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THE BOURDAGES AND RELATED FAMUES
We began this research on the family of our Joseph Bourdages in 1972 and typed a compilation of our findings on July 16, 1976. At that time, we used personal interviews, church and civil records, census records, and what we will call, “Clem’s Paper,” as our source material. Clem’s Paper is a one page, typed record, titled “History of Bordages Family of Aulon, Haute Garonne, France.” This paper also has some “handwritten entries” at the bottom for additional Bordages family members made by his daughter, Daisy Bordages. This paper was in the possession of Daisy Bordages, living in Bay St. Louis, MS at the time. F.C. “Clem” Bordages wrote this paper sometime before his death in 1925. While it is very accurate for the most part, we have found some small errors during the course of our research.
In 1987 we wrote to the parish priest in Aulon, France for any church records pertaining to this family. The priest gave our letter to Maurice and Odette Bourdages, residents of nearby Aurignac (Aulon no longer has an active Catholic Church). These kind people found many “Bourdages” records at St. Pierre Catholic Church, as well as, “civil records” in Aurignac and made copies for us. These records are now being incorporated in this updated version of our Bourdages History.
Before going any further, we will address the correct spelling of this name. From the various French records we have, the name was clearly spelled “Bourdages.” Once in America, they dropped the “u” and most often spelled their name as “Bordages,” as the family does today. With this, we will use “Bourdages” for the first generation of immigrants and their ancestors. “Bordages” will be used for all subsequent generations. A common misspelling of the name is “Bordage.”
In March of 2003, we visited Aulon, France and met Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Bourdages. They spoke no English, but their adult son, Francois Bourdages, an oil executive working in the French Congo, Africa did. He now lives in Toulouse, France and was visiting his parents when we met him. He said he and his parents were born and raised in Aulon, but his parents moved to nearby Aurignac in 1982.
Francois and his parents took us on a tour of Aulon. Francois said the village had approximately 400 residents at the time, most of whom are elderly. He also told us that most of the young people move away to find jobs because Aulon has little to offer in the area of employment. Francois and his parents took us to the old Catholic Church there. Carved in marble over the old church door is “1566,” the year the church was built. Because of the small population, the church has no permanent priest, but is now only used for weddings and other special occasions. Aulon is surrounded by many small villages with Aurignac, France as their parish center. It has its own priest, and all of the area church records are maintained at St. Pierre’s Catholic Church. Aurignac is approximately 3 miles from Aulon and approximately 50 miles from Lourdes, France. Aulon is a beautiful village near the base of the Pyrenees Mountains. We have many photographs that were taken during our visit.
Francois took us to the current church cemetery located on the edge of Aulon.
The original cemetery was next to the old church where the parking lot is today. Many years ago the graves were all moved to the present location. We walked through the cemetery and failed to find any gravestones for our direct line of Bourdageses. Apparently the older generations of Bourdageses did not have their head markers, if they
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