St. Martinville cemetery looking for family links BY HOLLY LELEUX-THUBRON THE DAILY IBERIAN St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church in St. Martinville is in search of descendants of some of its cemetery’s oldest residents. Debbie Hebert, bookkeeper and cemetery administrator for the church, said several plots in the church’s cemetery are either abandoned, in disrepair or have never been issued a title and the church is following the proper procedures to notify family members before other action is taken. The Louisiana Cemetery Board governs the operations of cemeteries in the state and requires that for a period of 25 years, a list of these funeral plots must be published in a local newspaper in an effort to notify family members of their maintenance needs and current states. The church also is required to send a registered letter to the last known family contact. After the required attempts to contact decedents have been met, the cemetery authority is allowed to transfer ownership of the gravesites. Stanley LeBlanc, born in New Iberia and currently living in Dallas, is concerned about disturbing these historic final resting places. Heavily involved with a similar issue at St. Nicholas Cemetery in Patoutville, LeBlanc, who is an authority on the Teche Area’s genealogy, said it is a gray area and the church should proceed with a great deal of care and caution. One of LeBlanc’s main concerns is the difficulty in finding descendants two or three generations down a family line who may be unaware of ancestor names or where the final resting place of their ancestors might be. Leblanc said many of the surnames printed on the St. Michael’s Cemetery list are of those families that were original settlers in the area and their burial sites represent a great deal of rich history. Teche Area residents can view the list of the gravesites in question on The Daily Iberian’s Web site www.iberianet.com.