Arbour Genealogy
20 December 2008 - 4:21:28pm

I first became interested in genealogy in the late 1960's when my family obtained a copy of Gayle Kinsmen, published in 1968 by John N. Averitt. Until that time, I knew little of my ancestry beyond my grandparents.

By chance I met and briefly chatted with Joseph Henry Arbour Jr. in the mid-1970s. Joe told me that there were some Arbour women who were researching the family's ancestry and that they had discovered the Arbour ancestor who first came to Louisiana. Many years would pass before I would learn who these ladies were.

For many years family reunions were held at my parent's home which were gatherings of my father's brothers, sisters, cousins, and their children. At one of these in the early 1990s I first saw the huge volume of research that had been compiled on the Arbour family. It was the work of the two women who I'd heard about almost two decades earlier.

I learned that the two women were Tallulah Mary Arbour and Vera Elizabeth Arbour. Most of what you see relating to the Arbour surname on this website is based in the work of Tula and Vera. All of us Arbours owe a debt of gratitude to them for their many years of effort to preserve our family's history.

I met Tula when she was in her nineties. Her mind was bright and clear, and she loved to talk about the Arbours who had come before us. She allowed me to make a photocopy of her "book" and shared many old newspaper articles and clippings with me. My goal is to make these things available on this website.

Sadly, I never met Vera, who was my father's first cousin. Thankfully, much of her work has also found its way to me by way of other family members with whom she had shared her compiled research.

What is truly impressive is the amount of information that Tula and Vera collected -- and then maintained -- before the age of computers and instant communication.

Other noteworthy contributors to this effort include Elizabeth Hathaway Gibbens and George Peter Gagnet Jr. Hathaway composed a series of articles that she called Kissin' Kin and Loose Connections. Her article on the Arbour family will be included on this website. I saw much correspondence between Tula and George.

To all of these, I say "thank you." The goal of this website is to continue what they started, and to keep the Arbour story alive -- for us and for future generations.

David Rowland Arbour Jr. -- January 28, 2005

Pourciau Genealogy
20 December 2008 - 4:13:43pm

I'd like to acknowledge the research done by Carroll Wendell Lanier on the Pourciau family, which gave me a tremendous kick-start in my own research on my maternal grandmother's family.

David

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20 December 2008 - 2:25:20pm

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