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Review of The Latourrette Name in History by Ancestry.com.
This is a new series of surname books, running about $33 with postage, put out by ancestry.com and being sold by Amazon Books. Look for this title on www.amazon.com
If this publication is representative of the other surname books in this series, they have little value to anyone who is beyond the most elementary stages of genealogical research. That is, the only value of the book may be in the sections on how-to-start genealogical research on your family. However, this information is generally available free in many sources. As documented below, the hodgepodge of information, given in the book without adequate background explanation, is likely to lead the novice to erroneous conclusions about his/her surname.
In The Latourrette Name in History there are at least two major flaws and many ridiculous pieces of information, actually drawn from the data base of ancestry.com.
First: There is no explanation why they picked the variant of the Latourrette surname with a double r, although that is the form found originally in Osse, Bearn in the 16th and 17th centuries. There is a generic statement on p. 12 for all surnames saying that there are various reasons why surnames may not be recorded correctly by census takers, illiterate people being recorded etc. However, there is no statement made about what other variants of the Latourrette surname are found in America or which ones are included in the data presented in the book: Latourette, La Tourette, LaTourette or even Tourette or Tourrette (I found of few of the latter in America that seem to trace back to Jean and Marie Mercereau, married in 1693 in New York). Then, one is left with the question what family history does this book represent? And, if this the case for Latourrette, what value are companion books for surnames like Smith and Jones, where the name originated independently at many difficult locations?
By examining the data presented in the book, one quickly determines it represents only a small segment of the family that descended from Jean Latourrette and Marie Mercereau. In the census year 1840 (p. 63), it reports there are zero Latourrette households in the US census! In 2000, there are only 48 households! From my survey of telephone listings only 4 years later in 2004, it is obvious that no other variant of the surname Latourrette is included in the data the book presents. In that year, I found 324 telephone listings for the 6 variants of the Latourrette surname in America.
2004 telephone listings in the US:
Latourrette: 61 listings
Latourette, LaTourette and La Tourette: 252 listings
Tourrette: 7 listings
Tourette 4 listings
From the missing 250 plus households (there were a few households with two telephone listings) in the ancestry.com data base, it is obvious that the book represents, at best, only a fraction the family and descendants of Jean and Marie from their marriage in 1693.
We also know that some Latourrettes (Latourettes) came from the Osse, Bearn area of France in the 19th century, with many of them settling in California. Where do they fit in since they are not linear descendants of Jean Latourrette and Marie Mercereau? Or do we trace them back to Bearn and find they may be descendants of Jean’s presumed brother Jacob (1650-1711)? Or perhaps they were distant cousins even in the 16th or 17th century?
Second: The approach taken by ancestry.com is completely misleading. There is really no history of The Latourrette Name in History, as historians would describe it. It is a standardized "how to seek your ancestors primer.” It is pitched at the elementary genealogical level. So, what we have is a standardized format for any surname you would pick out, developed by ancestry.com, with some information plugged in by ancestry.com for Latourrette from the US census; military records of the civil war, WWI, and WW II (draft registrations and enlistments); some data on immigrants, family size and land grants to the surname Latourrette. All of these data are currently available on www.ancestry.com if you want to access the information paying their annual membership fee, plus in some cases an fee for a special series. All they have done is searched the Latourrette name in all their files to plug some standardized information into pre-established categories for all surnames. As noted above, this leads to a complete distortion of the family descended from Jean Latourrette and Marie Mercereau. It also leads to some really ridiculous results. Two examples (with page references):
Early Latourrette Immigrants (p, 20) : 10 Latourrettes arriving in the United States between 1909 and 1938 ----------
Are the 1909 -1938 Latourrette arrivals early immigrants?? Are they really immigrants? Jean Latourrette arrived in New York in 1687. Other Latourrettes came from Bearn in the 19th century. I suspect that many of the Latourrette arrivals between 1909 and 1938, characterized by ancestry.com as immigrants, were US citizens returning to their native country, and as such they appeared on passenger ship lists. For example, in looking on ancestry.com for just a few minutes at 2 of the 10 names listed as “early Latourrette immigrants” I found that they were people born in the United States. Clinton and Elizabeth Latourrette are listed on page 20 as arriving on October 12, 1931 at the Port of Los Angles on the ship Ruth Alexander from Ensenada, Mexico. The passenger list posted on www.ancestry.com clearly shows them as being born in the United States. Clinton was born on August 19, 1901 in Petersburg, North Dakota; Elizabeth was born on July 19, 1904 in San Francisco, California. Rather than immigrants they were likely returning from a vacation in Mexico.
Places of Origin for Latourrette Immigrants (p 15): FRANCE: 2 People -----
This doesn't match other data given in the book because they have 5 Latourrettes leaving from ports in France (p.16). Do we know whether other Latourrettes leaving from other countries listed on page 16 were returning home or were immigrants?
There are many entries about Latourrettes in the book drawn from the data bases of ancestry.com, but this is neither a history nor an accurate representation of the Latourrette family in America as discussed on this Forum.
Take your $33 and buy a good dinner and a glass of Chateau La Tourette wine (no relations to us) from the Bordeaux area. It will give you more satisfaction than The Latourrette Name in History by ancestry.com
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