Rendez Vous de Juillet : Jari Honora

Rendez-vous de l’Alliance: Jari C. Honora – Discovering the Creole Roots of Pope Leo
📅 Tuesday, July 1, 2025
🕡 6:30 PM
📍 Alliance Française de La Nouvelle-Orléans – 1519 Jackson Avenue

What happens when history, heritage, and identity converge in one astonishing discovery?

Join us for a special Rendez-vous de l’Alliance with Jari C. Honora, the genealogist who uncovered the Creole ancestry of  Pope Leo. Through meticulous historical and genealogical research, Honora traced Pope Leo’s lineage back more than two centuries to Louisiana’s Creole communities along Bayou Lafourche and the German-Acadian Coast.

A Certified Genealogist® and native New Orleanian, Honora will walk us through the journey of this remarkable discovery, shedding light on how genealogy can reveal hidden connections, reclaim silenced stories, and reshape how we understand our cultural landscape. The evening will also explore the broader significance of Creole heritage in Louisiana—and how those stories live on in families, music, and memory.

Jari Honora currently serves as Family Historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection and has worked on major projects including Finding Your Roots and the Georgetown Memory Project. He is a board member of the Louisiana Historical Society, the Genealogical Research Society of New Orleans, and a trustee of the Board for Certification of Genealogists.

This event is free and open to all, with a reception to follow.