Cajun Identity: Acadian Ancestry, Cultural Heritage, and Inclusivity

The Cajuns of south Louisiana are, to a large extent, the communities and peoples who they have historically been. Traditionally, “a Cajun” is considered to be a person who is both descended from Acadian exiles of the 18th century who were expelled from Canada and came to Louisiana, and who has formed (or is part of) a French-speaking Catholic community in Louisiana. Historian Shane K. Bernard writes that “Cajuns are the descendants of Acadian exiles who made their way to southern Louisiana and formed a rural culture that was distinctively French and Catholic.”1 However, as centuries passed and more people and cultures intermixed in Louisiana, the Cajun identity has also grown to mean a great deal more than a genetic designation. The Cajuns of today are the embodiment of the complex cultural and people-rich history of south Louisiana, and as such, the term “Cajun” is not something that should be used to differentiate small divisions of peoples by blood alone. In this paper we take a look at the Cajun identity through both the historical, genealogical, and cultural perspective. We explore and define the Cajun identity by both its well known association with Acadian descendants and the Catholic faith, and the diverse ethnic intermixing that is an indisputable reality among the Cajun peoples. We take aim at narrower, blood-only definitions of “who is Cajun” and restate Cajun as an inclusive culture-based identity. We draw on the records of history, census data, DNA, and cultural practice, and reach a definition of the Cajun as the people of south Louisiana (of any race) who can trace at least some Acadian lineage to the area, and who identify with or partake of the French Catholic history and culture of the region. This allows us to both recognize the essential Acadian component of Cajun history, while not applying a strict “purity” standard that excludes the many Black, Creole, German, Spanish, and other Louisianans who have joined the Cajun story over the years.

Acadian Origins

The Cajun people have their roots in the Acadians – French colonists who migrated to Acadie (now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island) in the 17th century. The British had forcibly removed the Acadians in what became known as the Grand Dérangement (Great Upheaval) in 1755. Some Acadian exiles came to Louisiana (a Spanish colony with a French Creole population) from 1764 to 1785. As many as 3,000 Acadians moved to Louisiana. The largely francophone and Catholic colony attracted the Acadian exiles. In Louisiana the Acadian immigrants – soon called "Cajuns" (from "les Acadiens") – lived in rural bayous and prairies, where they reconstructed their community. The Acadian refugees clung to their French Catholic identity, which would become a Cajun cultural touchstone. The Acadians had been intensely Catholic, and their religious identity set them apart from the mostly Protestant early United States. Colonial authorities had welcomed the Acadians in part because they shared France's and Spain's Roman Catholic religion. Cajuns, in Louisiana, would remain a distinct group – characterized by their French language and Catholic faith – for generations to come. By the late 19th century, Cajuns were characterized as a "rustic" or agrarian people who spoke French, were Catholic, and made their living by growing crops, and fishing, hunting and trapping in the swamps and prairies. Bernard says that by this time Cajuns had become "largely rural French-Catholic people," with a close tie to the land and their traditional lifeways. This cultural profile – of a French-speaking Catholic farming people – would become the classic Cajun stereotype.

Because of their Acadian origins in colonial French Canada and their resettlement in Louisiana, all Cajuns can be considered part of the larger Creole population of Louisiana. In its original usage, "Creole" merely designated any person born in the colony (Louisiana) rather than in Europe. So the children of Acadian exiles who were born in Louisiana were, strictly speaking, Acadian Creoles. As one summary puts it: "All Cajuns are Creole by virtue of being descendants of Acadian exiles born in the colony; however, not all Creoles are Cajun, because many do not have Acadian ancestry." In other words, Acadian descent is the key identifier that distinguishes Cajuns within the broader Creole population. Early in their history, Cajuns were often described as "Acadian Creoles", indicating that they were born in Louisiana (Creole) and were of Acadian (French) stock. They shared the French language and Catholic religion with other Creoles in Louisiana (whether of French, Spanish, African, or mixed descent), but the Acadian line of descent gave the Cajuns a distinct group identity. The overlap and confusion of these terms was considerable, and "Cajun" became the popular term used for the Acadian-descended French Catholics of the rural parishes in order to distinguish them from other Creole groups. But it is important to remember that Cajuns were never a purebred isolated population – from the beginning, they were part of a Creole society and interacted with many other ethnic groups in Louisiana.

Ethnic Mixing and Multi-Ancestral Origins of the Cajuns

Despite the strong Acadian roots, most Cajuns in fact have multiracial ancestry; the Acadian refugees and their descendants did not remain ethnically endogamous but intermarried with many other groups in Louisiana, so that there is a spectrum of ethnic heritages to be found among present-day Cajuns. According to historian Carl A. Brasseaux, this was in fact the process by which "the Cajuns were created in the first place", because once the Acadian exiles mixed with others and were transformed in Louisiana3. Cajuns over the 18th and 19th centuries were made up of immigrants and neighbors of all sorts. Frenchmen from elsewhere (France, Quebec or the French Caribbean) who settled the countryside of south Louisiana would sometimes marry Acadians. Spanish colonists and Canary Islanders (Isleños) sent by Spain to Louisiana also became part of the francophone milieu. German peasants who had colonized the "German Coast" of the Mississippi River in colonial Louisiana later moved west into Cajun country and became Cajuns. Anglo-Americans and Irish who settled the region would sometimes take Cajun wives as well. The net result is that by 1900 some people with Cajun surnames and self-identities had no Acadian blood at all. As Brasseaux and others have shown, Cajuns today also have Irish, Spanish, German, Italian, Native American, and African ancestry, along with the original French Acadian element3. In fact, some of the most "deep Cajun country" areas in Louisiana had relatively few Acadian founders. For example, Evangeline and Avoyelles Parishes had more French Creoles from Quebec or Mobile, or European French and Spanish settlers, than Acadian refugees but those residents gradually became Cajun in orientation.

The multicultural roots of the Cajuns can be seen in the variety of Cajun family names. There are many common Cajun surnames which do derive from the original Acadian refugees (names like Boudreaux, LeBlanc, Thibodeaux, Hebert, Guidry, etc., are almost indubitably Acadian-French) – but jostling alongside them in the Cajun surname pool are a number of other last names which reflect different origins. Fontenot, Fuselier, Soileau, Delahoussaye and many others are non-Acadian French surnames of settlers who arrived to join the Acadian settlements in Louisiana. Hymel, Schexnayder (Schexnider), Stelly and Abshire (Oberschair) names reflect German settlement among the Cajuns. Romero, Segura, Dartez are Spanish-origin names found in Cajun country. There are even Anglo and Irish names like McGee found among Cajuns – a reflection of just how completely the newcomers to Acadiana were integrated into French Louisiana society. As the Cajun musician Dennis McGee once jokingly (or perhaps half-jokingly) said in a typical expression of Cajun ethnic identity, “I don’t know anyone named McGee who doesn’t speak French,” which, in this context, means that even families with obviously Irish surnames had become, culturally speaking, French Cajuns. In short, “Cajun” came to be the label applied to a large population of south Louisianans who adopted the French language and Catholic folk culture which the Acadians had brought, regardless of whether the bloodline of each individual was 100% Acadian. Bernard stresses this fact and points out that the Cajuns today are not just the descendants of the Acadian exiles “but of all the ethnic groups with whom these exiles and their offspring intermarried” in Louisiana. The Acadian strain was the core – culturally and to an extent genetically – but Cajun society was open and syncretic, always adding to its ranks people of various other origins.

Inclusivity: Black and Native Cajuns in History

This is an important caveat to the popular stereotype of Cajuns. Cajun communities historically were not based on race: Whites, Blacks, and Native Americans who lived among the Cajun French-speaking population of Louisiana in the 19th and early 20th century and were part of the local culture were also Cajuns, and many spoke French. Accounts from the time and later studies have documented that Cajuns "as an ethnic group historically included Indians and Blacks" as well. In rural Louisiana there were Afro-Creole families who spoke Cajun French and identified with Cajun/Acadian culture. Amédé Ardoin, an African-descended musician who only spoke Cajun French and recorded Cajun music in the 1920s, was a part of Cajun culture even though society often mislabeled him as something else. Ardoin is remembered as the first Black Cajun recording artist, which means that "Cajun" was not primarily a racial term for his contemporaries but a linguistic/cultural/locational identifier. Another beloved musician, Clifton Chenier, was a Creole accordionist who developed the zydeco genre. He proudly identified as "the Black Cajun Frenchman" when performing for foreign audiences. Chenier did not make that claim as a lark: he and other Black Creole people from Acadiana (the Cajun region) often literally did share the same linguistic and cultural background as their white Cajun neighbors. The distinctions that some of their later descendants draw between "Cajuns" and "Creoles of color" were not nearly as clear for many of their contemporaries in the 1800s. The terminology also was not set in stone – some documents used "Acadian Creoles", which would refer to Louisiana-born people with Acadian ancestry, but many people with mixed-race or Afro-Creole ancestry who lived in the same rural communities saw themselves as belonging to that French Acadian world.

Similarly, people of Native American descent have been a part of the Cajun narrative from the beginning. The Acadians who lived in Canada before leaving intermarried to a limited extent with the Mi'kmaq people of the region, and the trend continued quietly in Louisiana. There are Cajun families who passed Native American maternal lines down (quietly, in many cases). The Houma, Choctaw, and other Native peoples of south Louisiana were also neighbors of, and intermarried with, Cajuns. It is not historically inaccurate, therefore, to state that Cajun communities were multiethnic – a mix of “white” Acadian, other European, African, and Native blood. For those early generations, a common Francophone Louisiana culture mattered more than the fiction of racial purity. One Cajun from Basile, Louisiana, when asked about identity, stated that “Cajun” was a term that referred to a region, descent, or heritage – “not race” – and, therefore, anyone born into the Cajun lifestyle could be Cajun. In fact, Black and Native residents were also part of the Cajun/Creole culture in the francophone Catholic communities of 19th-century south Louisiana, where the Catholic Church ministered to all French speakers and warned parishioners against racial division, even threatening excommunication to those who disobeyed the Church's racial proscriptions during the Jim Crow era. This is not meant to romanticize race relations – prejudice was absolutely a part of the community – but Cajun culture (with its Latin Catholic influences) tended to be more mixed and intertwined than the Anglo-Protestant dominated society around it. The main point is that to be “Cajun” culturally has never meant simply to be a white Acadian descendant; it means to be part of a way of life, and that includes people of color.

20th-Century Changes: Racialization of “Cajun” vs “Creole”

This openness to race in Cajun identity was undermined by the mid-20th-century forces of external influence, including Jim Crow laws in Louisiana and the American South. Louisiana authorities and institutions in the mid-20th century brought more pressure to bear on communities to classify their racial mixture in binary terms. Government, schools, and the larger society began in the 1950s to pressure the Acadiana population to self-identify as either "white" or "Black", rather than some mixed middle ground. In this period of Americanization (circa 1950–1900), the term "Cajun" in public life came to refer only to whites with roots in the French Acadian population, while the old word "Creole" (which had always had multiple meanings) became often redefined as a designation for Black Creoles. According to one historical summary, "officials reorganized the inhabitants of Cajun country to identify racially as either 'white' Cajuns or 'black' Creoles" during the Jim Crow era. For younger generations of French-speaking Louisianians during this time, schools taught them that they were either white (if of mostly European descent) or Black (if of mixed/african descent), and the common Cajun/Creole culture that they were raised with was masked by these racial divisions. White Cajuns were expected (or forced) to assimilate to mainstream Anglo-American culture, while Black Cajuns/Creoles were expected to conform to African-American culture. This imposed Americanization, including English-only education and segregation, had the effect of dividing a formerly more-unified French Louisiana community along racial lines.

By the late 1960s and afterwards, the popular understanding of "Cajun" became a white Cajun. The old meaning of a multi-colored Cajun community was no longer in mainstream popular consciousness. The cultural revival movements of the 1970s (such as the Cajun French music renaissance and the creation of CODOFIL for French language preservation) generally focused on the Acadian-descended Cajun as a proudly white ethnic group. Historian of Louisiana Christophe Landry writes that, in this era, "Cajuns were classified as whites" and the very notion of Cajun identity had become "racialized and synonymous with being a Caucasian of French-Acadian descent". A change in the literature itself mirrored this: for example, a 194 Cajun French dictionary drew a hard line between "Cajun French" and what it called "Negro French," making it sound as though Black Creole speakers of French were something else entirely – which previous generations would not have considered doing. Understandably, Creole people of color in Louisiana resented being written out of the "Cajun" story, and out of the new Louisiana French heritage narrative. When, in the 190s, the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) took "Ragin' Cajuns" as its sports mascot and Cajun pride became big business, some Creoles of color in Lafayette felt that this excluded them and they pushed back: for example, one of their measures to preserve Creole heritage was the creation of organizations such as C.R.E.O.L.E., Inc., to "establish and promote in no uncertain terms that we are here, and Louisiana's once French-speaking culture does not 'belong' only to white Acadian descendants." Keep in mind, all of this helps to illustrate that "Cajun = white Acadian" is a very recent social construction: a result of the racial classification and racial branding of the 20th century. Historically, the term was used in a more flexible fashion, but the forces of American racial thinking imposed a schism between "Cajun" and "Creole" down color lines that many today accept as natural.

Self-Identification and Census Data: The Cajun Population “Disappearing” on Paper

One simple way to understand this complexity is to see how some members of the group self-identify (or don't) on public data forms. The US Census and other surveys have long included questions about ethnic identification, but what has happened to Cajuns and Creoles in Louisiana is a prime example of how untrustworthy those numbers can be. On the 1990 Census, about 432,500 Louisiana residents (and about 668,000 Americans in total) indicated their ancestry as Cajun or Acadian, which is a rather large population. By the 2020 census estimates (via American Community Survey), the number of people in the nation who primarily identify as Cajun had collapsed to just about 107,500 (only about 55,000 in Louisiana). At first glance, this suggests the Cajun ethnic group decreased by more than 80% in one generation, which is in no way what the reality is. What changed was not how many people of Cajun descent were in the state, but how people self-reported. Scholars have also pointed out massive fluctuations in the census counts of Cajuns – for example, the 2000 Census found only around 40,000 Cajuns in Louisiana, which was a 90% decrease from 1990 that is demographically impossible. Obviously, the census ancestry question was not capturing the Cajun population at all. The reason, according to historian Shane Bernard, is that many people of Cajun background chose not to check the box marked “Cajun” on the form – rather they may have chosen “French” or “French Canadian” or simply “American” or “white” as their ancestry. The fact that there are so many different boxes that a person who is Cajun could accurately check (they could truthfully claim to be of French ancestry, or Acadian ancestry, or just American) is why responses varied so much. A similar thing has happened with many Creoles of Louisiana not labeling themselves as “Creole” on the census – those with African roots may have instead checked “African American” or “Black,” while those with mixed roots may have used other terms. Bernard notes that a Creole person who has both Acadian and African ancestry has an abundance of identities they could claim (Cajun, Creole, Black, French, etc.) and not all of them will use the same word. Thus, data like the census severely undercounts groups like Cajuns and Creoles because of this complexity.

How underreporting is tied to the numbers is illustrated by the difference in the 1990 and 2020 Cajun counts. Thousands of people of Cajun descent living in south Louisiana likely answered the census just “white” or subsumed their identity into larger categories, and therefore disappeared from the Cajun count. Some Cajuns have mixed heritage or do not strongly differentiate themselves from other white Americans on surveys, especially in a generation that may not have spoken French as their first language. At the same time, Creoles of color have often been counted as Black or multiracial, not Creole. The combination of these changes can create the misleading public perception that Cajuns are “disappearing” when in fact labels are changing. Ethnographic research does find Cajun identity remaining strong in Louisiana despite what the public data may indicate. Sociologists Jacques Henry and Carl Bankston, for example, found that by the 21st century “Cajun” had gone from being an insult to becoming a source of pride for many Louisianans. The authors also note that many people who live in the Cajun cultural region but are not from Cajun ancestry nonetheless call themselves Cajun “even when they have limited or no Acadian ancestry”. In other words, being Cajun is as much about identifying with the local culture – speaking (or having grandparents who spoke) Cajun French, cooking the gumbo, feeling like you’re part of the community – as it is about having a genealogical family tree full of 18th-century Acadian refugees. The census won’t always pick up those subtleties, but in the real world, the lived function of Cajun identity more closely resembles that of a cultural heritage, which people take pride in and sometimes claim regardless of strict lineage. The person with the last name O’Brien or Smith whose family has lived in Vermilion Parish since they could remember, who cooks jambalaya and listens to Cajun music, might very well say “I’m Cajun” because culturally they are – even if perhaps a few generations back their great-great-grandparents were Irish or German with just a single Acadian marriage connecting them to Cajun family history. Cajun identity in lived reality is therefore more complicated and cannot be simply reduced to a racial or blood quantum question.

DNA Testing and Genealogy: Insights and Limitations

In recent years, the advent of DNA ancestry testing and genealogical database tools has led many Louisianans to explore their family pasts. This has given rise to a certain cottage industry in hunting down Acadian surnames and genetic markers in search of a "smoking gun" to validate one's Cajun identity. At the same time, an obsessive focus on DNA "percentages" or purity in the blood (especially for genealogical markers that can't easily be found in documented family trees) can be a form of etic bias: a preference for the outsider's framework of measurable genetic characteristics over the emic perspective of cultural experience. DNA testing has one incontrovertible message for the Cajun experience: our ancestors are not all alike. As genealogist Marie Rundquist found out when she got a "single, Native American DNA test" on herself and her family, some people with generations of Cajun heritage can have a long-buried Indigenous branch in their family trees. This hidden Mi'kmaq ancestor was in Rundquist's case the unnamed maternal grandmother of one of her mother's 12th great-grandparents (12 generations removed), an early 17th-century Mi'kmaq (Algonquian) woman from Nova Scotia. Rundquist's extensive research (published as Cajun by Any Other Name) revealed these "hidden Acadian-Mi'kmaq beginnings" and so illustrated how DNA evidence can help uncover the true multiethnic origins of the Cajun population. It turns out that many Cajun lineages have stories like this: it was not uncommon for some of the earliest Acadian men in Louisiana to marry women of mixed Native American ancestry, or for Acadian women to have Indigenous maternal relatives that they or their husbands brought with them from Canada. Such genetic contributions may not be immediately obvious in surname traditions or family lore, but they remain in the gene pool and are now being rediscovered.

Additionally, through the Acadian Amerindian Ancestry Project, which Rundquist is co-director of, they have found "mountainous evidence of intertwined Acadian and Native lines through Cajun descendants. Genetic (Y-DNA and mtDNA, or mitochondrial DNA) testing of individuals with Acadian names has provided concrete examples of distinct Native American haplogroups in the Cajun population, verifying that the early French Acadians did intermarry with Native peoples and that this intermingling is part of the heritage of their descendants." In this way, DNA is proving that "Cajun is not synonymous with "pure French" descent; on the contrary, Cajun by its very definition is mixed." However, DNA also shows that non-Acadian Europeans mixed in with the Cajun population. In sampling a collection of self-identified Cajuns today, one could likely find, in addition to markers one would expect to find in the French population, markers with origins in Spanish, British Isles or German ancestors as well. A Cajun with the last name Romero, for example, may have markers that are largely of Spanish origin, because a great-great-great grandfather (or grandmother) who settled among the Acadians was originally from the Canary Islands. The Cajun person in question could even speak only English and be fair skinned, but be culturally Cajun nonetheless. The same could be true of a person whose family name is Schexnayder and who has an abundance of German genetic markers, but culturally identifies as Cajun. As such, DNA can "skew" any neat DNA picture of what a Cajun is. In fact, one's ability to identify as Cajun on the basis of DNA would rule out many, many people who would otherwise self-identify as culturally Cajun but whose genetics are too varied with ancestry outside of Acadia. It would also be inaccurate in that it would make those of us whom we think of as Cajun somehow "less Cajun" if, for example, their DNA testing determined that they are 25% Acadian French and 75% other ancestry. However, in actuality, heritage is never that simple.

The weaknesses of such an approach become obvious, once we see that what really unites Cajuns is not blood, but culture. From an emic (insider) perspective – that is, how Cajuns themselves answer the question "Who is Cajun?" – culture is primary. Cajuns, by and large, identify themselves according to shared customs: speaking (or at least enjoying) the French language; being Catholic (going to mass, making a perigrinage to the statue of the saint that protects your town, etc. ); cooking, eating, and sharing Cajun food (gumbo, étouffée, boudin); playing or dancing to Cajun and zydeco music; a close-knit family structure and attachment to the land of south Louisiana. It is these cultural aspects of being Cajun – the experience of being raised in a Francophone Catholic community that "tastes, sounds, and smells a certain way" – that make a Cajun. One could have 100% Acadian genetic ancestry, but if you grew up outside that community, not know the first word of French, and not participate in the other aspects of what it is to be Cajun, you might not think of yourself as Cajun at all. On the other hand, one might have a "touch of Acadian" (or zero drops of Acadian that they know of), but be deeply immersed in the Cajun way of life, and be considered Cajun by their neighbors. Culture is, by its nature, adaptive and syncretic: over generations, Cajun culture has had little problem absorbing new people who marry into or move into Cajun communities, as long as they participate in the dominant patterns. To exclude people based on "impure" Acadian ancestry would also be to exclude the way that Cajun culture itself has persisted and flourished – through adaptation, intermarriage, and other practices that ensured the continuity of its traditions.

National surveys consistently find that White Americans are far more likely to take a consumer DNA ancestry test (e.g. through AncestryDNA or 23andMe) than Black Americans. A 2019 Pew Research Center survey found that 17% of White adults have taken a DNA test, versus 10% of Black adults. A more recent 2022 YouGov poll found the difference to be even wider: 24% of White respondents vs. 16% of Black respondents have taken a DNA test. In both surveys, White test-takers outnumber Black test-takers by about a factor of 1.5-1.7. And the differences that we are seeing are statistically significant. To check, we ran a simple statistical test to see whether the differences that we are seeing between the groups are likely or unlikely to have occurred by chance. It's a simple test and the results are straightforward. In the Pew survey, we're talking about 246 of the 1,445 White people, but only 22 of the 224 Black people. In the YouGov survey, we're talking about 175 of the 730 White people, but only 22 of the 140 Black people. If we add those two surveys together, we're talking about 421 of 2,175 White people or about 19 percent of White people, but only 44 of the 364 Black people, or about 12 percent of Black people. If we subject those differences to a simple statistical test, the result will tell us that it is extremely unlikely, in this case less than 1 in 1,000 chance, that the differences between these two groups that we are seeing in these two polls are due to random sampling.

This gap in participation has serious implications. Because many more White people are taking these DNA tests, companies like 23andMe and AncestryDNA end up with databases that are disproportionately filled with genetic information from White populations. As a result, their algorithms are better at identifying White ancestry, connecting White users with relatives, and offering detailed reports. Meanwhile, Black users—through no fault of their own—are more likely to receive vague or incomplete results, simply because there’s less reference data from other Black testers. The outcome is a kind of racial bias built into the science: not because the tests are intentionally discriminatory, but because they reflect unequal participation. Until more people from underrepresented backgrounds are included, the accuracy and usefulness of DNA ancestry testing will remain uneven across racial lines.

Furthermore, a frequent misperception is that an individual's ancestors have consistent and reliable contributions to their genealogical family tree as measured by DNA. Autosomal inheritance is not so simple. Each generation the amount of DNA a person receives from a particular ancestor is cut in half and is randomly assorted. At the same time, the genes a person inherits from a given ancestor have random proportions of material coming from each of that ancestor's parents. This is also a misperception. A more correct understanding of autosomal inheritance is that it is not a linear and equal model of DNA received from each ancestor, but rather one of random recombination, with smaller and smaller chunks of DNA received from more and more ancestors with each successive generation. For example, autosomal DNA (remember this only refers to the DNA in the 22 pairs of chromosomes that are not sex chromosomes) is received in equal parts from both one's mother and father (50%) and this halves with each generation, so one should expect to receive about 25% of one's DNA from each of one's four grandparents, 12.5% from each of one's eight great-grandparents, 6.25% from each of one's 16 great-great-grandparents and so on. Thus by the time one reaches one's 7th generation ancestors (128 unique great-great-great-great-great-grandparents) each one is contributing on average only about 0.78% of one's DNA.

However, this expectation does not take into consideration the random nature of DNA inheritance. Recombination, which occurs before eggs and sperm are produced, shuffles and rearranges the segments of DNA received from each parent so that the exact DNA that is inherited from each ancestor is not a sure thing, and is less certain as generations go back in time. At recombination, it is possible to receive large chunks of DNA from a more recent ancestor and have extremely small or no chunks of DNA left over from a more distant ancestor. The small or no chunks of DNA from a more distant ancestor might be lost entirely. Although an individual has 512 genealogical 7th great-grandparents, studies in population genetics show there is a 50% chance that any specific 7th great-grandparent has not passed on any DNA that can be identified as coming from that specific ancestor. At the 10th generation where an individual has 1,024 genealogical ancestors, the chance that a specific ancestor did not pass on autosomal DNA is less than 1%.

The increasing realization of this mismatch of our ancestors (the family tree) with our DNA (a subset of the family tree that still left some detectable genetic signature) is an example of the difference in genealogical ancestry versus genetic ancestry. A person's complete ancestry can not be reconstructed (as it will become obvious) via DNA (once you get beyond six or seven generations back). The increasing number of ancestors as you go back in time will include a number who are real people who may or may not be known through historical research or genealogy, but who contributed no "signature" that is in your DNA. Therefore, autosomal DNA testing is most useful in confirming relatives and ancestry in the past five to seven generations. For most people, at greater distances, DNA is a poor means of accurately reconstructing ancestry due to both the diminishing fraction of DNA inherited and the randomness of recombination.

This has real-world implications for both genetic genealogy and cultural identification. People with documented family lines from a certain population (Acadian, Cajun, etc.) may find their autosomal DNA results reflect only part, or even none, of that heritage. That doesn't mean their genealogy is disproven, just that autosomal testing has its limits. A person with large amounts of Cajun ancestry all the way back nine generations, for instance, may get an ethnicity estimate of only 30–60% "French" or "Acadian" DNA, because the autosomal portions from some ancestors were either too small to be inherited or are now too small to be detected, and because, since ethnicity estimates are calculated based on a company's reference population and current living individuals' shared segments, not based on one's named ancestors, such a report is not a complete map of one's past.

Let us not forget DNA evidence can be particularly useful in genealogical cases when the written record of a family may be incomplete or may not reflect actual biological relationships. For example, men have commonly taken (by adoption, or by social or cultural practice or through remarriage or circumstances) children born to another man and raised them as their own. This is not necessarily fraudulent or misrepresentative of the relationship between the child and the man, as the ties between the biological father and the child may be weak. In such situations, the birth, church, and census records may not show the biological father's name but instead show the name of a legal or social father who has responsibility for the child. This may also create uncertainty for a genealogist or genetic genealogist who does not have the complete documentation for the family history of the child in question, and cannot be certain that the named father is the actual biological father. Maternity, on the other hand, is usually known (because of the mother's physical presence at the birth of the child, and ease of documentation) and therefore more likely to be accurately documented both in historical records and in DNA.

In the final analysis, DNA is a tool to be used with other tools, and has its limitations. The long-practiced art of genealogical study including family records, historical documents, and oral tradition as well as community continuity, remains a means for study of past generations of ancestors where DNA testing is not yet available. When too many generations have passed, DNA is subject to continuing fragmentation and randomization. DNA can help to show part of where an individual's ancestors came from recently, but it is not a comprehensive indicator of where all their ancestors came from further back. As many as several hundred persons are represented as ancestors in a given individual's family tree, but their genome will not necessarily show their genetic contribution. DNA testing is a valuable complement to other aspects of genealogical research but it is also a way to be wrong that has long term implications if not understood.

The Dangers of a Narrow Definition

Limiting Cajun identity to an ethnic test of Acadian blood quantum is not only historically inaccurate; it has practical consequences. Such a narrow definition risks alienating whole communities who are part of and have helped to sustain Cajun culture. For example, if one were to say "only those with mainly Acadian ancestry count as Cajun," then what of the Creole of color from St. Martin Parish who speaks French and cooks the same gumbos and attends the same Catholic Mass? What of the Isleño-descended family in Plaquemines Parish who fished the bayous with Cajun neighbors and now see themselves as part of that fabric? Such people could be told that they are not "Cajun enough" and thus risk being left out of cultural initiatives, funding or historical recognition. In fact, scholars have noted that as Cajun cultural preservation became a focus in the late 20th century, Creole people of color sometimes felt marginalized – which in part explains their work to assert a parallel Creole identity. A strict ethnic approach can inadvertently create a hierarchy that privileges one ancestry over others in the telling of Louisiana's history. It can also lead to fragmentation: if Cajun identity were to become an exclusive club based on genealogy, it would splinter the very coalition that composes French Louisiana heritage.

Thankfully, many Cajun cultural activists and organizations have taken a more ecumenical view, and see Cajun culture as “a gumbo” of various influences. The inclusive narrative touted by current historians (literally at times called a “mosaic of peoples” approach) is that we should embrace and celebrate all the ethnic tributaries that flow into Cajun and Creole culture. Cajun heritage is found not only in ancestry charts, but in the shared experiences of life in Acadiana – in the family kitchens where grand-mère’s recipe is followed, in the parish churches where French hymns once rang, on the dancehall floors where accordions and fiddles beckon everyone to two-step, and on the front porches where elders regale listeners with stories in French. These are the touchstones of being Cajun. They belong to anyone who lives them, Acadian surname or not.

In summary, a reframed Cajun definition that allows for both of these statements to be true would sound something like this: First, that virtually every Cajun has an ancestral connection (near or remote) to the 18th-century Acadian exiles, and that the Acadian experience is a foundational part of Cajun identity. And second, that being Cajun does not derive from and cannot be limited to that one ancestral line, because Cajun has from the beginning been a broad and fluid cultural definition. The Cajuns of south Louisiana are those who participate in a certain way of life that is the product of the Acadian-French core of the region, but that has also been enriched and enlivened by many others. They are primarily French-speaking Catholics, yes – that language and religious heritage is a shared element – but they can be white or Black or Native; they can have surnames of French, Spanish, or German origin; they can have entered the culture through marriage or through family lines that intermarried; they can self-identify as Cajun or Creole or both or some other combination of ethnic labels. The unifying factor is that they are the ones who live the folkways of a region that came to be known as Acadiana. To limit who is or is not Cajun by such a narrow ancestry test is to obscure the richness of the whole. As one academic put it: “true Cajun identity is dynamic, evolving, and inclusive – defined by those who live, practice, and preserve the culture, not just by those who can trace a direct line to Acadia.” The Cajun narrative, in other words, is a story of both continuity and change: of the Acadian founders who gave it life, and of the many others who have come to sit at the table. And if we respect that diversity while also acknowledging the unifying power of language, faith, and tradition, we come to a fuller understanding of what it is to be Cajun. It is to be part of a living tradition that is, at its heart, Acadian-French and Catholic, but that is also capacious enough to welcome all who add their voices to the chorus.

References

Ancelet, Barry Jean. Cajun Country. (with Jay Edwards and Glen Pitre). Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991.
A richly detailed ethnographic and historical exploration of Louisiana’s Cajun heartland. Blending academic research with lived experience, the authors examine the everyday lives of Cajuns through their language, folk traditions, foodways, architecture, religious practices, and seasonal celebrations. The book goes beyond romanticized or stereotypical portrayals to document the nuances of Cajun identity as a dynamic, evolving culture rooted in adaptation and resilience. Drawing from oral histories, fieldwork, and archival materials, Cajun Country places Cajun traditions in the broader context of historical displacement, regional politics, and cultural revival. It also includes maps, photographs, and firsthand accounts that bring the material to life. As one of the most accessible and comprehensive introductions to Cajun culture from scholarly authors deeply embedded in the region, this book is considered foundational in both Cajun studies and Southern folklife scholarship.
Bernard, Shane K. “Cajuns.” 64 Parishes Encyclopedia. Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 2020. https://64parishes.org/entry/cajuns.
Bernard explains that Cajuns are primarily descendants of French-speaking Acadian exiles who settled in Louisiana. He emphasizes their traditional identity as rural, Catholic, and French-speaking. Bernard also details the mixed ethnic origins of many Cajun surnames, showing that Cajun culture absorbed families of German, Spanish, Anglo-Irish, and other backgrounds. A quote from Cajun fiddler Dennis McGee underscores how linguistic and cultural assimilation outweighed strict genetic ancestry.
Bernard, Shane K. “Disappearing Cajuns and Creoles? Ethnic Identity and the Limits of Census Data.” Bayou Teche Dispatches (blog), June 2024. https://bayoutechedispatches.blogspot.com.
Bernard analyzes the dramatic decrease in self-reported Cajun and Acadian ancestry from 1990 to 2020 based on U.S. Census and American Community Survey data. He attributes this to inconsistent ethnic self-identification, with many Cajuns choosing labels like “white,” “French,” or “American” instead of “Cajun.” He also discusses underreporting among Black or Creole individuals and cites Carl Brasseaux’s observation that census counts underrepresent Cajun communities.
Brasseaux, Carl A. Acadian to Cajun: Transformation of a People, 1803–1877 (University Press of Mississippi, 1992)
Explores how Acadians adapted in Louisiana after exile, blending with other cultures and forming a distinct Cajun identity.
Brasseaux, Carl A. The Founding of New Acadia: The Beginnings of Acadian Life in Louisiana, 1765–1803 (LSU Press, 1987)
A comprehensive account of the Acadian exile and their early settlements in South Louisiana.
Brasseaux, Carl A. French, Cajun, Creole, Houma: A Primer on Francophone Louisiana (LSU Press, 2005)
A concise but detailed breakdown of the different French-speaking populations of Louisiana.
Bryc, Katarzyna, Eric Y. Durand, et al. “The Genetic Ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans across the United States.” The American Journal of Human Genetics 96, no. 1 (2015): 37–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2014.11.010.
This peer-reviewed study, conducted using 23andMe data, provides one of the most comprehensive overviews of ancestry in self-identified racial groups across the U.S. It found that self-identified European Americans have, on average, 0.19% African ancestry, with significantly higher frequencies in the South. Notably, about 3.5% of European Americans in Louisiana have African ancestry of at least 1%, and more than 5% have over 2%. This supports the idea that African admixture is more common among Southern Whites, including Cajuns. The article is highly respected in population genetics and forms a cornerstone for admixture research.
Estes, Roberta. “Acadian Ancestors and Their DNA.” DNAeXplained – Genetic Genealogy, April 9, 2024. https://dna-explained.com/2024/04/09/acadian-ancestors-and-their-dna/
In this detailed blog post, genetic genealogist Roberta Estes summarizes the results of the Acadian AmerIndian Ancestry DNA Project, which tracks Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA, and autosomal markers of known Acadian lines. The project confirms that intermarriage between Acadians and Indigenous groups such as the Mi’kmaq was common in early Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Estes notes that while some descendants have detectable Indigenous segments, many show little to no measurable Native DNA due to recombination and generational dilution. This source provides direct evidence that Mi’kmaq admixture is historically grounded and often genetically traceable—though not universally present.
Experience New Orleans. “Cajuns and Creoles – What’s the Difference?” Experience New Orleans. https://www.experienceneworleans.com/cajuns-and-creoles.html.
This article explains that all Cajuns are technically Creoles by virtue of being Louisiana-born descendants of Acadian exiles, but not all Creoles are Cajuns. It highlights Acadian ancestry and Catholic French culture as core to Cajun identity, while Creole identity spans broader racial and ethnic origins.
Henry, Jacques, and Carl L. Bankston III. “Ethnic Self-Identification and Symbolic Stereotyping: The Portrayal of Louisiana Cajuns.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 24, no. 6 (2001): 1020–1045. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870120077594.
Henry and Bankston argue that Cajun identity is more symbolic and cultural than genealogical. The term “Cajun,” once pejorative, became a marker of pride and is now widely used by people with little or no Acadian ancestry. The authors emphasize its connection to working-class rural identity and regional belonging.
Pew Research Center. “Public’s Views on Human Evolution, Climate Change and the Big Bang Vary by Religious Group.” June 6, 2019. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/06/what-the-public-knows-about-genetic-testing-cloning-and-other-genetics-topics/.
This report provides data on Americans’ familiarity with genetic testing, relevant for understanding the growing use of DNA ancestry tests among people exploring Cajun identity. It shows how public knowledge varies by education, religious affiliation, and age group.
Ray, R. Celeste & Lassiter, Luke E. (2003). Signifying Serpents and Mardi Gras Runners: Representing Identity in Selected Souths. University of Georgia Press, p. 45.
People of Acadiana have long articulated their own understandings of what it means to be Cajun. Brandon Moreau, a Cajun from Basile, Louisiana, described Cajun identity as “an inclusive term designating region, descent, or heritage, not race.” He further recounted a personal experience that illustrates how language and identity can be perceived differently across racial lines. Reflecting on a conversation with a close friend, he recalled, “We were all talking in the hall, and I said I was a coonass. She said she was Cajun, but that she would never be a coonass. She's Black and it offended her.”
Rundquist, Marie. Cajun by Any Other Name: Recovering the Lost History of a Family and a People. 2012.
Rundquist shares her personal discovery of hidden Acadian and Mi’kmaq ancestry through genealogical research and mitochondrial DNA testing. Her findings challenge assumptions about racial and ethnic purity and highlight the indigenous roots often overlooked in Cajun genealogy. She also leads the “Amerindian Ancestry out of Acadia” project, which documents similar cases.
YouGov. “One in Five Americans Have Taken a Mail-In DNA Test.” YouGov America, February 7, 2022. https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/41896-one-in-five-americans-have-taken-mail-dna-test.
This survey shows the increasing prevalence of at-home DNA testing in the U.S., which plays a role in reshaping how individuals define ethnic identities like Cajun. DNA discoveries are helping people uncover mixed or unexpected heritage, leading to broader definitions of ancestry.
Arhoolie Foundation. Interview with Clifton Chenier. Arhoolie Foundation Archives, date n.d. Quoted in “Louisiana who speaks French… ‘They’re white. They’re all white… Now, you can call me that all day.’” .
Throughout South Louisiana history, individuals of Black or Native ancestry have self-identified as Cajun. Accordionist Clifton Chenier called himself the “Black Cajun Frenchman,” and early musician Amédé Ardoin spoke only Cajun French. Some 19th-century documents refer to “Acadian Creoles,” suggesting that Acadian-descended families were part of the broader Creole population.
Using the reported sample sizes (approximately White: N≈1445 in Pew, N≈730 in YouGov; Black: N≈224 in Pew, N≈140 in YouGov), two-proportion z-tests confirm these gaps are unlikely due to chance. For the Pew figures (17% vs. 10%), we estimate about 246 of 1445 White and 22 of 224 Black respondents reported testing. This gives a z-statistic ≈2.66 (two-tailed p≈0.008), so the White vs. Black difference is significant at p<0.01. For YouGov (24% vs. 16%), roughly 175 of 730 White and 22 of 140 Black respondents reported testing, yielding z≈2.07 (p≈0.038, significant at p<0.05). Combining both datasets (≈2175 White, 364 Black respondents with ≈421 White vs. 44 Black testers), the gap is even stronger (z≈3.32, p≈0.0009). In all cases p≪0.05, confirming the disparity is highly significant.

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