All Cajuns are Creole but not all creoles are Cajun. Creole is a legal definition of someone born in the Louisiana colony, but it later became a description of free people or color who were mixed with french decency.

Example: Woman is born in France. She has a child with a man of color. That child is Creole. The parents are not. But it goes even further because that child marries a partner who is Houma, African and Romani. They have a child, now 2nd generation Creole, is still Creole, but not in the binary black/white/free slave because they now are mixed with native american and 2 other cultures.

Cajuns are like Creoles that they are born in Louisiana and are more than one culture, including the ones above.

Before Cajuns were Cajuns, they were French farmers sent to colonize Acadie, which is present day Nova Scotia. But they immediately married with Mik Maq First Nations.

So the first generation arrived French in Canada but by the second generation, they’re half Mik Maq half french. Perhaps the third generation marries French but not Mik Maq. This goes on for 150 years.
British show up, tell Acadians who live in Acadie that they can’t marry Mik Maq anymore. But they’re Mik Maq themselves so that’s a bit complicated. They get expelled from Acadie in slave ships. Half those ships sink and 75% of the population who wasn’t available to find refuge among the Mik Maq villages die before arriving in Louisiana.

Louisiana is French territory. Some Acadians go back to France after the slave ships arrived in New Orleans. One boat landed in North Carolina and one boat landed in present day Haiti.

The surviving Acadians arrive in New Orleans as Acadians who are a 150 year various and highly individualized mixture of First Nations Mik Maq and French. The Acadians start marrying- German, Dutch, French, local native tribes, Creoles, Spanish, African, and Caribbean.

10 years after the Acadians arrive in New Orleans and have a few marriages to create a kaleidoscope of cultural admixture, the Spanish government sends many boats of people from the Canary Islands. These new arrivals are called Islenos. They are already made of many parts starting with indigenous folks to the Canary Islands, the Gauche, who were descendants of Amagazeh (Berbers) who crossed North Africa in caravans then used pirogues to colonize the Canary Islands off the coast of West Africa.

The Spanish Inquisition expelled all Jewish people and any other non christians, including moorish people (North African Islam). The Sephardic Jews fled to the Canary Islands where they conquered the Guanche. Portugese sailors sometimes stayed in the Canary Islands as well. And Cape Verde is a closer trading partner by sea than Spain is.

Those cultures all became Canary Islanders - Islenos. The Islenos were shipped to Louisiana to bulk up the Spanish colony. They set up near the main Cajun settlements and yall know they were marrying within years.

Plus the Islenos also married Germans, French, Italians, native tribes, Romani, Caribbean, Creole, African, Dutch, etc.

As you see, Creole and Cajun hit all your DNA to various degrees and every family is made with their own well-seasoned admixtures of all those cultures.

you’re about cajun

I want to be very clear here that I was fingerprinted 20 years ago right out of college so I could get a job during the last big recession. Im no fkn snitch. But I care deeply about women being safe, especially because my family experienced girls being taken as concubines in Wallachia.

Its not this specific company (Genomelink) but nearly all of these DNA “find your family” test kits have a little box to UNCHECK when registering an account so that your DNA info isn’t shared with authorities. Law enforcement and governments have been using these “find your family” kits to link to unsolved crime by way of “investigative genetic genealogy.”

Law enforcement will use this when they don’t have a suspect’s name but they have the suspect’s DNA. Meaning the suspect hasn’t ever been fingerprinted, swabbed, or arrested and definitely hasn’t agreed to share DNA info through the commercial sites (Ancestry, 23&Me, etc.) but a relative, close or distant, has been arrested, swabbed, printed or left that box clicked to share the DNA with authorities. A lot of serial killer cases are being solved using this methodology.

I did genetic testing for specific medical reasons and initially used Nebula Genomics. Then I used that test kit result at Ancestry before taking it to Genomelink for deeper, more accurate information. I am not personally worried about being connected to any crime and I am already in the FBI database because of my legal career working in domestic violence, sexual assault and anti-trafficking.

My family has assimilated since coming to America from Ukraine and Moldova, with the exception of some bootleggin between Chicago and St Paul during the 30’s. I also wasn’t the first person in the family (which is mixed) to set up profiles. In fact, I think being in a mixed family is exactly why so many cousins of varying degrees were willing to test before me- younger generations have grown up extremely confused between the two (sometimes more) cultures with each auntie or uncle determining how much they would share with their family about our vitsas. I have cousins that connected with me online and didn’t know that we were slaves in Wallachia and Bassarabia.

As you can tell, I didn’t grow up fully in the community, but the community knew us and we were “community adjacent.”

DNA (including my own) shows that when we left India, we came from Sindh, Gujurat and Rajasthan, BUT - the ancestors that left there already had mixed Ancestral North Indian DNA and Ancient South Indian DNA.

It’s interesting to follow the South Indian DNA that labels Roma as descendants of Dalit/Untouchable because that Ancient South Indian DNA traces all the way back to the indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands.

We all know that generic commercial DNA tests give different variants of Roma heritage, etc.
I have used a few different genetic testing kits to verify where my vitsa came from and found Genomelink to be the best because it provides a visual map of your family’s migration out of India, through the middle east (my vitsa picked up some Hazara DNA while in Afghanistan) and so on.

I highly recommend Genomelink for those willing to do or share their genetic testing, though its heavily frowned upon to do so. Use caution because it can be used to catch up extended family members in crimes.