisiana Sticker}}

Because there are so many people in Louisiana, please also add a location category too, not just the sticker. Category:Louisiana is a top-level category (no people profiles), but it's the place to find more specific location categories. If you don't have anything more specific, use Category: Unknown parish, Louisiana

For details about more stickers and templates, check out Templates on the project page for Louisiana Families.

Recap

• Native Peoples: Category:Native American Tribes of Louisiana, Project:Native_Americans
• Pioneers: Category:US Pioneers and Settlers, Project:Westward Ho
• Explorers: Lewis & Clark Expedition
• Refugees: #Acadian_Refugees, Project:Acadians
• Settlers: Category:Louisiana First Families, Louisiana's First Families, Project:Louisiana_Families
  • Space:Spanish_Louisiana, Category: Luisiana, Nueva España
  • #Louisiana_Immigration
• Slaves: Space:US_Southern_Colonies_Slavery, Project:US_Southern_Colonies; Space:African-American_Project
• Immigrants: Category:Louisiana_Immigration, #Louisiana_Immigration
• Soldiers: ... thinking specifically Spanish soldiers, but while I'm looking, see Category:Louisiana_Warriors (no people but lots of categories/pages), Military and War Project
• Deportees: ... I posted something I think is relevant, but I can't find what I'm thinking of yet, so I don't know if I have something for "Deportees" or not

Who Dat? What Country? Where are they?

Just a couple G2G posts encountered when wandering through those tagged Louisiana that were too good not to share:

• Cajun, Creole - what's the difference
• How to Rationalize Louisiana Locations (or "from France to Spain and Back again... then to Statehood in 1812").
• [https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/309879/there-category-louisianan-who-fought-the-revolutionary-war

Is there a category for a Louisianan who fought in the Revolutionary War?] (probably could have found it at Category:Louisiana Warriors - if not then, you can now! And it's another reason to include Louisiana Warriors on this page!)

Louisiana, Name Studies

Almost forgot! Check out Name Studies and also head back over to the project page for more information about Louisiana One Name Studies.

Sources & Resources

1. ↑ Wikipedia: Coureur des bois, "primarily or solely fur trade entrepreneurs and not individually well known. The most prominent coureurs des bois were also explorers and gained fame as such."

• Louisiana Families - Resources
• Category:Louisiana Genealogy Resources.

Related Projects and Groups

Chronicles of New France

Acadians Project

Native Americans Project

US Southern Colonies Project

• especially these subprojects
  • French Colonies
  • Spanish La Florida WEST
  • Slavery - Louisiana
  • Southern Pioneers

Westward Ho Project

• especially the subproject
  • Lewis and Clark Expedition

Categorization Project