I learned something new when I stopped by the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux to purchase some real estate (our burial plot next to my grandparents). The Archdiocese of New Orleans used to handle the church registers for Thibodaux and the surrounding parishes. Houma-Thibodaux wasn’t created until 1977.
Now, most of the records are at the Historical Research Center in Thibodaux. The archivist there is incredibly helpful as small town folks tend to be. He’s also a busy bee.
One fantastic thing he’s done is to put baptism indexes online for St. Francis de Sales Cathedral, St. Eloi Catholic Church and Montegut’s Sacred Heart Church. The indexes only cover the early 1900s, but I assume – and hope – more resources are coming!
In my opinion, it’s really important for genealogy to be accessible. Ancestry.com is great, but it’s a bad idea just to take someone else’s family tree and assume it’s correct. You want to look at the original source material and verify things for yourself.
My dream is that clerks of court will one day put all indexes online so researchers can easily find if probate records, marriage licenses, property transfers and civil suits exist in their ancestors’ names.
Some day, huh?
louisianagenealogygirl 
I agree! Besides, Ancestry.com is expensive, and it would be nice if these critical documents were preserved and made easily accessible to everyone.