I found a book yesterday entitled "Abstracts of St. John the Baptist Parish Civil Records 1757-1798. Does the Conrad book run from 1757 through 1803? Is the Conrad book an English translation? The book I found was compiled and translated by Judy Riffel and published by the LeComite des Archives de la Louisiane. I began copying all references to degruy and found that I had about 38 pages before I had done 1/2 the copies. If you book has the same info, I will not continue to copy the rest of the entries. Probably 90% of the entries I found with the degruy name were where Verloin was a witness to a document or a surety at a probate or a liquidation of an estate. They were not the kind of info that would lead to further knowledge of the family. It would appear, from the number of times he served as a witness on legal documents, that he was a respected member of the community. A look at the index of the book I used shows why genie research is such a challenge. I was surprised at the spelling variations on the degruy name. Particularly since it was the same few people with spelling variations. Some of those variations are probably due to the translator's interpretation or the interpretation of the person who handwrote the original documents. I didn't realize the content of the entries until I got them home and began to read them. I was interested to see the same names over and over in the entries. Most of those surnames are still common here. Note the appearance of the name Andreas Draeger (now Tregre) in those extracts; he is the "father" of all the Tregres on the German Coast. I have the book "A Tregre Family Reunion". It begins with Andreas and runs through my husband's father's generation. If any of you come across a Tregre in relationship to your degruys, please post a message here and I will look up your Tregre and send you whatever info is in the book. Carolyn Tregre