Mississippi Valley

Many of our ancestors have strong ties to the Mississippi Valley, having travelled there as voyageurs or moving there from the Detroit River Region.

Article:

Gabriel Richard in the Illinois Country 1792 – 1798, by Gail Moreau-DesHarnais. Prior to arriving in Michigan, Father Gabriel Richard served the parishes of Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, and Cahokia from 1792 – 1798. Gail Moreau-DesHarnais has translated the key parts of the parish registers that Father Richard signed during this period. The resulting article 1. names the infant or person baptized, his or her godparents; 2. the names of the parties who married, their parents, and the names of the witnesses to the marriage; and 3. The name of the individual buried. Finally, for each act, Gail corrects prior erroneous readings of the entry and provides the image number where researchers can access the original records.

Marriages at Old Biloxi and New Orleans - the Baleine brides and some more who were not on “the list” from 4 February 1721 to 21 August 1722 by Gail Moreau-DesHarnais. The ship La Baleine transporting marriageable women from France anchored off the Gulf Coast near Mobile Bay on 8 January 1721. Gail's article lists the passengers, documents their marriages and then heavily annotates their history in the Mississippi Valley.

Parish Records:

Dioceses of Belleville, Illinois - Digitized Parish Records: https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1388122

Archdiocese of New Orleans - Digitized Sacaramental Records: http://archives.arch-no.org/sacramental_records

Resources:

Short Bibliography for the Mississippi Valley, compiled by Diane Wolford Sheppard

Links organized by State

Plaque Honoring Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, S.J., in Chicago - Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Marquette-jolliet-chicago-bridge.jpg

Holy Family Church - Cahokia, Illinois - Loraine

Loraine DiCerbo's Photo of Holy Family Church in Cahokia, Illinois - The parish is the oldest continuously operated parish in the United States

Loraine DiCerbo's Photo of the interior of the reconstructed Fort de Chartres (located four miles west of Prairie de Rocher, Illinois)

Beauvais - Amoureux House - Colonial Ste Genevieve - Loraine

Loraine DiCerbo's photo of the Beauvais Amoureux House in Colonial Ste. Genevieve, Missouri