Like so many of Louisiana's families of French origin, those bearing the name Babineaux are today clustered in a relatively small area of the state; nearly half reside in the Teche country-in St. Martin, Lafayette, Iberia, and the southern part of St. Landry parishes, areas where their ancestors settled more than 200 years ago. Of Acadian origin, the first member of the clan in Louisiana was Louis-Charles Babineaux, who, with his wife Anne Guillebaut, arrived probably in 1765 (via the West Indies) with the group of exiles headed by Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil. * Louis-Charles and his family settled with most of that group in the Attakapas, where he became the sole progenitor of Louisiana's Babineauxs.

Often called "Grand Louis," in 1766 he was living in the La Pointe District of the Attakapas, north of St.

Martinville.

Louis-Charles's four sons, Dominique, Joseph, Theodore, and David (the first two born in Acadia, the others in Louisiana) firmly established the family name in the Attakapas.

Dominique (m. 1783 Marguerite Thibodeaux) and Joseph (m. ca. 1786 Félicité Cormier) made homes near Carencro in the northern part of the Attakapas bordering on the jurisdiction of Opelousas Post.

Most of their descendants remained in that area well into the twentieth century, some living as small farmers and stockmen in Carencro prairies and farther west near Church Point, others residing along the Teche near Breaux Bridge and Arnaudville.

However, one of Joseph Babineaux's sons, Julien (m. 1813 Marie-Christine Préjean) as early as the 1820s had ventured into the Calcasieu country, settling temporarily along the Mermentau River.

Much later, in the 1880s, one of his nephews, Jean-Clair Babineaux (m. 1860 Marie-Philomene Broussard) migrated into the Calcasieu, after living for a time near Rayne and Abbeville.

The two minor sons of progenitor Louis-Charles Babineaux-Théodore (m. 1788 Julie Dugas) and David (m. 1800 Osite Melançon)-both settled along the Teche upstream from St. Martinville near their father's home.

Most of Théodore's descendants, especially those stemming from his son Louis-Valière (m. 1825 Marguerite Thériot), lived south of St. Martinville near Fausse Pointe adjacent to New Iberia, as did the sons of David, in particular David, Jr. (m. 1822 Rosalie Segura).

Other Babineauxs descending from the lines of Théodore and David settled in the vicinity of Breaux Bridge.

All of these families appear to have been subsistence farmers; according to available records, few owned slaves and none attained the rank of "planter".

Church records of the last quarter of the nineteenth century suggest that the Carencro area was the chief center of the Babineaux clan in Louisiana.

Excepting the two instances of families settling in the Calcasieu, there appears to have been no movement of Babineauxs into southwestern Louisiana until the 1890s, when a few members were reported living on the coastal cheniers near Creole, Cameron Parish, and near Jennings and Liberty Ridge in old Calcasieu Parish.

As in the case of many other Acadian families of the Teche area, movement of Babineauxs into southeastern Texas probably did not occur until World War I and thereafter, when growth of industry in Port Arthur, Beaumont, and Houston afforded new opportunities to the normally "homebound"

Louisianians of French descent