How it began

In early spring of 2011, we (Lloyd and Kathie Bennett) received an email from Bernard Daubard of Lyon, France, who suggested that he and Lloyd Bennett of New Orleans, Louisiana, might be related. As we soon discovered, he and Lloyd are eighth cousins, each descending from Jean Daubard (1639-1694) of Ciry-le-Noble, a village in the Burgundy area of France.

As it happened, Lloyd and I were already planning a trip to France later that spring. We quickly rearranged our plans to include a visit with Bernard and his family and the ancestral villages. You can read about it in another blog by clicking here.

Bernard had been researching his ancestors and the origin of the Daubard name and was organizing his research into book form. We extended an invitation to his family to visit us in New Orleans, which they did in the fall of 2012. This blog cannot begin to share the depth of the link that binds all of the cousins, but with this day-by-day recollection, we offer a glimpse of what became the cementing of a relationship between cousins who met less than two years ago.

Bernard, Romain, and Fabienne Daubard
with cousin Lloyd Bennett on one of the
few cold mornings of the visit.