From the Editor: Local men discover link to the Revolution

Not everyone in our part of the world would be proud of finding a Yankee in the family tree.
But Leo Grizzaffi Sr. is. One of his ancestors on the Randall side of his family was a real Yankee — a man who fought in the American Revolution.
“It makes me feel proud that a member of my Randall family was with George Washington,” Grizzaffi said recently.
According to a written account put together by Grizzaffi, his aunt, Abbie Mae Randall McElwee, began to research her family’s history in 1960.
Her parents were Albert Joseph Randall, 1879-1923, and Cecille Perron Randall of Morgan City. Cecille told Abbie Mae that her great-great-grandfather, Apollos S. Randall, 1811-1851, had come to Louisiana from New York, and that Abbie Mae may have been eligible to join the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Despite years of genealogical work, Abbie Mae died in 1990 without documenting all the links in her family history. Her papers went to her nephew, Grizzaffi, who thought he’d finish his aunt’s work someday.
Then, in spring 2015, David Solar, another descendent of Apollos Randall, visited Leo and talked about researching his own Randall history. Grizzaffi’s wife, Tena, and their daughters, Donna Grizzaffi Burke and Melanie Grizzaffi O’Neil, joined Solar in the work.
They found that Apollos Randall had left New York to settle in Terrebonne Parish. After Apollos died in 1851, Albert Augustus Randall, Apollos’ son and Grizzaffi’s great-grandfather, moved from Bayou Black to Morgan City.
The research took Solar and the Grizzaffis much further back in time, to 1667, when a John Randall, born in Bath, England, and destined to become a silk merchant, moved his family to Rhode Island and then to Stonington, Connecticut.
John’s great-grandson, Stephen, was a young farmer when the Revolution began. Stephen formed a company and earned the rank of lieutenant.
The Grizzaffis and their daughters went to Long Island last fall to meet with Barbara Russell, director of the Brookhaven Historical Society of Suffolk County, New York. There they learned that Lt. Stephen Randall — the great-grandfather of Apollos Randall — signed the Association of the Revolution papers in 1775. Those papers proved the claim of Apollos Randall’s generation of grandsons to be eligible for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution.
On Monday, Leo Grizzaffi and his sons, Leo Jr., Bruce and Greg, and their cousin, David Solar, will celebrate having been inducted in the Baton Rouge chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution.
Aunt Abbie Mae would be proud.
Bill Decker is the managing editor of The Daily Review. Reach him at 985-384-8370 or bdecker@daily-review.com.