One day in June 1900, a census taker visited the New Orleans home of Joseph and Louise Martinez, Pope Leo XIV’s grandparents. They lived on North Prieur Street, just north of the French Quarter, a neighborhood considered the cradle of Louisiana’s Creole people of color.
Joseph N. Martinez was recorded as a Black man, born in “Hayti.” His wife, two daughters and an aunt, were also marked “B” in a column denoting “color or race.”
Ten years later, the census came knocking again. The family had grown — there were six daughters now. Other things changed, too: Mr. Martinez’s place of birth was listed this time as Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic. And the family’s race is recorded as “W,” for white.
That simple switch, from “B” to “W,” suggests a complex, and very American, story.
For much of the 19th century, New Orleans operated under a racial system that distinguished among white people, Black people and mixed-race Creole people like the Martinezes. But by the early 20th century, Jim Crow was the order of the day, and it tended to deal in black and white, with myriad restrictions imposed upon any person of color.
The selection of Robert Francis Prevost as the first pope from the United States, and the subsequent revelation of his Creole roots, have brought those historical realities to the fore — and an interview with the pope’s brother John Prevost, 71, connected them to the present day.
Late Thursday, Mr. Prevost, who lives in the suburbs of Chicago, told The New York Times that his brothers always considered themselves to be white. As for his mother, he said, “I really couldn’t tell you for sure, she might have just said Spanish.”
And so, a story of American racial rigidity also suggests a certain fluidity, constrained by the often harsh racist past that is an inescapable part of the country’s story. New Orleans is not unique in its exposure to such stories. But it knows them well.
Jari Honora, a local genealogist and historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection, a museum in the French Quarter, discovered the new pope’s New Orleans roots on Thursday. Since then, he and others, including in the Dominican Republic, have been pushing to find out as much as they can about Leo’s family history.
In addition to the census records, much of the information recovered so far has come by way of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, which maintains thousands of records dating back to 1720. Katie Beeman, the director of the archdiocese’s archives, has found marriage records from 1887 for the pope’s maternal grandparents, and from 1864 for his great-grandparents.
Ms. Beeman was especially excited when she uncovered the record that Eugenie Grambois, the pope’s great-grandmother, had been baptized in 1840 at St. Louis Cathedral, the spired basilica in the heart of the French Quarter that is among the city’s most recognizable landmarks. Ms. Beeman called her mother to share the news.
At a special mass at the cathedral on Friday, Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans brought attention to the discovery. The pope’s ancestor had received her first sacrament in the same font that is still in the back of the church.
“There are many connections we have with him,” the archbishop said in his homily.
Similar sentiments were expressed across New Orleans, especially among those who share Leo’s Creole heritage and now feel a special connection to the new pontiff.
“This is like a reward from God given to us for everything we’ve struggled through,” said Denease Sorapuru, who identifies as Creole and descended from an ancestral mix of Irish, Italian, Basque and Native American heritage.
On Friday, Ms. Beeman and other researchers and genealogists continued digging, hoping to identify even more of the pope’s family tree in Louisiana and beyond. “It seems like it just keeps going,” she said.
One major question that historians hope to resolve is the birthplace of the pope’s grandfather. Though he married into an old New Orleans family, records indicate that Joseph Martinez might have been relatively new to the city.
His marriage certificate matches the 1900 census record showing that he was born in Haiti. But other documents list the Dominican Republic or Louisiana as his birthplace.
Nailing that down has become a goal for historians in the Caribbean, said Edwin Espinal Hernández, a genealogist and the director of the law school at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra, a Roman Catholic university in the Dominican Republic.
Experts have yet to find Mr. Martinez’s birth certificate, but have found other indications that he was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Mr. Espinal Hernández said.
Whatever the answer, many in New Orleans knew enough about the family’s roots by Friday to feel a greater kinship with the pope.
Michael White, 70, a jazz clarinetist, bandleader and retired music educator who grew up Catholic in New Orleans, said Leo’s selection had left him “shocked and surprised and happy.”
“I think he will get a lot of support from people down here,” Dr. White said. “I think there will be an outpouring of not only pride, but you know, a desire to, to help him and hope that things can become better for the Catholic Church, but also for people here.”
Ms. Sorapuru had a humble request. She remembers the thrill of Pope John Paul II’s visit to New Orleans in 1987. Leo needs to come, too, she said, and preside over Mass at St. Louis Cathedral.
As far as she’s concerned, his roots are enough to make him a product of New Orleans. And she wants to welcome him home.
Robert Chiarito and Frances Robles contributed reporting.
