Marguerite Trahan, known to the Jacquet family simply as Margaret and also as
"Maggie", was the third or fourth child of six born to Pierre Trahan and Marie John.
Since we do not know with absolute certainty that Margaret and her brother John were
truly a set of twins born on 2 Nov 1884 as baptismal records show, it will remain
undetermined who was the older sibling.  Even if they were in fact twins, there still
remains the unanswered question, who was born first?..
...Margaret Trahan's parents were Pierre Trahan and Marie John.  Pierre and Marie
were married in Abbeville Louisiana on 27 Oct 1879, at St. Mary Magdalen church in
Abbeville, according to the Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, by the Reverend
Alexandre Méhault...

...Pierre Trahan was born around the year 1854.  Records of his birth and family has
been hard to locate probably due to the fact that most of the records were in the
Abbeville courthouse when it burned down in the great fire of 1885.  Pierre Trahan was
married in Abbeville and most of his children were baptized there, however, New Iberia
may be the location of Pierre's roots.  The marriage document of 1879, at the Abbeville
church in Vermilion parish says that Pierre "was from New Iberia parish" and on the
1870 census, just eight months after the marriage, Pierre is living with his newlywed
wife Marie John in New Iberia parish...

...Although there is evidence pointing to the identification of the names of Pierre's
parents, there still remains some uncertainty.  The marriage certificate of 1879,
indicates that Pierre Trahan was the son of Emerenthe.  Emerenthe or Emerante is a
female's name.  The name is commonly given to Acadian or French females.  The
name of Pierre's father is not given on the marriage certificate.  The first document
giving us a clue thus far about the name of Pierre's father is his death certificate which
contains badly written handwriting but the name Varrice Trahan is given.  The first and
the sixth letters of the name were very difficult to decipher.  Pierre's mother's name on
the death certificate is given as Moriah Schexyndia.  This name has been seen before
on another census document as Mary Schexnayder.  Schexnayder has many various
spellings but the name is of German origin.  German emigrants settled along the banks
of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge in the 18th century
and this became known as the "German Coast".  The confusing fact with the search for
Pierre's mother is that we also see the name "Emerenthe" on some documents as well!
Is it possible that Pierre had a stepmother?  On the June 1880 census taken in Iberia
Parish, we see the newlywed couple Pierre and Mary living with a Mary Schexnyder,
Mulatto at age 60 and listed as "mother" of Pierre along with Pauline Labbé, a mulatto
female of age 7 listed as "niece" of Pierre.  Pierre's occupation is listed as farmer and
Mary's as housekeeper.  Neither of them can read or write and their birthplaces are
given as Louisiana.   This is consistant with their marriage certificate at the St. Mary
Magdalen church in Abbeville a year earlier which indicated that Pierre and Mary "both
signed their names with an X".  Ten years earlier, we saw the 1870 census which had
Pierre Trahan living with Trahans and Moutons.  Family history stories have been
passed down that have said Pierre was related to both the Labbé and Mouton families.
Pierre's occupation here is listed as "domestic servant".  The 1870 census also tells us
that living in the same household with 16 year old Pierre are his sister Celasie Trahan,
age 18 of mixed race, and one Emerante Trahan, a mulatto female of 45 years of age,
placing her birth year in 1825, in whom Pierre and Celasie are in the care of.  Just
which one is the true mother of Pierre?  Mary Schexnyder or Emerante Trahan???  Or
is it possible that Schexnyder was her maiden name and Emerante another middle or
first name?  Can it be possible that Mary Schexnyder was his grandmother? or perhaps
his new mother in law, the mother or grandmother of Mary John (Jones)?...

...If it had not been for the family historical stories regarding Pierre having other brothers
and sisters, then perhaps the mystery of which woman was his mother would never
have been solved.  But with the unveiling of Father Donald Hebert's new book of birth
and marriage data for 1908, volume 40, of the monumental collection "Southwest
Louisiana Records",  the door was opened!  Here we find in the records of 1908, that
Walter Labbe married into the Trahan family, and with that information we were able to
track down the true mother of Pierre and his other brothers and sister...

...Family historical stories told by relatives said that Pierre Trahan had at least one
brother named Baptiste Trahan Sr.  Baptiste was supposed to have been born in
Crowley La. and died circa 1948 near Cade La.  Baptiste Trahan Sr. was said to have
had at least four children:  A son with the name sounding like Pharnel Trahan, a son
named Stanley Trahan; a son named Baptiste Trahan Jr.; and a daughter who is
supposed to have married a certain Walter Labbé.  As it turns out, Baptiste Trahan
was actually the uncle of at least two of the children mentioned above.  It was his
brother Jean Trahan that was the father of Stanley and Marie Laura who married
Walter Labbe.   With this marriage between Marie Laura Trahan and Walter Labbé,
we find that the parents of Marie Laura turn out to be Jean Trahan and Rose Emma
Victorianne.  We had always suspected that Jean Trahan was a brother or close
relative to Pierre, and a check back into the marriage records revealed that Jean
Trahan and Rose Emma Victorianne married on 13 May 1880 in St. Martinville.  The
parents of Jean Trahan listed on the marriage certificate is given as Evariste Trahan
and Merende Theesnot.  A closer look at the marriage license at the courthouse in St.
Martin Parish which was written in French, appears to give the spelling "Thiesriot" for
the surname of Jean Trahan's mother, which is very close to the acadian name of
Thierriot (or Thieriot).  The surname of Theesnot appears nowhere in any records so
we must conclude that the surname Thierriot is probably more correct, and with
Merende Thierriot probably being close to the true spelling.   We have to continue to
search for the other brothers and sisters of Pierre and Jean to come up with a more
conclusive identification of their parents.  We know that on at least two documents, the
name "Emerenthe" is given as Pierre Trahan's mother and the death document which
gives the name "Varrice Trahan" as his father.  Obviously, the phonetic sound of the
names are very close to the names of the parents given on Jean Trahan's marriage
license but where do we search for more clues?  As fate may have it, living in the midst
of the Jacquet and Trahan families are the Laurence family, the patriarch of the family
being Leon Laurence.  A check back into the marriage records revealed that Leon
Laurence married on 29 Aug 1870, Celasie Trahan, who as we have seen on the 1870
census, was a sister of Pierre Trahan.  The parents of Celasie Trahan on the marriage
certificate is given as "Evariste Trahan and Emerande" (*79*).  With this evidence, it
seems clear that the parents of all three children was Evariste Trahan as the father,
and Emerende, Emerente  or Emerenthe as the mother.  The only document that gives
the surname of the mother being the marriage document of Jean Trahan which gives
the name Emerende Thierriot.  We know from family stories that there was at least
one other brother named Baptiste Trahan Sr., of which thus far no records have been
found regarding birth, baptismal or marriage.  Are there any other brothers and sisters?
So far only the name of Evariste Trahan Jr. comes up more than once as it appears
that this was a common Acadian name back in the 19th century.  Three different
Evariste Trahan Jr.'s can be found that were born in the same time period as Pierre
and his other brothers and sisters in the area, and while the father of the three are all
named as Evariste Trahan, the mother of each of the three are different and none of
them have Emerande (or Emerente, Emerenthe) as the mother.  Thus far it appears
that there are four children born to Evariste Trahan and Emerende Thierriot: Celasie
Trahan who appears to be the oldest, Pierre Trahan, Jean Trahan, and Baptiste Trahan
Sr. who probably was the youngest...