Marriage registers in the civil parish (county) of Natchitoches do not begin until 1855. Civil marriages did occur before then, but registrations (when made) were entered randomly amid deeds and notarial acts. Licenses and bonds were required, but few have survived. Protestant church records are equally rare. By far the largest body of surviving marriage records for the civil parish of Natchitoches are the registers of St. François Catholic Church (present Immaculate Conception) in the town of Natchitoches, a collection that includes a number of Protestants and migrants from elsewhere in the U.S. Church marriage acts prior to 1818 have been published in earlier volumes of the Cane River Creole series. The present volume completes the publication of those marriages through 1850.
Natchitoches Church Marriages, 1818-1850
Elizabeth Shown Mills is an internationally acclaimed historical researcher and writer who has spent her life studying American culture and the relationships between people--emotional as well as genetic. Featured on BBC, CNN, PBS, and other networks in the U.S., U.K., and Australia, she has guest-blogged for the NEW YORK TIMES and has been widely cited as "the genealogist who has had the most influence in the post-Roots era."
Her 13 prize-winning books range from reference works such as "Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace" (Library Journal 2007 Best Reference) to the historical novel, "Isle of Canes," which chronicles a family of freed slaves across four generations, and is drawn from Mills's own research in the archives of six nations.
Her latest work is the greatly enlarged, revised edition of the Louisiana State University Press classic, THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE: CANE RIVER'S CREOLES OF COLOR.ISBN: 1585499242
6 x 9 Paperback
234 Pages
Published: May 01, 2009
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