Thank you, Cate. I have a lot of notes on this stuff but it is long and complicated so I ALWAYS have to go back to them and search it out. And these affinities were measured in degrees? Am I correct? I remember when I was young that my Aunt was marrying for the second time. She was widowed at a young age. But, she was not allowed to marry in the Catholic Church because the man she was marrying had been divorced from his first wife. I always thought that was so odd! But, after starting my genealogy and doing all the research on Catholic marriages, I see a lot of these are still in affect even in the 1970's. Not sure about now. In a conversation I had about this I was told that granting dispensations also involved money donations to the church? Not sure how true this is but I would like to know what others might know about this subject. My notes just have this as a possibility because someone once told me that. I found no references for it. I appreciate the information everyone is providing me. Thank you so much! Can you believe I hated history when I was in school but now I love it!!!! Of course that was many many many moons ago! Shelia KRAEMER SALOMONE -----Original Message----- From: laorlean-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:laorlean-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Cate Schweitzer-Toepfer Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 7:52 PM To: laorlean@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [LAORLEAN] interracial relationships - and more into modern times The Catholic church dispensation list for marriage is long, long and can be very complicated or very simple. The granting of dispensations on the other hand was often quite freely given and the petitions as simple as to keep property in a family. Affinity, which is the in-law relations, that I referred to was often connected to property ... thus my example chosen (Henry VIII was dispensed by the Pope to be forced to marry his sister-in-law Catherine --- and he didn't like her because she was older and spoke Spanish --- when he took over the Church of England and was king, he made affinity-marriages illegal). My great-grand parents who were married at St. Joseph's church in Thibodaux in 1864 had a dispensation to marry because he was not Catholic and maybe because she was getting along in years (age 27 - a virtual spinster)... another dispensation petition. However, their eldest daughter married her mother's first cousin, and no dispensation is shown on their record. Maybe they just didn't mention their consanguinity ... though both Melissa's mother and Arthur's mother (sister of Melissa's grandfather) were both surnamed DUGAS and you'd think the priest might have asked if they were related. As far as I know, race or inter-racial unions per se was not a reason to have to request dispensation by the Catholic church. Marriage as a contract is a civil matter... and even sacramental marriages (Catholic church) require a civil license to be legal. And yet another reason to request dispensation is to prevent a civil union ... chasing tails again. Whew!!! Just chatting away ... love when newbies join us and infuse new or allow us to recycle topics. Cate ;-} -----Original Message----- From: Shelia Salomone Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:45 PM To: laorlean@rootsweb.com ; 'Carolyn Long' Subject: Re: [LAORLEAN] interracial relationships - and moreinto modern times And I forgot to ask if the Catholic Church viewed inter-racial unions as forbidden. I thought that was a State law? Really curious? This group sure does send out some very interesting conversations. I belong to many Roots-L lists and NONE of them come close to this one. Good members! I am glad I found this group! Thank you, Shelia KRAEMER SALOMONE -----Original Message----- From: laorlean-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:laorlean-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Shelia Salomone Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 5:07 PM To: laorlean@rootsweb.com; 'Carolyn Long' Subject: Re: [LAORLEAN] interracial relationships - and more into modern times I thought this was a Catholic rule for years and years? Like this I have in my notes: Dispensations were not limited to blood relationships. There were also spiritual relationships. When a person married, that person became a spiritual member of the new spouse's family. A sister-in-law was, in a spiritual sense, a sister. This applied to brothers, cousins, etc. If a man wished to marry his late wife's first cousin, spiritually he would be marrying his own first cousin. This would require a dispensation for a second degree of affinity. Dispensations for affinity relationships were governed by the same guidelines as blood relationships of consanguinity. So, maybe this belief was not originate from the Catholic religion? I am not Catholic but so much of my family were, so I have done some research. And I want to learn as much as I can so this article is interesting to me, Cate! Shelia KRAEMER SALOMONE -----Original Message----- From: laorlean-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:laorlean-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Cate Schweitzer-Toepfer Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 4:23 PM To: Carolyn Long; laorlean@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [LAORLEAN] interracial relationships - and more into modern times Happened to see a British mini series from 1997 called The Wingless Bird by Catherine Cookson. Begins shortly before WWI and ending in 1949, the story deals with classism, chauvinism, and many other "isms" of that time period with a strong female lead character. Well, since Cookson is an historical romance novelist many of the themes we assign to miscegenation and similar customs and laws applied here but with a twist. The one I found most interesting is that the heroine was unable to marry her brother-in-law after the death of her husband who died shortly after WWI ended. The reason being it was illegal in England at the time as the brother in law told her after she had fallen in love with him. I suspect, though Carolyn don't shame me for publishing this without my sources in place) that this law was the result of Henry VIII's trying to get an annulment from Catherine (his brother's widow) and the Pope refusing. So when the Church of England was politicized, marrying your brother or sister in law was prohibited under the law as incest (so Henry could marry someone else and assure his heirs would ascend the throne). The couple in the book/movie lived as husband and wife on property inherited by her from her first husband, raised their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren on the estate until they could legally marry in 1949 when the law was finally changed. I think that impediments to legal marriage have never prevented work arounds driven by love regardless of race, creed, color, national origin, or sexual orientation. Just depended on how much risk the participants chose to take. Cate ;-} -----Original Message----- From: Carolyn Long Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 6:25 AM To: laorlean@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [LAORLEAN] interracial relationships Friends, bear with me and forgive this lengthy post. This is a subject in which I'm intensely interested. Carolyn The idea of "plaçage" is certainly the prevailing myth about interracial couples. There is indeed evidence that this happened, and that some of these arrangements took place at the "quadroon balls," but this isn't the only way in which white men and free women of color formed relationships. My thinking on this has evolved over the years, in part because of my association with scholars like Greg Osborn and Barbara Trevigne, both Creoles of Color who are descended from interracial families. I wrote in my biography of Marie Laveau (published in 2006): "In contrast to the exploitative sexual relationships between masters and slave women, white men and free women of color formed liaisons that, although unlawful, often resembled true marriages. Legally, this was termed concubinage (which refers to any domestic partnership outside of marriage regardless of the race of the parties), but in common parlance the practice was known as plaçage, from the French verb placer--to place (under a man's protection). The woman was called a plaçée. In contravention of laws forbidding whites to make donations to persons of color, the man would provide a small cottage and support his plaçée and their children for life, even if he also established a white family. The house became the property of the woman and could be passed on to her heirs." But even then I found that Marie had first been legally married to a free man of color, and it was only after she was widowed that she formed a partnership with an unmarried white man, Christophe Glapion, that lasted for the rest of his life. Of her two daughters, Heloise had children with Pierre Crocker, a free man of color who was already married; Philomene became the partner of Alexandre Legendre, a white man, only after his wife had left him and took their children to New York--this relationship lasted until he died. So none of these were cases of "plaçage." By the time I was writing my new biography of Delphine Macarty Lalaurie (published in 2012) I was finding that none of the interracial Macarty families got together through the system of plaçage, and that the women acquired their property on their own, not from their white partners, For example: Delphine's father, Louis Barthelemy Macarty, and uncle, Jean Baptiste Macarty, had relationships with free women of color after their wives died. Other Macarty men (Jean Baptiste Barthelemy, Eugene, and Augustin) were never married but had relationships with free women of color. The most interesting of these is Eulalie Mandeville de Marigny (biracial half-sister of Bernard de Marigny), who met her white partner Eugene Macarty because she allowed him to cut timber on land that she owned in St.Bernard Parish. She became a very successful business woman--see the entry on her in KnowLa, the online Louisiana Encyclopedia. Last month I gave a talk at the Worcester Art Museum in conjunction with the exhibition Julien Hudson, Free Artist of Color, which originated at the Historic New Orleans Collection. There I said that "The stereotypical narrative of the slave-holding South assumes that any mulatto child was the result of rape or coercion of the enslaved mother by a brutal white master or overseer. In New Orleans, on the other hand, a different myth prevails, of a wealthy white planter who selects a beautiful young woman of color at a so-called quadroon ball, makes an arrangement with her female relatives, establishes her in a nice cottage in the city, and visits his concubine and their children on the sly while his wife remains isolated on their rural plantation. Some interracial couples probably did meet at these elegant dances that were held for the purpose of matchmaking. But, like white couples, they also met under a variety of other circumstances." Also see this link to a lecture given at Le Musee de FPC by the Tulane University historian Emily Clark: http://www.tribunetalk.com/?features=le-musee-de-f-p-c-presents-dr-emily-cla rk ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LAORLEAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LAORLEAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LAORLEAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LAORLEAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LAORLEAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

I have learned more about history since I started my genealogy research than I ever did in school.  I think it is because I don't have to remember stuff, dates, etc.  I enjoy it because I can see the history of my ancestors as they were seeing it. Helen

AMEN to THAT! I hated history in high school because I had such a boring teacher for English and History, 2 periods a day for 2 years! (We all called him "hose nose", and he talked in a monotone!) But now that I am tracing my ancestors back into Germany into the 1600s from New Orleans, most of them (so far, at least 4 lines of them..................) it suddenly becomes so meaningful, doesn't it? And now, when I remember that I was in Munich in 1973 drinking beer with my cousin who was with the US State Department at the time, I wish I had known WHERE I really was......................Oh well, what is it they say, "Too soon old, too late smart..............?????" Touché! Kathy VP, Calaveras Genealogical Society San Andreas, Calaveras County, California -----Original Message----- From: laorlean-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:laorlean-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of rohling1@comcast.net Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 9:21 PM To: laorlean@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [LAORLEAN] interracial relationships - and more into modern times I have learned more about history since I started my genealogy research than I ever did in school. I think it is because I don't have to remember stuff, dates, etc. I enjoy it because I can see the history of my ancestors as they were seeing it. Helen -------------------------------To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LAORLEAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.2180 / Virus Database: 2437/5093 - Release Date: 06/25/12

Shelia, I can speak to the "donations to the church" part. Back in the late 1970's when I decided to become a Catholic, being divorced from my first husband became a problem and I had to get a dispensation, since I had remarried. I was told that the church required a sum of $ to take care of the paperwork, but that if I could not pay, I could still get the dispensation, it just might take longer Always thought that was odd, since most of the work was done by the church, but I did pay the amount. Not sure about any cost now. Jan S - Orlando, FL -------Original Message------- From: Shelia Salomone Date: 06/26/12 00:13:03 To: laorlean@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [LAORLEAN] interracial relationships - and more intomoderntimes Thank you, Cate. I have a lot of notes on this stuff but it is long and complicated so I ALWAYS have to go back to them and search it out. And these affinities were measured in degrees? Am I correct? I remember when I was young that my Aunt was marrying for the second time. She was widowed at a young age. But, she was not allowed to marry in the Catholic Church because the man she was marrying had been divorced from his first wife. I always thought that was so odd! But, after starting my genealogy and doing all the research on Catholic marriages, I see a lot of these are still in affect even in the 1970's. Not sure about now. In a conversation I had about this I was told that granting dispensations also involved money donations to the church? Not sure how true this is but I would like to know what others might know about this subject. My notes just have this as a possibility because someone once told me that. I found no references for it. I appreciate the information everyone is providing me. Thank you so much! Can you believe I hated history when I was in school but now I love it!!!! Of course that was many many many moons ago! Shelia KRAEMER SALOMONE