Like other surnames of Acadian origin which rank among the ten most frequent in Louisiana, that of Boudreaux occurs throughout the southern part of the state, with concentrations in the Teche country and in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes. A few Boudreauxs were among the earliest Acadian migrants to enter the colony (1760s), but the bulk of the families of that name arrived in 1785 with the large influx of exiles from France.* The many Boudreaux families living in Acadia before the Expulsion of 1755 all descended from Michel Boudrot, a native of the La Rochelle area, west-central France.

Arriving in Acadia ca. 1642 with wife Michelle Aucoin, by 1686 Michel had become a "lieutenant-general" of the King at Port Royal.

His several sons spread throughout Acadia, some staying in Port Royal, others settling at Pisiguit, Beaubassin, and Grand-Pré.

After the Expulsion the Boudreauxs, like their compatriots, were exiled to various points along the North American seaboard, to England, and to France.

By 1766 at least three Boudreaux families were living in Louisiana. Two had settled along the Mississippi in the first Acadian Coast (St. James); one of these was headed by Olivier Boudreau (great-grandson of Acadian progenitor Michel), the other by a Joseph Boudrau, for whom subsequent information is lacking. The third family, led by Jean Boudrau (also a great-grandson of progenitor Michel) was living in the Attakapas with wife Marguerite Guilbault and son Jean-Charles.

Jean Boudrau and family probably arrived in Louisiana early in 1765 with the Acadian contingent led by Broussard from Halifax.

Through his only son, Jean-Charles (m. ca. 1785 Dorothée Comeau), Jean began an important line of Boudreauxs in the Attakapas.

First settling along the upper Vermilion near present Lafayette, the descendants of Jean-Charles by the 1860s had spread as small farmers southward into the Côte Gelée near present Youngs ville, and some had ventured along the lower Vermilion in the vicinity of Abbeville.

Another early Boudreaux settler in the Teche area was Augustin-Rémy, who came to Louisiana as an orphan, age 13, with one of the Breaux families from Maryland, where many Acadians were sent after the Expulsion.

By 1777 Augustin had joined the local militia in the Attakapas and about five years later had married Judith Martin, settling on Bayou Bourbeaux near Grand Coteau on the Opelousas-Attakapas border.

Most of Augustin's descendants remained in the Grand Coteau area for much of the nineteenth century, but by the 1860s some had gone westward to the vicinity of Church Point in present Acadia Parish.

Other lines of Boudreauxs in the Attakapas were established by Acadian refugees from France who arrived in the colony in 1785. Among these were Joseph Boudrau (m. 1792 Élizabeth Trahan), who obtained land on Bayou Vermilion near Lafayette;11 his three sons and many of their offspring remained in the area, but by the mid-nineteenth century most had migrated into the northern part of Vermilion Parish.

During the early nineteenth century the Boudreaux element in the Teche country was reinforced by migrants, mainly sons and grandsons of some of the 1785 refugees, who had initially established homes on the Mississippi in Ascension or St. James parishes.

Church and civil records suggest that few Boudreauxs left the Teche and Vermilion areas for the Calcasieu and Texas until after 1890.

As mentioned above, the first Boudreaux family to settle on the Mississippi in the Acadian Coast was that of Olivier, a widower who arrived in Louisiana from Acadia with his son Simon probably in 1765. Remarried in 1767 to Anne Gaudet, Olivier had obtained the year previous a farm on the west bank of the river in St.

James.

Son Simon (m. 1774 Monique Dupuis) became a respected planter in the same area, and by the time of his death in 1824 owned a 400-acre plantation below Donaldsonville.

Simon, Jr., continued in his father's footsteps as an antebellum planter, thus establishing a small but respected line of Boudreauxs along the Mississippi.

Several Boudreaux families who came with the Acadian group from France in 1785 also settled along the river, many at St. Gabriel below Baton Rouge and in Ascension Parish.

Among these were François-Xavier, his wife Marguerite Dugas, and his widowed mother, Brigitte Apart (m. formerly to Antoine Boudreau), whose younger sons Étienne and Joseph soon left for better opportunities, the former going to the Lafourche, the latter to Opelousas.

In 1785, eighteen Boudreaux families arrived in New Orleans with the 1,600 Acadian exiles from France.

As indicated, some Boudreauxs of this group were sent to settle along the Acadian Coast, but most were directed to Bayou Lafourche, where each family was given land, animals, and tools to begin a new life. Soon many of those in the Acadian Coast had filtered into the Lafourche area, which in 1788 contained some thirteen Boudreaux families, practically all refugees from France.

Initially settled along the bayou below Donaldsonville, by the beginning of the ninteenth century many Boudreauxs had begun to migrate southward toward the Gulf, most making homes near present Thibodaux, others penetrating into Terrebonne Parish.

For example, Étienne Boudreaux (m. 1788 Victoire Gautreau), son of Brigitte Apart (widow of Antoine Boudreau), by 1805 had established his home near Thibodeauxville; by the 1830s one of his eight sons, Stanislaus (m. Rose Lefevre, 1833 Mélanie Dupré) had settled on Bayou Petit Caillou in Terrebonne Parish.

Much earlier Joseph-Marie (m. 1787 Marguerite Pitre), son of another refugee family from France (Étienne Boudreau and Marguerite Thibodeau) before 1813 had obtained a large tract of over 700 acres on both sides of Bayou Terrebonne below Houma;23 His descendants, such as grandson Jean-Baptiste (m. 1836 Rosalie Malbrough) by mid-century were living near Montegut.

Again, Jean-Baptiste-Tertulien Boudreaux, a grandson of still another 1785 refugee couple (François Boudreau and Euphrosine Barrillot), and most of his eight sons resided at Brulé Grand Chêne, west of Thibodeauxville.

Although most of the eight sons of 1785 refugee Paul-Dominque Boudreau and Marie Landry settled near Thibodeauxville and Houma, one, Charles-Romain (m. 1808 Céleste Robichaux) and his offspring located on Bayou Chacahoula in the northern sector of Terrebonne Parish.

In short, according to U.S. census data, by 1850 Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes contained nearly half of the state's Boudreaux households, most of whose members descended from Acadian refugees who entered Louisiana from France in 1785.

However, not all the Boudreauxs in those parishes were so descended. For instance, a member of an early St. James family, Jean-Baptiste-Adelade (m. 1838 Josephine LeBlanc), grandson of Simon and Monique Dupuis, in 1855 established a large plantation on Bayou Lafourche three miles below Lockport.

Well versed in the sugar industry, Adelade made his Boudreaux plantation one of the most prosperous along the bayou; the property remained in the hands of his descendants well into the present century.

Today the Lafourche-Terrebonne area is no longer the chief center of the state's Boudreaux clan, many families apparently having moved into New Orleans or to Baton Rouge