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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Houma (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Houma. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Name Variations for Houma ...

When searching records, keep in mind that names and their spelling can change over time. Our sources include documents like maps, railroad schedules, Travel, Express and Shipping Guides. Many of these documents date from the 1800's and it's common to find spelling differences.

In past government published Postal Guides, Houma was referred to as Houma Courthouse.

If you have information about these names (such as the reason for the change, date of change, the origin of the name), please Contact Us.

For more information about how community names might have been affected by the Board of Geographic Names (BGN), see our page about Placename Rules.

Neighboring Parishes ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring parishes.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the northwest corner of their home parish. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next parish to the west. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the parish to the north.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring parishes instead of the parish in which they lived:  their home parish contained property and probate records; the parish to the west contained birth and death records; the parish to the north contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring parishes, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Houma is located in Terrebonne Parish and is the Parish Seat.

To see how the shape of Louisiana's parishes may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following parishes adjoin and form the boundaries of Terrebonne Parish: Assumption, Lafourche, Saint Martin & Saint Mary.

Below are the parishes that are near Houma. For each of these parishes, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Houma:

  • Terrebonne Parish     (The home parish of Houma)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Houma, with the one closest to Houma listed first.
    • Bayou Cane
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Bayou Cane is located in Terrebonne Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bayou Cane
    • Broadmoor
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Broadmoor is located in Terrebonne Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Broadmoor
    • Bourg
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
    • Ardoyne
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Gray
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
    • Theriot
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
      • Theriot is located in Terrebonne Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Theriot
    • Magnolia Plantation
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Magnolia Plantation is located in Terrebonne Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Magnolia Plantation
    • Minerva Plantation
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Minerva Plantation is located in Terrebonne Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Minerva Plantation
    • Schriever
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Chauvin
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Montegut
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Chacahoula
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Dulac
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
  • Assumption Parish
  • Lafourche Parish
  • Saint Charles Parish
    • The following are listed by their distance from Houma, with the one closest to Houma listed first.
    • Des Allemands
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Bayou Gauche
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Bayou Gauche is located in Saint Charles Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bayou Gauche
    • Camardelle
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
      • Camardelle is located in Saint Charles Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Camardelle
    • Chaudiere Casse
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Chaudiere Casse is located in Saint Charles Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Chaudiere Casse
    • Tabatiere Perdue
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Tabatiere Perdue is located in Saint Charles Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tabatiere Perdue
    • Paradis
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Vallier
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Boutte
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Mimosa Park
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Mimosa Park is located in Saint Charles Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mimosa Park
  • Saint James Parish
  • Saint Martin Parish
    • The following are listed by their distance from Houma, with the one closest to Houma listed first.
    • Bayou Geneve
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Bayou Geneve is located in Saint Martin Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bayou Geneve
    • Stephenville
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Stephenville is located in Saint Martin Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Stephenville
  • Saint Mary Parish

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Houma, see our Parish-by-Parish Page for Houma.

Cemeteries Near Houma ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Houma.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Houma - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Houma covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Houma, with the one closest to Houma listed first.

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<4>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Houma had a population of 1,280 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Houma had a population of 32,467 people.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Houma, with the one closest to Houma listed first.

  • Southdown
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
    • Southdown is located in Terrebonne Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Southdown
  • Crescent
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
    • Crescent is located in Terrebonne Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Crescent
  • Central
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Central is located in Terrebonne Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Central
  • Ellendale
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Ellendale is located in Terrebonne Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ellendale
  • Theriot
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Theriot is located in Terrebonne Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Theriot
  • Lockport
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
  • Raceland
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Ewing
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
    • Ewing is located in Lafourche Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ewing
  • Montegut
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Thibodaux Junction
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Thibodaux Junction is located in Lafourche Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Thibodaux Junction
  • Schriever
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Dulac
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Houma. See our List of 1890's Communities around Houma.

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Houma ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 49 newspapers that have been published in the area around Houma.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Houma. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Houma and those printed in the larger area surrounding Houma.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 15 miles [24.1 km]<3> of Houma.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These helpful websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Houma:

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>The Find-a-Grave website is an excellent research tool with information about a cemetery's location and interments. They also offer a forum for their members which can provide additional help. More information about Find-a-Grave can be found on their website: findagrave.com.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Houma) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<4>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Houma, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.