The genealogical findings underline the significance of Pope Leo XIV being not only the first pope from the United States, but also being the first with documented ancestral ties to Louisiana’s Creoles of color, whose community has historical ties to people of African descent.

After his father died, Mark Charles Roudané, a retired Minnesota schoolteacher, began going through his dad’s papers. There were scores of binders, the records of a life as a prosperous, white, Presbyterian businessperson in the Midwest.