Surname Saturday: Duchamp

My second great grandfather was Eugene Auguste Duchamp De Chastaigne he was born in July of 1837 in Morris County, New Jersey. His family had come to this country from Martinique Island in the Caribbean. In 1860 he married Marie Amelie Sandoz in St. Martinville, Louisiana.

The name is shortened to Duchamp when speaking about the family but the full "correct" and legal name was Duchamp De Chastaigne.

His father was Jean Baptiste Eugene Duchamp De Chastaigne and his father (my 4th great grandfather) would have been Jean Baptiste Matthieu Duchamp De Chastaigne.

I can go a couple of more generations back but I did not do the research on this family. My cousin Eric did. Tragically all of his research was lost in Katrina. Luckily he had sent gedcom files and printouts to many family member...a good reason to share your research and to keep back ups somewhere safe.

Because we had the basics, pedigree charts and family group sheets, we were able to recall the information but not where he had got the information. That's right...he didn't record his sources when he put the information on Ancestry.

This has been a valuable lesson to me. You never think that tragedy will strike you. But it can. Mother nature is like that and fires happen. I urge everyone...don't wait...share your stuff today and make sure it is sourced so you can find those documents again.

Ok, enough about that....

It occurred to me today that because I don't have any source notes to go by that I'm not sure which Duchamp owned the plantation.  I know that Eugene Auguste was the owner of the town house. And I have always thought that he owned the plantation too. But it is possible that cousin Eric may have merged the ownership of the plantation and the townhouse into one man. (I've just recently discovered on another line where I suspect he merged two different men because they married two different women with the same name....but that's another story.)

So I have work to do on this line to determine which Duchamp owned the pharmacy, the opera house, the plantation and the townhouse ...or if they were all owned by different Duchamps.

RootsTech Scares Me-Tech Tuesday

I have to confess Roots Tech scares me just a little. Why? Because I learn how much I don't know.

I am by no means a "Techie." Just ask my friends who are. I am always asking them how to make this program work or, "how do I do this?" I have (tongue firmly in cheek) "bragged" about my techie prowess on this blog. And hopefully y'all know I'm laughing at myself.

I am also a little scared of RootsTech because, "Ignorance is Bliss."  For example: If I don't know that Nitroreader will make my life "easier" then I don't feel the need to go and learn how to use it. BLISS
But then when my friends start talking about Tweet Deck, Nitro Reader, Dropbox, Cloud Computing, SMS, RSS Feed, and the like....and I feel so left out...and I want to know the latest and greatest. I feel like I'm running behind...a day late and a dollar short, that's me.

The learning curve, is another reason I'm scared of Roots Tech. I'm still just catching up to last years brain overload. I still have not mastered Twitter or Tweet Deck. I barely know how to do this blog (as is evidenced by the many blogs that get posted before they are ready.) So when you tell me that the next RootsTech is just around the corner I start having anxiety attacks. WHAT!  I'M NOT READY YET!

All that aside; I love RootsTech. It's only a year old. And it is already one of the most (if not THE most) popular conferences in the Genealogy World. With good reason, too. Like I said...brain overload. You learn tons. You learn how to incorporate the techie world into your genealogy. Of course you can still do genealogy the "old fashioned" way, and you should. You don't want to be abandoning the careful research methodology we have all worked so hard to learn. However, adding the techie stuff to it complements it. It adds a new dimension to our genealogy. Like adding geocoding to our grave photographs. Even blogging adds a new dimension. By blogging about our research we find were our "holes" are and we get to practice putting our research into a narrative form.

So even if you're a non-techie like me RootsTech has something for you. You can become as Techie as you want or choose not to. But you should go at least once and find out what your missing and why you should try to work it into your genealogy world. And like me, I bet you'll find that you want to go back. And if you're already a techie, then join the other "tech geeks" and improve the techie world of genealogy for the rest of us.

Hope to see y'all there.

Shopping Saturday: Grandpa Duchamp's Pharmacy

Grandpa Duchamp's Pharmacy (that's it with the green awning)
Duchamp & Sons Pharmacy 1853-1881

Leeches used in medicine

I wish I had been able to see what my 3rd great grandfather's pharmacy was like.

The first picture is of the pharmacy building as it is today...it's the one with the green awning.






The other pictures are from the Pharmacy Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.

These photos give me an idea of what the inside of Grandpa's pharmacy might have looked like.
(used with permission of the photographer Theresa V.)

Funeral Card Friday: Flavie M. Landry aka Mrs. Laurent Theaux

This is the same Grand mother who wrote the letters  I am  transcribing. 

More Letter from Grandma Theaux

I have transcribed the second page of Grandma Theaux's letter.

I find it interesting how I can hear her voice coming through these letters even though I never met her. [the spelling is hers]

I hope you enjoy reading these letters.

Page 2.....

"really silly. I was so stubon [stubborn] about that, of course it made my Dady mad, I thought he was silly, but now I can see that now how a little give in was all that was needed. 

Now come the time I realy fell in love I was 17 I had a verry good girl friend she would visit our house with her brother I had a cousin staying at my house both her perent had died so my mother being her aunt took her to stay with us she was about one year older then me, she and my girl friends brother wer as she would say going out together but all that time the boy was trying his luck with me but love was not my line all I wanted was a good time untill one day she was teasing me, I was to young for her and her boyfriend I could not be with them, I told her if I would want she would lose him, so she told me I would have to shake my go-go, in my shirt tail so that was the end of it.

And that was the end of all my good time for after I realy got in love, that cut me off. because I did not enjoy life any more and my Dad did not want me to have a boy friend, and that...[to be continued]

Shopping Saturday: Memories/Nightmares of Shopping With My Mom

Some women have fond memories of shopping with their mothers and doing other "girlfriend" things. Not I. My mother was never my friend and shopping with her was anything but pleasurable. It was a NIGHTMARE. Pure and simple. It was something I avoided, as much as possible, from the time that I was a young women till her dying day.

I know that going shopping with me may have been something that she would have enjoyed after I was an adult but the few times that I tried it ...well let's just sum it up in one word...disaster.

Let me give you an example, come shopping with me and my mother...I warn you ...these are scary, scary stories...Horror stories if you will...but then it is almost Halloween....

Mother didn't drive so when she wanted to go shopping she had to find someone to take her. Often that meant we had to re-adjust our schedule to accommodate her "immediate need" to go shopping. In other words you couldn't tell my mother, "Sorry I'm booked on tomorrow, how about Friday." OH NO. If she wanted to go tomorrow...you changed your schedule. 

I remember once when we went to Macy's to get a wedding present. We browsed around the pretty things in fine china (dish freak...remember?) I was led into a false security that this time it would be okay. I was actually starting to enjoy myself. Then mother decided that she was not being waited on promptly enough. So she laid down on the floor.

I was horrified. I started telling her to get up and stop embarrassing me (This is the same women who used to tell me, when I was a little girl, not to show my ass in public.) Then, of course, a clerk runs over figuring my mother has had a heart attack or something...

My mother says with her most charming southern drawl..."oh, are you ready to help us now?"

Macy's was mother's favorite store. Mother wouldn't shop in K-mart or Target or any of the other "trashy" department stores. (Mother thought she was "above" all that.) She would once-in-a-while condescend to shop in Penny's or Weinstocks or maybe Liberty House. But Macy's was her favorite. 

I don't know why they didn't ban her from the store.

Once she felt she was not getting the attention she deserved. So she went into fine china and got a crystal ashtray then took it over to the furniture department. She sat down at a table and proceeded to light up her cigarette. Of course, she had a clerk (probably a manager and security as well) there to help her right away. I had made a hasty exit as soon as she lit up. I don't know why they didn't throw her out. 

Her favorite maneuver was the "Loud Voice" tactic. She would stand in the middle of the department and say in a very loud voice, "Well, I guess all the clerks have gone home for the day...or maybe it's self serve." 

To this day shopping is not my favorite thing to do...I have flash backs. Thank God for Amazon and E-Bay. 

Letter From Grandma Theaux

Last year when I visited my cousin Peggy she shared with me several letters that she and our grandmother had exchanged. Well, actually it is like one long letter that spanned several posts.

Peggy was estranged from her mother at the time (Cajun grudges can last a very long time) and was missing family so she started a correspondence with our grandmother, Flavie Marguerite (Landry) Theaux.

She asked Grandma "Mama" Theaux what life was like when she was young.

Now, Mama's first language was Cajun French and so the letters are a little hard to understand at times but...well, see for yourselves.

This is a transcription of those letters.

January 1976


To the young generation. You are not as bad as you are others think. I too have been young and thought it was the end of the world, everyone told me how bad I was, I got to where I did not care, I was told so often how bad I was but I alway did belive in God and prayed. My father was stick to me espesicaly when I got big and started having boy friend. [The spelling is hers] I see it all now, no one was good enoulf for his children, I went around with a good inersent [innocent?] good time any thing was fun, I did not see are [or] try to understand the bad, I did not have many friend because I was not smart enoulf for the gang they knew many thing. I could see, when I came around they would change the conversation. You too young one when you realy understand you will see that what ever your parent did was because they loved you and wanted you to be the best I can see all that so well now. I am sorry I had to see all this after my perent was dead and gone, I have there picture and I kiss then every morning becaus now I understand. We were to kiss our parence good night and good morning but to me that was......


That is the end of the first page....to be continued.