♀Eliza Steed

Eliza Steed (dates unknown) is known only as the mother named in her son’s marriage record at St. Gabriel, Iberville Parish, Louisiana, in 1851. She was the great-great-grandmother of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through her son John Cotreall (born about 1820), Marie Virginia Cottrelle (1858–1937) and Jeffrey Delahorne (1899–1929).

On 15 May 1851 the curate of St. Gabriel recorded the marriage of her son John Cotreall to Emilie Croker and described the groom as the son of John Cotreall and Eliza Steed. The entry gives no dates or places for either parent, and no baptism, marriage, death or other record of Eliza Steed herself has been found. In the register the words “a native of Mill county, Virginia” follow directly after her name, but they describe her son, not her. No Virginia county bears the name Mill, so the county meant is not known. Her son was born in Virginia about 1820, according to the census of 1870; where Eliza Steed herself lived, and whether she ever came to Louisiana, is not recorded.

Notes

A reading of the damaged register image once gave her name as “Eliza Reed” and took her for an earlier wife of the groom; the published abstract gives Eliza Steed, and the entry’s wording makes her his mother.