FINDING THEODORE

I have been searching for grandfather, Theodore Bayonne, since 1999 and was finally successful a couple of weeks ago.  I have the following documents for him in my files:  baptismal record, 1900 census,  reconstructed service record for WWI and a death certificate. 

Every now and then, I  search for my ancestors who lack adequate documentation.  Carrie Taylor, my grandmother and wife of Theodore, is one them.  I looked for Carrie that night and found her in a post of the 1949 City Directory for New Orleans. There he was, listed not as Theodore Bayonne, but as Ferguson F. Bayonne. He was using his middle name! I found six more listings in the New Orleans City Directories ranging from 1916 to 1956, five for Ferguson and one for Theo F.

When I was a little girl, Grandma Carrie told me that my grandfather did not like Noel, his given name, and he never used it. Many years later after I got hooked on genealogy, I found his baptismal entry in the Diocese of Baton Rouge Catholic Church Records, 1886-1888, Volume 17, page 46. Man, as we called him, was  recorded as Noel Ferjus Theodore Bayonne. We knew him as Theodore but most people knew him as Ferguson. Theodore Bayonne is the name on his 1918 draft record and his death certificate.  He is identified as Faragard on the 1900 census, apparently a nickame which I concluded because he was born in December.

No other census records were found for Theodore, so the search goes on.