Just down the street from the St. Landry Parish Courthouse is where Clerk of Court Charles Jagneaux is opening up his elections and archives center. Inside of this center is where Jagneaux is keeping generations worth of archives and court records, which is opening up an opportunity for something that Jagneaux is calling genealogical tourism.

“Once you’ve seen an old building, you’ve seen them all,” said Jagneaux. “But if you have a family history here in St. Landry Parish you want to learn about it. And you also want to know where they lived.”

With that idea in mind, Jagneaux wanted to provide a space where tourist and residents alike can look through the parish’s court records and read the tangible documents with their ancestor’s signatures for themselves.

“They’ll also have computer evidence that they can do additional research on stuff that’s not in a particular set of records,” said Jagneaux. 

Jagneaux says St. Landry Parish has a deep set of records concerning families, making the parish a prime candidate for this type of tourism, and opening the doors for even more people to make their way to Opelousas to visit the center.

“We have some NBA players whose ancestors lived here,” he said. “Beyonce has roots here. Any number of people have roots in St. Landry Parish. And when they find out about it, they want to do the research, and they want to come visit and see where their home place was for their ancestors. So, we call it genealogical tourism. No bricks and mortar, just records.”

Jagneaux says the election and archive center should be ready to open at the end of May.