The Power of Names

I wanted to share this record I found while searching the Toa Alta baptism records again. In all my years of researching, I have rarely come across an entry this detailed for a slave's baptism. Four years ago, I posted "Whispers of the Past" where certain entries for slaves in the Registry of 1872 contained the name of their parents. This is first time I am seeing a church record include so much information for a slave.

Juan Luis Sandoval, negro adulto - Bautismo [FamilySearch]

Below is a transcription of the document above.

Transcription: En la Rivera de Toa Alta el día diez y ocho de mayo del año mil ochocientos y siete yo el beneficiado presbiterio Don Joseph María Martínez Cura Rector de esta parroquia de la Inmaculada Concepción de Nuestra Señora bauticé solemnemente puse oleo y crisma a Juan Luis negro adulto de diez y seis años de edad natural de Guinea en el lugar llamado Gabó, hijo de Ocai y de Gavena y a él lo llamaban Guinbi, esclavo de Doña Manuela Sandoval, fue su padrino el caballero regidor Don Juan Antonio Mexía a quien advertí el parentesco espiritual y sus obligaciones, de que doy fe. [firmado] Joseph María Martínez. 

The main information to discern from above is that on the 18th of May 1807, Juan Luis, a black adult of 16 years of age, native of Guinea from the place of "Gabó" son of Ocai and Gavena who was previously known as Guinbi, slave of Manuela Sandoval, was baptized in the church of Toa Alta, Puerto Rico.

Interestingly enough, three other slaves belonging to Manuela Sandoval are also baptized in 1807 along with Juan Luis, none of them however have as much information to them as Juan Luis. The slaves are as follows: 

Juan Manuel, esclavo de Manuela Sandoval, adulto, natural de Guinea

Andrés Antonio, esclavo de Manuela Sandoval, adulto, natural de Guinea 

Manuel Antonio, esclavo de Manuela Sandoval, adulto, natural de Guinea 

Besides stating that they were "natives of Guinea" no ages or parents' names are mentioned. These type of entries are more common amongst slaves and it's interesting that Juan Luis' entry has so much detail. 

Why only Juan Luis?

It is possible that Juan Luis was quick to learn Spanish and was allowed to share his information when baptized. I'm not sure if Manuela Sandoval was kind enough to let him share this information or if Joseph María Martínez asked him these questions himself when he was baptized. It is likely that Juan Luis was brought to Puerto Rico that year or maybe the previous year and was well aware of who he was, where he was from, and the names of his parents. Potentially even his age is maybe correct seeing as how he was the only slave of four to mention an age. This would mean that Guinbi, later known as Juan Luis, was likely born around the year 1791. 

"El lugar Gabó"

My guess would be that Guinbi was originally from the country today known as Gabon (Gabón in Spanish). From my understanding of the 17-18th century slave trade, most of the western area was known as "Guinea" and so it included various countries that today are: Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, and various islands and other countries as well. A map of the times gives us a better idea of the extension of this area known as the "Gulf of Guinea". 

Map of the Gulf of Guinea, 1740-1749 [Bibliothèque Nationale de France]

Unfortunately, this is the closest we are to knowing where Guinbi was from, no town is mentioned and the fact that his baptism includes the actual country and his parents' names is a feat in and of itself.

Guinbi, son of Ocai and Gavena

Since we are dealing with Spanish orthography, we are not sure the correct or accurate spelling of their names. For example, the "u" is used after the "g-" in Spanish but this might not be the case in other languages, the "n" might be a "m" giving us something like Ginbi or Gimbi. His father's name might take a "k" instead of a "c" and the "a" might be a more "e" sound, something along the lines of Okai or Okei. Lastly, his mother's name could take "b" instead of a "v" since Spanish doesn't distinguish the two giving us Gabena. And who's to say these weren't short versions of longer names as well! 

The three main indigenous languages in Gabon are Fang, Mbere, and Sira - all being Bantu languages. I would imagine their names fall under one of these languages but of course there is always the possibility it doesn't. An ethnographic and linguistic analysis of these names and cross referencing other sources of the time which help to distinguish African names in Spanish orthography would be helpful to discover their Gabonese names.

Conclusions

It would be interesting to follow Juan Luis' life and see what became of him in Puerto Rico. How long did he stay enslaved? Does he end up marrying and having children in Puerto Rico? Does he have descendants out there? If only these type of detailed records existed for all of our enslaved ancestors! 

Genealogical Resolutions for 2020!

With the new year comes change and excitement for what's to come! For me, not only do I focus on life goals and resolutions for the entering year but I also try to create some resolutions based around genealogy. I spend quite a bit of time (read: a lot) doing genealogy on the day to day, as it is a very important aspect of my life. Creating genealogical resolutions is something I started a few year back in 2018 and followed through recently in 2019 (broken into Part I and Part II).

At the end of the year I also reflect on those resolutions/goals and see where I am with them. Here are the reflections for the last two years:

• 2018 Reflection
• 2019 Reflection

So I figured, why not keep up with this new habit and see what goals I'd like to set for 2020! Here are my genealogical resolutions for the year! 

GENEALOGICAL RESOLUTIONS FOR 2020!

1. Take a Genealogy Course
This is a carry-over resolution from last year and I'll bring it into 2020 because it's something I really want to do. Currently I've been looking at the Boston University genealogical courses, however if you know of one aimed at Latin American/Caribbean genealogy drop a comment! I'd love to take a course crafted for the type of genealogy I'm mainly focused on. Though I'm not sure I'll be able to take a course this year, I'll see if I can register myself in the fall for the winter or spring semester 2021, at the latest!

2. Learn/Practice/Better my French
I wanted to commence this resolution this year, but honestly as a teacher the year always get the better of me, like, how is it already January 2020? I'm not sure how much time I'll have this summer but hopefully I can set some time aside for doing some French work. I still have textbooks/books from high school and college, so I should definitely be able to do some self-studying for now, and of course there's Duolingo, music, and movies as well!

3. Get more serious about my platform
This is something I've been thinking about for some time now. I've been researching for about 15 years and writing on my blog ever since 2011, and I want to take it to a next step. Whether that's getting a (.com) for myself, branding myself better, or putting my name out there, I want to have a more steady publishing stream and reading crowd for my blog. The only drawback is that this isn't a full-time job, so sometimes genealogy or blogging will take the back-burner while I focus on my day job. We'll see what steps I take in this direction, even if they're baby steps, I hope it's some!

4. Revisit my lines from Toa Alta, Puerto Rico
It's been about 9-10 years since I've searched this branch in intensity. I remember vividly when I was in college, specifically the summer of 2009, FamilySearch had released some of Puerto Rico's church records online, and Toa Alta was one of the first towns to go up. I remember furiously searching the church books and finding as many ancestors and connections as possible; however, I was also naïve to some extent. I didn't pay attention much to godparents and the roles they played in documents and in the lives of my ancestors. So I want to go back and research more calmly these documents again and see what I can find. Especially since recently I made a breakthrough on my Rivera-Román line in nearby Guaynabo and now I have some more generations and names to work with that might be found in Toa Alta.

5. Catalog/Keep track searched FamilySearch Films
This resolution is tied to my goal above. I find that sometimes I read, re-read, and sometimes even forget what films I've searched or which specific books and what ancestors I looked for in that specific time. I usually take notes on pieces of paper as I go, which then end up getting forgotten about or lost somewhere amongst other pages/loose papers. So my resolution is to create a digital database (probably Excel/Google Sheets) where I can keep track of the searches I've done. This would include writing down the film number, the church books, which pages I've seen, and what ancestors I've searched for. The further I go back in time with research the more I'm noticing that a lot of towns like Guayama, Coamo, San Juan etc. are getting repeated across multiple family lines, so to hopefully simplify this I want to track this more neatly and more accurately.

6. Continue note-taking throughout my tree
Similarly to resolution #5, this is something I want to better and is slightly different than the resolution above. I want to continue keeping track of certain clues, potential family members, and events in my ancestor's pages. Since I use Ancestry, I keep track via notes on certain events and place links in their profiles when something new comes up. To give you an example, this is my 6th great-grandfather Juan Francisco Correa's page below with links and notes of films I've searched and where I am on these films whilst searching. As you can see the notes get more complicated as the more I search and unfortunately there's a character limit to the boxes so I can't go on forever, but still, it's something that I find extremely helpful and I have posted about it as well in post about being stuck with my Correa branch. As you can see below, I work a lot between both languages (English and Spanish) since I use both fluently and daily.

Notes, Links, and Helpful Comments [Personal Ancestry Pages]

7. Cast a wider net with DNA cousin profiles
DNA has been such a big help for finding and locating certain segments for certain ancestors (thanks DNAPainter!) and even seeing where certain ancestry in my family comes from (I explore African inheritance via various generations in my family via this post). I've been very fortunate to test 2 parents, 2 grandparents, and 1 great-grandfather. In place of my paternal grandparents I've been able to test 1 sister for my paternal grandfather and 2 siblings for my paternal grandmother. My resolution (albeit an expensive one) is to try and add more diverse cousins amongst my tree to help with matching. I've already started this a bit by recently adding a 2nd great-uncle and a 1st cousin, 2x removed via my Magraner-Avilés branch to autosomal testing in 23andMe as well as one of their Y-DNA test to FTDNA. My goal is to continue adding cousins sporadically from different parts of my tree to help fill in gaps of inherited DNA segments on my DNA Painter chromosomes but to also have closer generations to the "source" of certain autosomal ancestry or connections. My biggest lacking side is my paternal grandfather's side since I don't know too many cousins on that side of the tree. Hopefully some will test on their own as well and I'll be able to share and compare with them.

8. Find a maternal mitochondrial descendant of Eglantine Lautin
This one is no easy feat! My goal is to find a descendant that can trace back via their maternal line unbroken all the way back to my 5th great-grandmother Eglantine Lautin, an African-born slave later freed in 1848 who lived in Martinique. The reason being is because I'd like to test their maternal MtDNA (with permission, of course!) to see where in Africa (probably western is my guess) this line will take us. I'm not sure how exact this test can pinpoint either a tribe, region, or country, but I'd like to have an idea of her origins via the maternal haplogroup. In the past I had done some research into possible maternal descendants, but I think this is something I'll need to revisit as well; maybe even get the help from some cousins on this resolution!

9. Try out/learn more Puerto Rican recipes 
This resolution isn't so much related directly (if not indirectly) to genealogy because it deals with inherited memory of culture. A few years back, I began to document in a small book recipes from my family, simple things such as how to make sofrito, how to cook pernil, and how to make arepas with bacalao. A few recipes I can do with my eyes closed like your simple rice, beans, etc. but there are more I want to perfect and others I want to learn. For example, I want to practice more making bacalaítos more from scratch and learn how to make alcapurrias and pasteles. My goal is to learn the recipes and write them down from my own family members, whether that's my mother, grandmother, or even great-aunts, I want to learn how to make Puerto Rican dishes that are traditional and commonly eaten in my family. It's one thing to learn a recipe from a book and another to learn it first hand and in practice with a family member.

10. Try to crack the mystery of the Orozco/Santana branch
This is one of the mysteries that to this day still haunts me - the origin of the surname "Santana" in my Orozco branch. My maternal 3rd great-grandfather Benito Orozco was born out of wedlock but throughout his life and that of his children the surnames go back and forth between Orozco and Santana. To the point where some branches today stuck with the use of Santana while others use Orozco. Recently, I found his baptism record in Las Piedras which confirms he was born as an Orozco but there is no mention of a father or the surname Santana. Equally, the baptism of his son Antonio lists the godparents Blas Orozco and Hermenegilda Santana - coincidence? I need to dedicate some more time to the records of Las Piedras, Humacao, and Yabucoa to see if I can find more to crack the mystery of Benito and his mother Estefanía Orozco, who I have very little information about!

Here's to a productive genealogical 2020!