Bordelon History
A chance encounter started it all?
I am a descendant of GABRIEL LAURENT BORDELON, a French immigrant merchant seaman who came directly to New Orleans, and his wife, ANNE FRANCOISE ROLAND, who also came to New Orleans totally separately from Gabriel but also directly (against her will) to New Orleans from France. They ultimately met in the new settlement of New Orleans, married, and the whole Bordelon story started. She lived on Chartres Street, and Gabriel worked for the French Company of the Indies, whose building was also on Chartres Street, practically across the street from where Anne lived. The French Company of the Indies (Compagnie des Indes) played a foundational role in the early history and settlement of New Orleans during the 18th century. At the time, New Orleans was a very new, undeveloped colony where trees had to be cleared to make land and property livable for its inhabitants. It is hard to visualize this today given how much we know about modern New Orleans.
I walked down Chartres Street many times near St. Louis Cathedral and never knew this was where my lineage began. Did Ann and Gabriel see and meet each other for the first time on Chartres? Was Gabriel walking to work one day and noticed Anne there in the middle of the street as the picture above portrays? What if Gabriel's company office was two streets over; would they have ever met? All very interesting, but we will never know the exact circumstances of how they met. If you're a Bordelon, it's pretty safe to say that Chartres Street in New Orleans is where it all started for you! Anne had been married a couple of times already and had many kids before she ultimately met and married Gabriel.
If you are a Bordelon with roots in Louisiana, you came from these two pioneers, and we are all related and descendants of GABRIEL LAURENT BORDELON and ANNE FRANCOISE ROLAND.
Beyond New Orleans, I have strong roots in Point Coupee and Avoyelles Parish, where predominantly French Immigrants and their descendants settled. These settlements were built long before the Acadians came to Louisiana. The Avoyelles French settled first in Pt. Coupee and New Orleans then made their way to Avoyelles by 1781. Names such as Bordelon, DeCuir, Laborde, and Normand are unique to the Greater Avoyelles area. The first families were from France, either directly or through Quebec, except the DeCuir family from Macon, Hainaut, Belgium, and the Scallan family from Ireland. Only two early families who came to Avoyelles, Jeansonne and Moulard, have ties to Acadia, with Jeansonne being an Acadian version of Johnson, a Scottish name.
The Bordelon name is very common in Louisiana today, and Bordelons can be found all over the country. Everything from a U.S. Naval Ship (USS Bordelon) to a Medal of Honor recipient can be traced to the Bordelon name. The name Bordelon is, of course, a French name derived from Old French bordel ‘hut, smallholding, small farm ’, a derivative of Borde. Ironically, this surname is now very rare in France.
The history of the Bordelon family has been written in several books over the past several years, but like most amateur genealogists, I was explicitly interested in my branch of the huge Bordelon tree. I started this research many years ago in college but kept hitting brick walls. With the help of computer-generated census data, church and death records, and countless interviews, I have solved the mystery that has plagued me for years.
Interestingly, a few of my ancestors owned slaves; two were Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Patriots, and a few close cousins fought in the Civil war. Some were rich, some held government offices, but most were poor- especially starting in the late 1800s and well into the 1900s.
Most married more than once, but it all started with the story of my ancestral grandmother, ANNE FRANCOISE ROLAND, who was basically was kicked out of France and forced to move to New Orleans because of her " lawless and criminal behavior in France," which is most interesting! There was no evidence of any criminal behavior, but she was defiant to say the least. Be sure to read her story!
I was amazed at how much inaccurate information is out there. People make plenty of assumptions and then post them on the internet, which proves inaccurate. Also, the census data, which was very valuable in most cases, often contained incorrect birth dates. Ancestry.com has great information, but it does contain half-accurate information from anyone who wants to post. I posted my tree on Ancestry.com, but beware because there is a lot of inaccurate information about my family on other trees.
My facts are backed by proven documentation as much as possible, and little or no “assumptions" were made. I can now connect all the branches of my tree and trace my ancestry back to Le Havre, France (1600s).