It’s always great when you get a chance to talk to someone who opens up your eyes to a whole community — a history really — that before you didn’t even know existed.

I had that pleasure this week through a phone conversation with Brenda Duhe’ Olavarrieta.

Ms. Brenda serves as the German-Acadian Coast Historical and Genealogical Society secretary. When we talked Wednesday, in what must be her signature self-deprecating style, she told me about the Society’s founding, efforts and open-door policy to potential new members.

All the while, Ms. Brenda downplayed her knowledge of the region’s history, as well as the club’s, and insisted she could put me in touch with more knowledgeable Society members.

Her enthusiasm was contagious, as she certainly piqued my interest in the group.

She described her emotions before one of the Genealogical Society’s meetings as excitement akin to how she felt waiting for prom.

“That is how I am when I go to a meeting, because I know I am going to learn something,” she joked. “My brain cells, I guess they are still there, because it’s exciting to me.”

The Society, organized in 1979, was incorporated as a non-profit in Louisiana in 1981. One of the group’s main goals is to preserve, compile and publish records of genealogical and historical nature, with emphasis given to the records of St. Charles, St. James and St. John the Baptist Parishes.

The Society’s website — gachgs.com — is filled with information relating to the history of the River Parishes and instructions on how anyone can join or learn from local members. It’s also explicitly stressed that members want to learn from anyone interested in sharing their own personal history. Ms. Brenda, who lives in Metairie, told me she is from Norco and spent many summer days in LaPlace and Montz with her cousins.

“I’m 70, so I was there way before the Interstate,” she joked, adding her uncle on her mom’s side of the family is still living in LaPlace and remains “sharp as a tack.”

Her aunt, Doris Cambre, was the one who first persuaded her to attend a meeting in the 1980s.

“She told me she had something for me to check out because I would love it,” Ms. Brenda recalls. “She was so excited that I had to say, ‘Wait a minute, I’m trying to write all of this stuff down, but you are going too fast.’

“I ended up going to the meeting. Of course I was late because I was getting in from work. It was just, from that point on in little bitty steps, me trying to find out about my ancestors by listening to the people ahead of me who really knew what they were doing and could answer my questions.”

Ms. Brenda and I had the occasion to talk this week as she was sharing information about the German-Acadian Coast Historical and Genealogical Society’s next meeting, which is planned for 7 p.m. Jan. 26 at the St. John the Baptist Parish Library in LaPlace, 2920 U.S. 51.

The public is welcome to hear speaker Joseph Dunn talk about the “Evolution of Francophile to Anglophile Identity in Louisiana.”

Over the past two decades, Dunn has worked for Laura Plantation, the State Office of Tourism, the Louisiana Travel Promotion Association, the French Consulate Office in New Orleans and was director of the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana.

Dunn will speak on how the language and cultural identity of South Louisiana morphed as Louisiana became Spanish and later American — into what makes Louisiana unique today.

What’s the difference between Creole and Cajun? Find out at the meeting.

“To me, the meetings are really interesting,” Ms. Brenda said. “It is something that keeps my brain going. I have a thousand questions. It’s like I am in kindergarten when I am listening to a speaker.”

Stephen Hemelt is publisher and editor of L’OBSERVATEUR. He can be reached at 985-652-9545 or stephen.hemelt@lobservateur.com.