I was adopted when I was five days old. While that thought doesn't come up often, it does when I think about how my biological family ended up in New Orleans. After help from my aunt, I discovered part of my history. This copy of Bill and Lena's marriage license symbolizes the coming together of two immigrant families. My great-great-grandfather, Nichola Marino and his wife, Conchetta Gagliano, came to Louisiana from Palermo in the early 1900s. My great-grandmother, Antonina “Lena” Marino, was born August 27, 1908 in Franklin, LA. On the Gagliano side of her family, she shared ancestry with the Gagliano family of violin-makers, including Alessandro Gagliano, an 18th century understudy to Antonio Stradivari. My paternal great-great-grandparents, Nemours J. Cousin and Eugenie Marie Cousin were native to Lacombe. The Cousin family has origins in a village in France near the Belgian border. They believed that their journey to Louisiana began in 1740 with French naval officer, Pierre Cousin, who had built homes in New Orleans and in Lacombe. My great-grandfather, William “Bill” Peter Cousins, Sr. was born August 11, 1899 in New Orleans. The additional “s” in his name reflects a change in spelling by his parents around 1921. Their fathers were half-brothers and their mothers were Choctaw. The change may have been motivated by a desire to separate the family from the rest of the Cousin lineage and from families of color with the surname Cousin as interracial and intra-family marriages were becoming less acceptable. 

– Shelby Loyacano

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more