Beyoncé Family History
Overview
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles was born on September 4th, 1981 to Mathew and Tina Knowles in Houston, Texas. It was her mother who chose her first name for her so as to perpetuate her own family name.
Beyoncé grew up in Houston and was singing at a young age. At the age of fifteen, she became part of a girl band named Destiny’s Child which her father Mathew managed. Destiny’s Child was to become one of the best-selling girl groups of all time.
Beyoncé went solo after Destiny’s Child disbanded in 2005 and split with her manager and father Mathew in 2010. Since that time she has been acclaimed as the decade’s defining pop star. “No one dominated music in the 2010’s like Queen Bey.”
In the 2020’s Beyoncé has remained a star and broadened her appeal. In the 2025 Grammys she won Album of the Year and best Country Album for her Cowboy Carter.
Knowles in Georgia and Alabama
The first sighting of this African American Knowles family was in the rural county of Chattooga in NW Georgia.
Chattooga, Georgia. This used to be Indian territory. However, the Government forcibly removed the Cherokees from the area in the 1830’s in what has been called “the Trail of Tears.” White settlers, many of them Scots Irish, replaced them. The county population was 7,000 in 1860, of which around 30 percent were slaves.
John B. Knowles or Knowls (both spellings appeared) was recorded in Chattooga in the 1860 census as a slave-owner. Henry and Elmira Knowls/Knowles may have taken their names from him. Their first three children were born in Chattooga while slavery was still in place.
Gadsden, Alabama. Henry’s fourth child James Issac (Ike) was born in Chattooga after emancipation in 1867.
When he was in his early twenties he made the move across the state border into nearby Cherokee county in Alabama. Ike later migrated around 1920 to the industrial town of Gadsden.
Ike’s son Taylor followed him to Gadsden. And Taylor’s son Matthew and grandson Mathew (father of Beyoncé) were both born in Gadsden. They grew up poor. Matthew was a truck driver and his wife worked days as a maid for a white family. They had no indoor plumbing at home.
However, because of his mother’s civil rights’ activism, young Mathew was one of the first black students to attend Gadsden High School in the 1960’s. And he made it to college under a basketball scholarship.
Beyoncé’s Creole Heritage
When Mathew Knowles first started dating Tina Beyoncé, he thought she was probably white. In fact her lighter skin was due to her Creole heritage. Their daughter Beyoncé has identified more with her mother’s mixed Creole background.
Grandparents. Beyoncé’s maternal grandparents were Lumis Beyincé, a longshoreman, and Agnez DeRouen, a successful seamstress.
They both came from New Iberia, Louisiana. Lumis’s grandfather was Jean Boyance, born in France in 1894, who had arrived in Louisiana in the 1920’s. Agnez had deeper Creole roots there.
They lived out their married lives in Galveston, Texas. They raised three boys there, as well as Tina their youngest. Note that it was the registrar in Galveston in 1954 that miswrote Tina’s last name as Beyoncé instead of Beyincé when she was born.
From Beyoncé to Broussard. Tina and Agnez’s maternal line went back to a Broussard family in New Iberia, Louisiana as follows:
- from Tina Knowles nee Beyoncé (b. 1954)
- to Agnez Beyincé nee DeRouen (b. 1909)
- and to Odelia DeRouen nee Broussard (b. 1864).
Odelia had eighteen children, two of whom died. She never attended school and was unable to read or write. She and her husband Eugene, a farmer, were described in US records as “mulatto,” a term at the time to describe people with one black parent and one white parent or with two “mulatto” parents. Agnez, born in 1909, was the youngest of her childrem.
The Broussard line in Louisiana went back further as follows:
- from Rene Broussard (1824-1906)
- to Rosemond Broussard le jeune (1801-1864)
- to Joseph Broussard dit Josephat (1771-1836)
- to Amand Broussard dit Neausoleil (1745-1818), born in Acadia, New France
- and to Joseph Broussard dit Neausoleil (1702-1765), born in Acadia, New France
Odelia’s father Rene Broussard had married Rose Hebert in 1845 and she bore him three daughters. Maybe he then tired of her or he wanted sons.
He turned his attention instead to the domestic servant Josephine Lacey. She bore him all his subsequent children, thirteen in total including Odelia. All of them were baptized at the St. Peter’s Catholic Church in New Iberia. The church records show that both parents were illiterate and could neither read nor write.
Rene may or may not have married Josephine. Perhaps it did not matter. Theirs was apparently an open and consensual relationship that continued through most of his adult life. Josephine herself had been the daughter of a marriage between a white merchant Joseph Lacey and a black slave Rosalie. Their union probably accounts for the subsequent “mulatto” term used.
Early Times. The Broussards in Louisiana were ultimately descended from Francois Broussard who had come to Canada from France in 1672.
His son Joseph, born in Acadia in 1702, had been a leader of the French resistance against the British there and of the French Acadians who had made it all the way to Spanish-controlled Louisiana in 1765. That was to be his last accomplishment. He died in Louisiana six months after his arrival there.
Slavery was to be associated with the Broussards from an early time in Louisiana, starting with Joseph’s son Amand and his wife Ann in the 1770’s.
Beyoncé Knowles’ Family Tree
- Beyoncé’s Paternal Line
- Henry Knowles (b. 1837) m. Elmira (b. 1844) in Chatooga, Georgia
- – Amanda Knowls (b. 1860)
- – Martha Knowls (b. 1863)
- – Nelson Knowls (b. 1865)
- – James Issac (Ike) Knowles (1867-1949)
- – John Knowles (1871-1928)
- – Elizabeth Nicholson nee Knowles (b. 1874)
- James Issac (Ike) Knowles m. Sarah Dixon (1881-1920) in Cherokee county, Alabama in 1898
- – Taylor Knowles (1899-1975)
- – Florence Knowles (1905-2003) m. Booker Horton
- – Exie Knowles (1908-2004) m. Chesley Clifton
- – Josephine Knowles (1910-2008) m. Leonard Covington
- – John Knowles (1914-1991)
- Taylor Knowles m. Girlie Miller (1904-1983) in Cherokee county, Alabama in 1922
- – Taylor Knowles (1922-1987) m. Esta Mae Stone
- – Martha Knowles (1925-1998) m. Rudolph Avery
- – Matthew (Big Mack) Knowles (1926-1996), truck driver
- – Earnest Knowles (1929-2013)
- – Warren Knowles (1933-2010)
- Matthew Knowles m. Lue Helen Hogue (1921-1997) in Gadsden, Alabama around 1950
- – Mathew Knowles (b. 1952), record executive
- Mathew Knowles m. Celestine (Tina) Beyoncé (b. 1954) in Houston in 1980 (divorced in 2011); rem. Gena Avery (b. 1964) in 2013
- – Beyoncé Knowles (b. 1981) the superstar, with Tina
- – Solange Knowles (b. 1986) another recording star m. Daniel Smith (divorced) and Alan Ferguson (separated), with Tina
- – Nixon Knowles (b. 2010) with Alexandra Wright
- – Koi Knowles (b. 2010) with Taqoya Branscomb
- Beyoncé Knowles m. Shawn Carter aka rapper Jay-Z (b. 1969) in 2008
- – Blue Ivy Carter (b. 2012)
- – twins Rumi and Sir Carter (b. 2017)
- Beyoncés Maternal Line
- Rosemond Broussard le jeune (1800-1864) m. Josephine Broussard (1801-1847) in St. Martin, Louisiana in 1818
- – Constance Broussard (1821-1883) m. Charles Delcambre
- – Lastie Broussard (1824-1904)
- – Eloy (Rene) Broussard (1824-1906)
- – Felix Broussard (b. 1826) m. Marcellite Boudreaux
- – Louisa Broussard (1839-1883)
- Eloy (Rene) Broussard from New Iberia, Louisiana m. Rose Hebert (1827-1865) in 1845; and Josephine (Tine) Lacey (1826-1922)
- – Amelia Broussard (1847-1897) m. Joseph Boudreaux, with Rose
- – Rose Broussard (1849-1827) m. Joseph Delcambre, with Rose
- – Emilina Broussard (1851-1924) m. Desire Thibodeaux, with Rose
- – Pierre Broussard (1847-1925) m. Marcellienne Delcambre, with Josephine
- – Julien Broussard (1850-1932) m. Rosalie Louviere
- – Anatole Broussard (1855-1919) m Elizabeth Gobleur
- – Francois Broussard (1857-1939)
- – Louis Broussard (1859-1921) m. Olivanie Dugas
- – Eugene Broussard (1860-1921) m. Emma Broussard
- – Rosalie Broussard )b. 1861) m. Francois Loignon
- – Jean (John) Broussard (1862-1943) m. Marie Audibert
- – Odelia Broussard (1864-1929)
- – Eugenie Broussard (1866-1937) m. Felix Vincent
- – Edouard Broussard (1868-1930) m. Regina Gobert
- – Ovide Broussard (1871-1899) m. Marie Olivier
- Odelia Broussard from New Iberia, Louisiana m. Eugene DeRouen (1861-1937) in 1881 and moved to Vermilion, Louisiana around 1900
- – Emma DeRouen (1881-1927) m. Willie Ruffin
- – Elvina DeRouen (1882-1937) m. John Roy
- – Theresa DeRouen (1883-1964) m. John Cole
- – Olivier DeRouen (1886-1974) m. Victorine Broussard
- – Elias DeRouen (1888-1960), moved to Texas
- – Antonie DeRouen (1890-1960) m. Elvina Melancon
- – Armand DeRouen (1892-1978) m. Adalisca Mayard
- – Abraham DeRouen (1894-1973) m. Clementine Sutton
- – Antonia DeRouen (b. 1895) m. Joe Hamilton
- – Arthur DeRouen (1897-1964) m. Mary Adadella
- – Lydia DeRouen (1899-1985) m. Jesse Tanner, moved to Galveston, Texas
- – Ida DeRouen (1903-1969)
- – Joseph DeRouen (1905-1986)
- – Amanda (Mandy) Brown nee DeRouen (b. 1907)
- – Agnez DeRouen (1909-1980), moved to Galveston, Texas
- Agnez DeRouen from Vermillion parish, Louisiana m. Mervin Marsh in 1926 (divorced in 1940); rem. Lumis Albert Beyincé (1910-1982) in 1940 and moved to Galveston, Texas around 1950
- – Selena Marsh (1927-2019) m. John Rittenhouse, with Mervin
- – John (Slack) Marsh (1929-2006) m. Barbara Senette, with Mervin
- – Roland (Butch) Beyincé (1946-2024) m. Jeanette, with Lumis
- – Lawrence (Larry) Beyincé (b. 1948), with Lumis. The singer/songwriter Angela (Angie) Beyincé (b. 1976) is his daughter.
- – Lumis (Skip) Beyincé (1949-2016) m. Cynthia, with Lumis
- – Celestine (Tina) Beyoncé (b. 1954 in Galveston), with Lumis
- Celestine (Tina) Beyoncé m. Mathew Knowles (b. 1952) in Houston in 1980, divorced in 2011; rem. Richard Lawson (b. 1947) in 2015, divorced in 2023
- – Beyoncé Knowles (b. 1981) m. rapper Jay-Z in 2008, with Mathew
- – Solange Knowles (b. 1986), with Mathew
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