Hi there!

My name is Lori Lyons and I am a genealogy addict.

The first step is to admit it, right? I am one of those people who stays up to the wee hours of the morning, trying to find the missing pieces of my family puzzle. I'm also not too shy to ask "who were your people?" to see if we may have a family connection.

I am the daughter of an English-Cajun man and an Irish-German woman. Their parents -- all born in Louisiana -- were a mixture of Cajun, English, French, Irish and German. Half of them were born in the big city of New Orleans, the other half down the bayou in Houma.

Here in Louisiana, we call people like me a Heinz 57.



For 57 varieties. Or a gumbo... maybe a spicy jambalaya.

I also am a Mayflower descendant and can claim a very thin link to the Royal Family of England (Queen Liz and I are 20th cousins once removed.). Some trees have me as the 15th great-granddaughter of King Ferdinand I and Queen Isabella II of Spain (but probably not).

I belong to the 31st generation of Lyons descended from Roger de Leonne, the first known of our esteemed line. I am the 12th generation of Lyon/Lyons in America, descendent from William Lyon, "The Immigrant," who came to Massachusetts from Harrow, England in 1635.

I belong to the 5th generation of Lyons in Louisiana, descended from Joseph Lucius Cincinatus Pitt Lyon, who came south from Illinois in 1849.

I have been putting together my family tree since the early 1990s. It was my grandmother who did all the work. The granddaughter of three different Louisiana plantation owners, she spent much of her free time chasing down relatives.

I would walk into her house and find her slumped over her dining room table, surrounded by books and scraps of paper. Sometimes she was asleep. I found quite a few papers with her pen mark scribbling off the page as she dozed off. I can only imagine what she might have accomplished if she had the Internet.

When she died in 1988, my mother asked me to go through Grannie's papers to see what was there. I spent a weekend hunched over my own dining room table -- and dozed off a few times myself. And I was hooked.

I think we have a fascinating story -- Knights, queens, kings, orphaned children placed on ships to the new world, entire families wiped out in a single shipwreck, soldiers, Patriots, plantations, Cajuns expelled from their homes, Civil War rebels.

And yes, slave-owners.

I spent my life as a journalist -- a storyteller. It's up to me to tell this one.

Like all good recipes, this will be a work in progress. Feel free to add your own ingredients -- give a little, take a little. And don't be afraid to let me know if you find a mistake. Genealogy is not an exact science.

So come on in. Sit a spell and take a look around. You might be related -- an ingredient in our family gumbo.

If so, welcome to the family!


Lori Lyons
Louisiana
email: thelyonsdin@gmail.com

Dupre




It is often said that it's pretty easy to trace Cajun/Louisiana genealogy -- because everyone is related. Never was this more true than in my Dupre line. Whether they knew it or not, my paternal grandparents were cousins, both great-grandchildren of one Jean Mathurin Fortunat Dupre.  

My Dupre line -- and most everyone else's in Louisiana -- traces back to Jean Dupre, who was born after 1700 in France. Now, believe me when I tell you there were many, many Jean Dupres in the world in the 1700s. Some were in France, some were in Canada, some were in Canada after leaving France. The hard part is finding which one you go back to. Things are made even trickier when it was a common practice to name later children for one who had previously died. That happened quite a bit in Cajun and other cultures. Add in poor record keeping, hurricanes, church fires and floods, and it's all just a big gambit.

My research seems to show that our Jean Dupre was the one who was married to Anne Batardiere (or Barradiere), also of France. 

Jean and Anne eventually sailed to Louisiana. They had at least one son (likely more than one) named Jean Dupre, who was born in 1764 in France, and died sometime in the mid-1800s in Louisiana. His wife was Eve Olive Naquin, born Sept. 15, 1769 in St. Suliac, Ille et Vilaine, France. (Her line traces farther back and will be explored on a separate page for the Naquins.)

Jean and Eve had at least nine children (and they at least got a little more creative with the names):

Jean Mathurin Dupre, b. Jan. 8, 1791 in Donaldsonville, Louisiana
Jean Charles Dupre, b. Jan. 20, 1793 in Plattenville, Louisiana
Louise Euphamie Dupre, b. 1796 in Houma, Louisiana
Melanie Fortunee Dupre, b. 1802, somewhere in south Louisiana 
Joseph Bazile Dupre, b. 1805 in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana 
Jean Mathurin Fortunat Dupre, b. June 30, 1806 in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana
Jerome Roch (or Roche) Dupre, b. Unknown, in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana (some say New Orleans)
Revette Dupre
Marie Celeste Dupre

Here's where things get interesting!

Jean Mathurin Fortunat Dupre was my great-great-great-great grandfather --- TWICE.

Jean married Azelie Edmire Pitre (whose line will be traced on a Pitre page), born about 1810 in Terrebonne Parish. Together, they had 14 children between 1839 and 1853. 

Marie Rosalie Dupre
Mathurin Augustin Dupre
Jean Peregrin Dupre
Joseph Dupre
Pauline Carmelite Dupre -------> My great-great-great-grandmother AND my great-great-great Aunt!
Jean Baptiste Lucien Dupre
Simeon Theodule Dupre -------> My great-great-great-grandfather AND my great-great-great Uncle!
Michel Luzile Onezime Dupre
Eugene Aurelien Dupre
Marie Josephine Dupre
Jean Honore Dupre
Joseph Treville Dupre
Ulysse Florestile Dupre
Jean Amedee Dupre

Pauline Carmelite Dupre, born Nov. 23, 1824 in Terrebonne Parish (likely Montegut) married Joseph Paul LaBruyere (who was from France) in 1858. Together, they had eight children: 
Francois Paulin LaBruyere
Clothilde Camila LaBruyere
Dominique Paulin LaBruyere
Marie Elvire LaBruyere
Julien LaBruyere
Lucie Marie LaBruyere              (twins)
Lucien Alexandre LaBruyere      (twins)
Emilie Octavie LaBruyere

Simeon Theodule Dupre, born Sept. 23, 1839 in Terrebonne Parish (likely Montegut), married Melina Bourg. Together they had five children:
Emela Angelina Dupre
Marie Eve Dupre
Marcellin Joseph Dupre
Germain Dupre
Artelion Dupre

Emelie Octavie LaBruyere married John Futch Lyon -----> had Druis Narcisse Lyon
Germain Dupre married Marie Louis Thibodeaux ---------> had Pauline Dupre

Druis Lyon and Pauline Dupre married  ----------------------> had Lionel Paul Lyons (Dad)


    I have no idea if Pauline and Druis knew they were "kissing cousins." Perhaps they did. Perhaps they figured they were related somehow or another. It's really not all that unusual in Cajun genealogy -- although, it only happened once in my own line. It certainly made for some confused head-scratching when I first started out putting my tree together. It definitely got confusing for a while.
Simeon Theodule Dupre, fought for the Confederacy

Pauline Carmelite Dupre
Pauline Dupre Lyons
Druis Narcisse Lyons

















2 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 20, 2023 at 10:01 PM

    Hi Lori! I was wondering something. I'm reading a book on Isle Brevelle (which is fantastic--Isle of Canes by Elizabeth Shown Mills) and also recently helped someone with a lot of mixed race Dupres (and Duprees) in her line. Do you know if your Dupres were related to any of the Dupres livng in Natchitoches in the 17/1800s? I don't know if all of the Louisiana Dupres are connected, or not. --Cathy Reese, catpainting136@gmail.com

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  2. AnonymousJanuary 20, 2024 at 8:16 PM

    Hi! I enjoyed finding your website. I am a Dupre descendant of Jean-Jacques Dupre D'Arbonne (Dupre) and Anne-Marie Marie Langevain. Jean-Jacques was born in Montreal in 1696 and he settled in Louisiana with his family. I am a direct descendant of his son Laurent De Terrebonne Dupre who ended up settling in Opelousas, Louisiana (Plaisance). Laurent was also the father of Jacques Dupre (Louisiana 5th Governor). It seems that I have a different Dupre tree branch in Louisiana?

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