Louisiana State Facts & Information

Louisiana, state in the southern United States, on the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River. The French were the original European colonizers of Louisiana, beginning in the early 18th century. After a period of Spanish control it reverted to France. During this colonial period other European and African cultures were introduced into the area. Most of Louisiana was bought by the United States in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase; the rest came as a result of the West Florida Rebellion of 1810. Louisiana entered the Union on April 30, 1812, as the 18th state. Louisiana (New France) was named after Louis XIV, one of France's greatest and most powerful kings. When René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed the territory drained by the Mississippi River for France, he named it La Louisiane, meaning "Land of Louis". Baton Rouge is the capital of Louisiana. The state’s three principal cities are New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport. The Official State website is at http://www.louisiana.gov/

Louisiana's government is like that of no other state in the United States of America.  Louisiana has "parishes" instead of "counties" and each of those parishes, for the most part, are governed by "police juries."  Police jurors are elected officials and function in the same way as county commissioners in other states' counties.

At one time, Louisiana had counties.  When the Louisiana Territory was purchased by the United States, twelve counties were established, but those large areas proved too hard to govern effectively.  In 1807 the state was divided into 19 parishes, and the parish became the local government district.

Each parish was governed by a 12-member jury serving with the parish judges and the justices of the peace.  Each jury was charged with the responsibility of "execution of whatever concerns the interior and local police and administration of the parish."  In 1811 an act made the members of these assemblies elective, and they were officially designated as the "police jury."

The colony of Louisiana was founded in 1699 by two brothers, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. Its boundaries stretched as far east as the Perdido River, about halfway between present-day Mobile, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida. It stretched westward to the Red and Calcasieu rivers, next door to Spanish territory, and it extended north all the way to Canada—which was a French possession. The vast boundaries of colonial Louisiana included part or all of at least ten states: Alabama (western part), Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana (eastern part), Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.

France reigned over the Louisiana colony from 1699 until she lost all her North America holdings in 1763, at the end of the Seven Years' War. Great Britain claimed all French territory east of the Mississippi River, and all French territory west of the Mississippi went to Spain.

There is one quirk in this division important to the genealogist: New Orleans, built on the east bank of the Mississippi River, should have gone to Great Britain but went to Spain instead. In 1763 the kings of France and Spain were cousins. They connived together to keep New Orleans out of the hands of Great Britain, their common enemy. They obtained their victory by convincing the British negotiators that New Orleans was actually on the west bank and not the east.

The Spanish ruled Louisiana from 1763 until they gave it back to France in 1800. It is important to note that although Louisiana was once again a French possession, there was no change of affairs. Spanish officials continued to govern the colony while Napoleon secretly negotiated with Thomas Jefferson to sell Louisiana to the United States. Therefore, if an ancestor lived in colonial Louisiana between 1800 and 1803 search for him or her in the Spanish records, not the French.

For nearly 300 years Louisiana was one of the areas in the world most sought after by the three major powers of Europe: Spain, France, and Great Britain. Spain explored it first but withdrew in favor of richer lands farther south. Then France settled the land, but its decaying monarchy had little regard for the colony, while it was obvious that the French statesmen who were interested had never dealt with the vast fields upon which their policies were to operate. They did not comprehend the great extent of the country, and were entirely ignorant of the means necessary for the successful cultivation of their lower Mississippi colony. Once the Spanish secured the colony they were doing a magnificent job of building it when they were forced by Napoleon to relinquish control.

The struggle for Louisiana was finally won, not by one of the European nations which had plotted and fought for its permanent control for so long, but by the infant nation which had arisen on the eastern shores of North America. The United States took possession of Louisiana in December 1803 and began preparing the colony, which had never known a working democracy, for statehood. War broke out between England and the United States in 1812, and Great Britain began to plan the conquest of Louisiana, which failed when the Battle of New Orleans was lost. Less than four months later Louisiana celebrated its third anniversary as an American state

Louisiana Parish Listings -Parishes, not counties, are the political jurisdictions for recording land (conveyances), probate (successions), marriage, and court records in Louisiana. Parish clerks hold the majority of these records, while some cities have these functions divided among register of conveyances and district court clerks. The Louisiana Section of the State Library of Louisiana provided some of the information on parish formation. Choose from the parishes below to view the county information.

Louisiana Discontinued Counties

 

This section provides an list of Louisiana counties that no longer exist. They were established by the state, provincial, or territorial government. Most of these counties were created and disbanded in the 19th century; county boundaries have changed little since 1900 in the vast majority of states.

• Baton Rouge Parish: Created in 1792 in the West Floridas area. The land was divided into East & West Baton Rouge Parishes in 1810.
• Carroll Parish: Formed from in Ouachita and Concordia Parishes 1832, it was split into East Carroll and West Carroll Parishes in 1877
• Feliciana Parish: Formed in 1810 from Spanish West Florida, it was split into East Feliciana and West Feliciana in 1824

Louisiana Burned Courthouses

 

The destruction of courthouses greatly affects genealogists in every way. No only are these historic structures torn from our lives, so are the records they housed: marriage, wills, probate, land records, and others. Once destroyed they are lost forever. Even if they have been placed on mircofilm, computers and film burn too. The most heartbreaking side of this is the fact that many of our courthouses are destroyed at the hands of arsonist. However, not all records were lost.

  Below is a list of Louisiana Parishes and the years the Courthouses were subjected to a disaster. This does NOT mean that ALL RECORDS were lost. Often, folks took their documents again in for recording after a disaster and later deeds will contain long chains of title, etc.

• Avoyelles Parish - There was records destruction in 1856? from Unkown causes.
• Bossier Parish - In 1888, the courthouse at Bellevue was partly burned.
• Calcasieu Parish - Courthouse was destroyed by a disastrous fire on April 23, 1910, as well as most of downtown Lake Charles, and many of the records of the parish were burned or damaged.
• Catahoula Parish - There was a total records destrustion in the early 1900's due to unkown causes
• Claiborne Parish - The courthouse at Old Athens along with all parish records were destroyed by fire on November 6, 1849
• Concordia Parish - A tornado destroyed the courthouse around 1843 (most records were destroyed) and it was destroyed by flood in 1927.
• Grant Parish - The Courthouse had an unkown records loss in the 1880's.
• Jackson Parish - A courthouse fire in Vernon, before the parish seat was moved to Jonesboro, destroyed most of the records prior to then. The first courthouse, built in Jonesboro in 1912, was almost completely destroyed by an explosion. Fortunately few, if any, of our records were destroyed.
• Livingston Parish - On October 15, 1875, the parish courthouse at Port Vincent burned, apparently destroying the official records which were maintained there.
• Madison Parish -
• Morehouse Parish - Had a Record Loss in 1870 due to unknown reasons.
• Ouachita Parish - In April of 1864, Yankee gunboats partially destroyed the second courthouse. In 1882 the third courthouse was destroyed by fire. 
• Plaquemines Parish - Courthouse destroyed by a fire in 2001.
• Rapides Parish - 1864?
• Vermillion Parish - The Courthouse suffered a total records Loss in around 1885.
• Washington Parish - The courthouse burned twice, first in 1854, then again in 1897. The fires resulted in a loss of nearly 68 years worth of records.  Records from the 1820-1830 decade were kept on file in the state land office and escaped the fire.  Some of the records from the second fire were salvaged and others were brought in to be re-recorded.  So, only the records from the 1840-1860 period are completely lost.
• West Feliciana Parish -
• Winn Parish - 1886?