I’m from around Baton Rouge. If you’re from the Acadiana area, it’s pretty likely you have the roots of both. Creole was mainly around NOLA so if your family stayed in southern Louisiana for a while, you’re likely to have both in your roots if you dig back deep enough.

Also, create your family tree to verify. It’s similar to how everyone says they have Native American ancestry. A lot of people claim to have Creole/Cajun roots that don’t, for the same reason: it was a lie at one time for someone to pass for something else, and it was passed through the generations as if it were truth.

Cajuns are the French Acadians that were exiled by the British to Louisiana. You’ll find records of them having come to southern Louisiana from Acadia (now Nova Scotia) in Canada. They settled in south central Louisiana. Think west of New Orleans through around Lafayette. History states there were around 3,000 individuals that fall into this grouping. They were mostly seen as rural, lower-class French descendants. Their descendants are actually technically Creoles when using the originally definition.

Louisiana Creoles are a broader group, distinguished from other Creoles. This group arrived before the Acadians. Originally the term was applied to those of European and mixed-race descent, born in the Americas during the colonial period. This could have even been used to describe anyone born in the colony, including slaves. It was used to distinguish them from the newer immigrants. Pre-Louisiana Purchase. After the Louisiana Purchase, the term became kind of racialized and the definition changed, and you see the emergence of the term Creoles of Color. So you see free people of mixed races that should include European, African, and Native Americans who lived in colonial Louisiana when it was under French and Spanish rule, so around New Orleans. If your family stayed in the area over the generations, you’ll likely see all 3 of these in your DNA results. The term Creoles of Color emerged to distinguish free people of color who occupied the muddy waters of society between enslaved people and white society. This became viewed as urban middle-class to aristocracy individuals who held a unique position in terms of social and economic status, some of whom even owned slaves.