Genealogy & Kinship
Following ancestral lines into the larger histories of family, community, identity, and place.
Some discoveries begin with a name in a record. Others begin with an inherited story, a photograph, or a place familiar across generations. This collection follows those threads through documentary genealogy, oral knowledge, local history, and the wider kinship networks they reveal.
These investigations are both personal and scholarly. I am researching communities to which I am connected while testing family narratives against historical evidence and inviting connections with people following related histories.
Interactive ancestral tree
Follow four curated ancestral branches to Jeffery “Jake” Guin, expand generations, see relationships and co-parents, and identify where the evidence remains uncertain.
Compare records. Share context. Find collaborators.
Are you studying these families, their communities, related archives, Indigenous history, Louisiana genealogy, or the documentary history of the Cane River region? I welcome relevant source leads, corrections, family accounts, and opportunities to exchange research. Sharing material does not itself grant permission for its public release.
Names that open larger histories
These ancestral investigations begin with named people whose lives open onto larger histories of place, migration, kinship, slavery, work, and political change. Some connections have been examined through pedigree or documentary research; others still require verification. The cards introduce a historical subject and its research scope, not a claim that every biographical detail is settled. Specific mysteries, contradictions, and calls for evidence belong in Research Notes & Open Questions below.
Marie Thérèse Coincoin
My connection7th great-grandmother
A point of entry into Cane River’s layered histories of enslavement, emancipation, property, family networks, and the formation of communities across generations.
Research task: present the supporting pedigree sources and investigate the broader historical narrative.
People · documentary relationships · Cane RiverMarie Anne Thérèse de la Grand Terre
My connection8th great-grandmother
An especially consequential line of inquiry connecting personal ancestry with the history of early Louisiana, enslavement, Indigenous experience, and the founding-era record of Natchitoches.
Research task: present the established genealogical connection and investigate biographical details and early Louisiana context.
Ancestry · place · historical contextChristopher Columbus “Kit” Guin
My connectionpaternal great-grandfather
Kit Guin offers a way to tell the larger story of my family’s movement through the American South and its roots in Castor. His life anchors an investigation of family migration, settlement, work, and the changing documentary spellings of Guin, Geuin, Gewin, and related forms.
Research task: compare the 1871 gravestone inscription with the conflicting 1874 estimate in the working tree, examine other Guin and Geuin burials at Ebenezer Cemetery, and trace the family backward through original records. Test the competing early John and Christopher Gewin identities and possible geographic connections—including Guin, Alabama—without treating them as established.
Migration · Castor · Guin family recordsSeneca Pace
My connection3rd great-grandfather
Seneca Pace’s work as an overseer at Oakland Plantation connects my family history to the operation of slavery on Cane River, the lives of the enslaved people whose labor he supervised, and the upheavals of the Civil War and emancipation. His surviving journals are evidence of plantation operations and of people whose experiences demand careful, independent research.
Research task: examine the original journals, military and census records, establish his household and movements, and cross-reference the people named in his accounts with other records. A fuller profile must clearly address his role within slavery rather than treating the records only as family history.
Oakland Plantation · overseer’s journals · slavery · Civil War
Family, work, and the Castor landscape
The Timbertown research and this genealogical inquiry intersect through family connections to the Castor lumber community, including my grandfather and his brothers. The mill was a workplace, but also part of a web of households, relationships, stories, and community life.
Genealogy can help identify those relationships. Oral history and fieldwork can help explain what those relationships meant.
Image: logging team photograph already used in the Timbertown collection; not presented as a portrait of a named ancestor.
Explore Timbertown →How a claim becomes a finding
A documented line, a plausible identification, a family tradition, and a research lead are different kinds of knowledge. The collection will label them accordingly.
Research notes & open questions
These field notes take up the mysteries behind the larger ancestral investigations: conflicting identities, unexplained spellings, missing documents, and questions the evidence cannot yet answer. Each note states what remains uncertain and what might resolve it. The biographical and historical stories belong in Names That Open Larger Histories above; these are the working questions, not duplicate profiles.
Where do the two sisters’ descendant lines converge?
The Creole Heritage Center pedigree helped connect my descent from Marie Louise (Mariotte) and Marie Thérèse Coincoin. The investigation documents the apparent convergence, while individual links and supporting records deserve careful presentation.
Read the Coincoin investigation →
Where did the Guin surname come from?
Family records use Guin, Geuin, Gewin, Gewen, and Guwin. Similar forms such as Gwyn may point to other origins—or to unrelated families. A chronology of original documents must come before any Welsh, English, Irish, or French origin claim.
Related investigation: Christopher Columbus “Kit” Guin
Which John and Christopher Gewin belong to the line?
Multiple people named John Gewin and an earlier Christopher Columbus Gewin appear in the working tree. Duplicate entries, conflicting dates, and uncertain relationships make the colonial-era connections provisional.
Related investigation: Christopher Columbus “Kit” Guin
How did the Guin family reach Castor?
Kit Guin’s shared gravestone at Ebenezer Cemetery records August 2, 1871 – November 8, 1950; the working tree also contains an earlier conflicting 1874 birth estimate. Other Guin/Geuin relatives appear there. The family’s proposed journey through the American South still needs to be reconstructed generation by generation; a connection with Guin, Alabama is unproven.
Related collections: Genealogy & Kinship · Timbertown
What do Seneca Pace’s surviving records leave unanswered?
Pace’s role as overseer at Oakland Plantation and his surviving journals connect family history to enslaved labor and the Civil War. His account must be read alongside evidence about the people whose work he directed, not treated as a neutral description of plantation life.
Related investigation: Seneca Pace
Why do both parental lines share a regional DNA journey?
AncestryDNA’s Western Gulf States Settlers journey appears in both parental assignments. This is a clue about regional connections—not evidence that a particular ancestor or lineage has been established.
Related collections: Genealogy & Kinship · Natchitoches · Timbertown
These notes link to the relevant ancestral investigations and collections as source-based research develops. Automatic placement by tags is not yet enabled.
Latest published Research Note: Following the Questions Across Family and Place →