Past Lives and Genetic Memories

A couple of months ago, I read this very interesting article written in the New York Times by Doreen Carvajal. In the article, she explores the idea of epigenetics, which she states: "is the notion that genes have memory and that the lives of our grandparents -- what they breathed, saw and ate -- can directly affect us decades later" (Carvajal, 2012). She mentions that her ancestors moved to Costa Rica during the Inquisition and hid the fact that they were Spanish Jews (also known as Conversos, Anusim, and/or Marranos). Many of the Spanish Jews hid the fact that they were Jewish to avoid persecution but, as Carvajal notes, would entrust usually a woman in the family to hold the secret, which would get passed down from generation to generation throughout the family -- in Doreen's case, her great-aunt Luz. Throughout the article, she brings up people such as French psychologist Anne Ancelin Schützenberg who studied "Ancestor Syndrome" and Dr. Darold A. Treffert who maintains a registry of savants who attained previously-unknown skills after receiving some sort of head injury or even dementia. There's more to the article, so I'll leave that for you to read -- I don't wanna ruin the whole thing!

It got me thinking, could genetic memory be real? Other animals (including ourselves) exhibit some form of genetic memory usually on a biological level; such as when our immune system learns and remembers pathogens to later ward them off. But could we receive memories connected to our ancestors from the past? Many genealogists throughout their paper-trail searches, find some sort of connection to a specific ancestor (sometimes a couple) who stand out strongly to them for various reasons. Could this just be coincidental or are they learning the true reason for their love of art, food or whatever other unexplainable trait they have --which is something I realized with myself as well.

I specifically remember two things from when I was little-- I wanted to be a microbiologist when I grew up and I wanted to learn French. The former was a career path choice I wanted to take and the latter was just something I always wanted to do. But I couldn't explain why, there was no known root to my random desire to learn French. I didn't grow up around or in a French community, I didn't know anyone who spoke the language, and nothing connected me to the French culture in the least. Yet I wanted to learn French. As I got older I knew that I wanted to visit France, I started saving up money once I started working to visit the country. I decided to take French in high school and my idea of becoming a microbiologist began its slow death. I remember watching TV, seeing the Muzzy commercial (linked here!) and thinking "I want to learn French!". But why not Italian or German which were also offered by BBC? When I first heard about genetic memory, I always thought-- well, no one in family was inclined to learn languages from what I know and no one is French so I couldn't have gained that from anyone. Yet with my recent discovery of Martinican ancestors, I've decided to delve deeper into thinking about epigenetics and genetic memory. 

Could I be the carrier for these specific memories in my family? I started thinking more about my childhood and my random connections to things. Why would I want to learn French when I was younger? It also got me thinking about randomly liking the name Charles -- to only then figure out my 4th great grandfather's middle name was Charles. I could be making all these connections by stretching out these random likes and attaching them to other random connections in my ancestors. But what if it wasn't so random? That somewhere deep down in my DNA there was encoded a knack for French and a remembrance of the name Charles? I don't really lean to believing it or not but I stand in the middle taking in both sides, just pondering what could actually be the case for these "genetic memories".

Exploring my Slave Roots in Martinique, Part II

If you haven't read the first part click HERE to read it!

So now I had some new names surrounding Eglantine, Julienne and Pauline. In 1844, there was a Dame Lapierre, née Forget and in 1847, there was a Dame Laroche, née Lapierre. So I turned to David Quénéhervé with this new found information to see what we could figure out. David, who is so awesome, cranked out a bunch of information. He first told me I was really luckily to find these slave records (count my blessings- check! check!). He pointed out that in 1851, when Jean Lautin (Eglantine's son) was born, they were still living on a Monsieur Garnier Laroche's habitation (which I totally forgot about!). With his magic he was able to link me to the Garnier-Laroche family as well as the Lapierre family. At first it was a bit confusing so I created a family tree diagram for them to keep everything organized which I'll post up in a bit. David also found the death certificate for Jean Jacques Catherine Lapierre who passed away in 1845, he was married to Alexandrine Forget. They had a daughter named Rose Hélène Lapierre who married Louis Garnier Laroche. So here we have the two women who appeared in 1844 and 1847. The interesting thing is the death in 1845! This means that when Jean Jacques Catherine Lapierre died he left Eglantine and her daughters to Rose Hélène Lapierre and her husband seeing as how she appears in 1847 to declare the birth of Pauline Lautin. So here is the family tree diagram. I've included other information, such as parents, grandparents, years, etc. to get a better picture of this family:

Updated Famille Garnier-Laroche Lapierre Tree

So here you can see Alexandrine Forget and her daughter Rose Hélène Lapierre who appeared in the birth records of Julienne Malvina and Pauline. The Garnier-Laroche family seems to be well established in Martinique appearing in a book David Quénéhervé forwarded to me titled "209 Anciennes Familles Subsistances de la Martinique". It's in French but hopefully you'll be able to see it and poke around. The line seems to start with Thomas Garnier born circa 1510 in St. Malo (a town found in Brittany, France). Thomas and his wife Jeanne had about 8 children and one of their sons, Thomas Garnier dit Laroche born in 1648 would travel to Martinique, marry there and stay there until his death. The Lapierre side I haven't really looked into too much but hopefully I'll be able to fill in this tree a little more. Even though they aren't my ancestors their family owned Julienne, her sister and mother and so knowing about them would be a way to get a glimpse into their lives. They (at least the Garnier-Laroche) would be considered part of the Béké community in Martinique who were early French settlers in the Antilles.

The chances are high that the Garnier-Laroche Lapierre family were the owners of the Lautin seeing as how before and after the abolishment of slavery, the Lautins were living with them. I'm not sure however if they would be the original and only owners. We don't know when Eglantine was brought over a slave, maybe in her 20s, or maybe younger. So Eglantine could have been sold right away to the Garnier-Laroche family. What's interesting which David pointed out is that there might exist a record like a notary or will explaining his (Jean Jacques Catherine Lapierre's) property and the slaves he had and what went to Rose Hélène Lapierre and anyone else. Finding this would be a gold mine! Not only because it would hopefully list the Lautin but also because it might provide a clue to the father of Julienne and Pauline. Also in Julienne's and Pauline's birth certificate it mentions that Eglantine was registered under number 192, in Registry C. If only that existed!! It would be amazing to find out where in Africa Eglantine originated from and see what age she would have arrived in Martinique and whether by herself or with other family. There's so much to learn and still figure out about the Lautin family. But I'm grateful for what has been figured out already and very excited to unravel more about these ancestors from Martinique.

Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Rivière Salée (BNPM, Bourgade)

Exploring my Slave Roots in Martinique, Part I

Map of Martinique

Part I

So a lot has happened in these last couple of days! Hopefully this post isn't too longwinded but I want to make sure I have everything written down! So it started on Tuesday, when I figured out that the LDS center I go to, to view microfilm records from Puerto Rico, has records available from Fajardo's church. I headed downtown to see those records because I couldn't wait, there could potentially be someone from my Gustave/Lautin line being baptized in Fajardo. So when I got there I asked for two microfilms, one containing an index of baptisms around the late 1800s and another covering baptisms from the years 1860-1884. The indexes didn't yield any Gustave or Lautin children and I was a bit discouraged, but I decided anyways to check to the baptisms from 1860-1884. Luckily most of the years themselves had indexes so I checked without hesitation. The roll was running out and I was becoming discouraged. The last year indexed was 1881 and it was all or nothing. I looked under "C" for Charles just in case-- nothing. Then I looked at "G" for Gustave/Gustavo-- my heart jumped!! There was a Dionisio Gustavo Gustavo being baptized that year. It had to be my family!! I jotted down the number and head backwards to the folio (page), and there he was! Luckily he matched!

"...nombre de Dionicio a un niño que nació el día nueve de Octubre del año pasado hijo legitimo de Carlos Gustavo y Balvina Gustavo. Abuelos Paternos Carlos y Maria Merianga (Morianga) y los abuelos maternos Pedro Gustavo y Eleantina Loque..." [sic]

So here we got to see the parents which matched and got some grandparents and a new surname! So Carlos Gustavo's parents according to this were Carlos Gustavo (which another document mentioned was him as well, there is some consistency there) and his mother was María Merianga or Morianga. I'm betting the name was warped into something Spanish sounding and that isn't the original spelling as we say with Lotten<Lautin. In the Portail I found some people with the surname Mérange, so it could be something along those lines. Then for the maternal grandparents it mentions Pedro (again) except this time with the surname Gustavo and "Eleantina Loque" which looks super similar to Eglantine Lotten (Lautin). This looks like a mixed formed of Eleuteria and Eglantine which was what another document used. So to me, this is stronger evidence that it wasn't just an error! I was pretty happy with that find, bringing up the number of children from Jean Charles Gustave and Julienne Malvina Lautin to 6! Weirdly a couple of the children don't appear on the 1910 census. (Paulina, Tomás, Alberto and Valentina do appear). What happened to Martina Isabel, Dionisio and Alejandrina (she most likely died in Ponce between 1897-1910).

Unofficial "snake flag" of Martinique

Part II

Yesterday, I was looking around the website which I mentioned before called the Portail de la Banque Numérique. There, I found Julienne Malvina's, Pauline's and Eglantine Lautin's actes d'individualités. When you first open the website there is a map of Martinique with a bunch of little dots on different sections of the map. I decided to zoom in on Rivière Salée and see just what these dots meant. Some held pictures of streets, buildings, and other things in the area but the one that caught my attention said "Esclaves Commune" which held records of slaves from 1830-1841. I was excited at first to search for Julienne and Pauline and potentially find their birth certificates seeing as other slaves were being recorded. I was then saddened to see it only covered from 1830-1841 and another section called "Esclavage Greffes" from 1840-1843, I still looked around and read some of the birth certificates. Then it hit me! In the actes d'individualités, it mentions that they were living in Trois Bourgs, section of Rivière Salée. I decided to type Trois Bourgs into the little search engine in the left corner and got hits stating "Commune de Trois-Bourgs (Rivière Salée/ Trois-Ilets)- populations esclave: naissances, mariages, décès. Copie réglementaire du précédent registre¨. I was ecstatic!! The years 1844 and 1847 were there! I crossed my fingers and first searched in 1844, if I found Julienne and not Pauline I could live- Julienne was my direct line and adding another document to her would be exciting (sounds selfish, but at this point I was desperate for something)! I jumped to the back and found an index. Okay, now let's look under J. Jean Baptiste? No. Julie? Maybe? OMG! Julienne dite Malvina!!!! That's her! (That's what ran through my mind when I found her name in the index). I was so happy to have found her record. Here is her record for those francophones, or even non-francophones,who want to check it out:

Julienne dite Malvina- Naissance

I was also able to find Pauline's birth record in 1847! I was happy to see the years were so exact that I was able to find them easily, whereas in Puerto Rico there were many estimated years and dates of births, deaths and marriages-- even for whites. What's interesting is that Julienne is noted as "négresse" which David Quénéhervé (who helped me spark all this) told me that is an indicator for her dad most likely being a black man himself. So this probably means, that a man on the plantation she was born in, was her father. Probably named Pedro seeing as how that's what is being put on records in Puerto Rico. What's interesting that the person who came forward to declare her birth was "...par la Dame Lapierre, née Forget âgée de soixante quatre ans, sans profession, propriétaire de Sucrerie." So we see that the woman was married to a Lapierre and was born with the surname Forget, she was about 64 years old (born circa 1780) and was a owner of a sugar factory. Then in 1847, in Pauline's birth record we see, "...par la dame Laroche née Lapierre, âgée de quarante sept ans, sans profession, propriétaire, domiciliée dans cette commune Rivière Salée...". Hmm, so this woman was BORN a Lapierre circa 1800s  and married a Laroche. Who could these women be? Have I unlocked the family who owned my Lautin ancestors? More in another post...!

Ancestor Hunting

Like most of us know, genealogy is both a blessing and a curse. It can be a nice side hobby, or it can eat up your holiday time like it is doing to me now. So this post I'll dedicate to the tough part of genealogy, because we all know it exists!

Mainly I want to dedicate it to one line in my family which is giving me the runaround!

This line is the Gustavo/Charles line from Martinique/Guadeloupe, and as you can see the uncertainty in name and place of origin is an 'uh-oh' from the start. I'm not 100% sure of this line but with all the evidence I have, I am strongly leaning to this family being part of my maternal line.

The origins of this family that have been mentioned in documents include: England, France, St. Thomas, Martinique, Guadeloupe, amongst probably others. In a previous post I mentioned the Catalog of Foreign Residents and there a Juan Carlos Gustavo is mentioned who I'm hoping is my 4th great grandfather and there it says he is from Martinique so I'm hoping he really is from Martinique.

So originally I thought Juan Carlos and his wife had only one daughter who is my 3rd great grandmother. Yet as I continued searching the census records I came across other Gustavo/Charles in the Southern area of Puerto Rico like where mine lived. So now, the pedigree looks like this so far:

Gustavo & Charles Pedigree

My 3rd great grandmother, who appears as Maria, Maria Paulina, Paulina or as Octavia was said to be born in either Vieques or Fajardo before moving to Salinas with her family. Some documents state Santa Isabel but I'm unsure if this was a place where they might have lived. Valentina, her sister, I found while searching a few months back and she is said to have been born in Martinique (but if in 1874, Juan Carlos was already in Puerto Rico, then this might/might not be possible) and she then later died in Salinas, Puerto Rico. Her brother, Alberto, I actually found today while doing research and he lived in Guanica with his wife until the 1930 Census where he appears living in Ponce; records point to him being born in Ponce, Puerto Rico.

Juan Carlos's wife appears as a mess of names as well. She has appeared with the first names, Julia, Juliana, Barbina/Balbina, and Barbara while her last name started in an 1885 document as "Lotten" and has since then appeared as Loten, Lotiz, Loter, Soler, Sotiz, Sotims/Sotins. She in some documents for unknown reasons appears with the surname Perez. Yeah... confusing right! All the documents I have point to her dieing in Ponce sometime between 1895-1896 yet surprisingly even with that small window of time I still haven't been able to find her!!

I have yet been able to find the death records for either Juan Carlos or Julia and continue to search everyday, neither for Octavia who was last reported on documents to be living in Caguas, Puerto Rico. I have run across some other descendants from Juan Carlos and Julia but haven't been able to ask if they know anything about them. And it's very hard to keep track of them because the surname constantly changes back and forth between Gustavo and Charles. My guess is that (along with someone else I theorized with who has researched French ancestors) is that neither Gustavo nor Charles is the original surname but rather middle names that he had. Which then leaves me with, what IS/WAS his last name!?

Hopefully one day I'll be able to break down some of these brick walls and find out more information. What interest me most is their ethnicity because I keep getting German/ East European hits in my 23andme.com account strictly through my mom's dad's side which makes me wonder if it comes from these ancestors.

Only time will tell! Until then... search, search, search!!

Discovering Foreign Ancestors

At the beginning of this journey, I had one goal besides creating my family tree: to find Spanish-born or foreign born ancestors. I don't know why I thought it important for me to find an ancestor born outside of Puerto Rico, but being that a lot of my ancestors (aka, all the ones I've found so far) were born in Puerto Rico I wanted someone to break the monotony and I guess potentially provide me a place to visit seeing as I love to travel. My elusive great grandfather provided me with an ancestor born outside of Puerto Rico after much searching on his branch.

With the new information I had I was able to find out that Manuel Correa was born in Salinas, Puerto Rico on March 4th, 1920 as Isidoro Correa Rivera, a legitimate child of Julio Correa Gustavo and Amalia Rivera Masantini. Both Gustavo and Masantini are 'weird' names I would say compared to the common ones like Rivera, García, Rodríguez, etc. Unfortunately I haven't been able to crack the Masantini line, so for know I'll focus on the Gustavo line. Manuel's father Julio Correa Gustavo was born on the 5th of August 1895 in Playas, Salinas, Puerto Rico the son of Manuel Correa Ortiz and Maria Paulina Gustavo Lotten (Sometimes she appears as Octavia and her mother's last name appears also through out different documents as Loten, Lotiz, Lotez, Loteis); its hard to make out what exactly it is.

Julio's father was born in Salinas, Puerto Rico around 1862 and his mother somewhere around 1866-1872 and appears to be born in Vieques, Puerto Rico. This is where it begins to get interesting! Maria Gustavo, also sometimes appears as Maria Charles was the daughter of Juan Carlos Gustavo Charles and Julianna Barbara Lotten/Loten/Loteis. Both her parents were born OUTSIDE of Puerto Rico apparently on the island of Martinique. (Sometimes it says Guadeloupe so I don't want to rule out one over the other being that both of them were French territories and still are and very close in geography.) Thanks to Google Maps, I've been able to show how the Gustavo/Charles family would have made their way from Guadeloupe/Martinique to Vieques and then onto the mainland of Puerto Rico.

Gustavo Charles family makes their way to Puerto Rico

There are some things that I've taken into account as I look at this family: 1. Gustavo could have started out as Gustav/Gustaf/Gustave and the "O" was added to give the name more of a Spanish ring to it. 2. "Juan Carlos Gustavo" could have been "Jean Charles/Carl Gustave", again the name could have been changed to fit the Spanish culture in Puerto Rico. 3. Julianna could have been Julienne. 4. "Charles" could have been the actually surname instead of Gustavo and there was a mix-up, seeing as how their children and some future generations jump back and forth between Gustavo and Charles.

Thanks to the power and technology of the internet I have become aware of the "Archive nationales d'outre-mar" which contain French documents from territories such as Algeria, Guyana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Lucia, and Haiti to name some; the documents are of course in French. Thanks to the 2 years in High School and 1 semester in college of French I was able to look at the documents for Martinique and Guadeloupe. But since I don't know where exactly they're from on what island I haven't had any luck finding them among the available records.

I don't know too much about these islands' history but I am aware that there were French, African, Arawak/Carib influences on the island. Being that the family is written down as 'black' I'm guessing they are a creole family of African and European mixture. It would be interesting to find out exactly where they come from, Gustavo has a sort of Germanic ring to it while Charles sounds both English and/or French. Of course I'm still working on this family branch and maybe one day I'll be able to visit both these islands with more information at hand.