My Dad did a lot of genealogy research. Genealogy research is important for history because actual people make history, not fiction or romantic stories about something that never really happened. See:
De Ville, Winston, “‘Cajuns’ and Neo-ethnicity: Concerns of an Acadian-American Genealogist,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly, 89 (March 2001)
http://www.provincialpress.us/
My family breakdown is as follows:
512 ancestors/relatives:
358 - French
43 - German
37 - Spanish
32 - Acadian
11 - Irish
25 - English
4 - Italian
2 - Native American
That's a lot of French. It's also a sample breakdown of the Evangeline Parish area. Of course, my family is not like everyones but the French/Non-Acadian people were the majority in the area. How much of the actual culture in Evangeline is of Acadian origins?
Maw Maw et Paw Paw? Mere Mere et Pere Pere
Madam Grand "Dwa" (Spelling) ?? (Mrs. Santa Claus visting after Christmas)
Bouree?
Boudin?
Mardi Gras?
Gumbo style that is cooked and was passed down from generation to generation?
Couche Couche that Mere Mere would cook for Dad in L'Anse Grise, Jeansonne Cove, et Ville Platte?
I could go on and on.
Were these customs brought by the Acadians or were they customs learned from France and brought over by both groups, who were of course, both French.
If it can be proven that these were distinctive Acadian customs then I can see a lot of Acadien in my family, even if our ancestry and geographic area had few actual Acadians.
But then, if they were customs learned from the Acadians, how and when were they learned?
1700s?
1800s?
1900s?
Again, Evangeline Parish was named after a fictional Acadian character in the early 1900s. Why? It wasn't just in the 1960s that the area of Evangeline was defined as Cajun/Cajan and "land of the Arcadians." (spelling seen in old newspapers)
The association with the labels Cajun/Cadien with Acadie is old. The articles that I read and will talk about say more. But I still wanna know what debates, if any, were for the naming of the new parish. Because the northern part of the Parish is very Anglo and I can't see them wanting a name that wouldn't include them.