The Ending to a Search?

Sometime late last month, I decided to fully explore the possibility of Juliana Balbina Lotten's death in Ponce, Puerto Rico. I had checked before but to no avail, nothing came up. I checked for the surnames Charles, Gustavo, Pedro, Pérez, Lotin, Sotin, and pretty much every other possibility that I knew was out there. I knew that Juliana died some time between June 1895 and June 1897 according to other documents I had. In most, if not all of the documents I had from that time period, it was that stated that Juliana was alive, widowed, but that she was living in Ponce. Yet I never knew why Juliana would move away to Ponce- Juliana's children lived in Salinas, Guánica/Yauco and only one daughter lived in Ponce around the time she would have. The daughter was Areopajita (spelled that way according to documents) and she would pass away in Ponce on the 11th of June 1900 of Tuberculosis Pulmonar. Pedro Rosado Sierra reported her death and despite it saying he was the 'neighbor', Pedro was actually Areopajita's husband (not wed through the church though) and they had one son named José Laureno Rosado Gustavo who lived with his maternal uncle after the death of his mother.

Searching in Ponce through the indexes I couldn't quiet figure out why Juliana did not appear. I checked the towns of: Yauco, Guánica, Ponce, Santa Isabel, Salinas, Guayama, Fajardo, Vieques, and Guayanilla, San Juan- Pretty much any town and neighboring town possible where either she lived or could have lived. Yet for some reason- absolutely nothing! It wasn't until that I decided to check in Ponce between 1895-1897 under "J" for a 'Juliana'. I imagined that if she died and someone were to report her death who didn't know her well, they might have not known her last name or had changed it around even more than from what it originally was. Lo and behold, in Ponce in May of 1897, there would occur the death of a Julia Juliana! I figured this was highly possible for it to be her.

I decided to transcribe the entire document to pull out any and all details to make the claim that this was Julienne Malvina Lautin, the woman born into slavery in Rivière Salée, Martinique and who would later move to Puerto Rico as a free woman with Jean Charles Gustave to become known in documents as Juliana Balbina Lotten. Here is the information in Spanish with bolded important/interesting information which I'll translate over:

"En la cuidad de Ponce, a las tres y media de la tarde del veinte y ocho de Mayo de mil ochocientos noventa y siete antes Don Carlos Lopez de Toro, Juez municipal y Don Enrique Colon y Ferrer secretario interno compareció Juan Santos Ocasio, natural de Peñuelas, soltero, empleado y domiciliado en la calle del Coto de esta cuidad, manifestando que Julia Juliana sin otro apellido de treinta y ocho años de edad (Ygles) digo, Ynglesa [sic] y asilada en el Hospital de dementes de esta cuidad falleció ayer a las seis de la tarde a consecuencia de diarrea ygnorando las demas circunstancias personales y demas datos preciso para justificar su personalidad y de ello daba cuenta como encargado de dicho. En vista de esta manifestación y de la certificación facultativa presentada el Señor Juez dispuso se extendiese esta acta y que la finada se entierre en el cementerio de esta cuidad. Fueron testigos Victor Sanchez y Santiago, natural de Ponce, soltero, empleado y domiciliado en la calle del Mendez Vigo de esta cuidad y Serafin Perez Garcia natural de Muesa, Provincia de Salamanca, casado, empleado y domiciliado en la calle del Coto de esta cuidad…"

• She died on the 27th of May 1897.
• Juan Santos Ocasio appeared to announce her death. He was employed (which will be important in a minute).
• She was named Julia Juliana, with no other surname (remember in Puerto Rico both the paternal and maternal surnames are carried). 
• She was 38 years old and known as "the Englishwoman". 
• She was 'asilada' (an asylee or had asylum status in the hospital of the insane). 
• Victor Sanchez Santiago was a witness, also employed. 
• Serafin Perez Garcia was also a witness, also employed. 

There a few interesting things about this. For starters- she was in a hospital for the insane!! She was known as Julia Juliana the "Englishwoman". And all three people to appear where employed, my guess in the hospital. I've yet to find this so called "Hospital de dementes" in Ponce so it might not exist now but existed in the late 1900s. Also, she was known as the "Englishwoman". Could it be possible that while in the hospital she would have bouts of speaking French or Creole and the employees just thought: "Oh, she must be speaking English again". There are documents which misstate where she was from, so they could have also easily thought she was from the English Caribbean rather than the French Caribbean and political correctness isn't always top priority when nicknames are being dealt out. 

I'm not 100% sure this is my Juliana but for the time being I will believe she is! Everything seems to fall into place- the year (1897), the place (Ponce), and this nickname (La Inglesa). The only thing that doesn't match is the age which states she is 38 at the time of her death placing her being born around 1859. Of course, the man who reported her death most likely underestimated her age and could have rounded down. I remember seeing a death certificate for an ex-slave woman in Puerto Rico with the age of 125. Of course, it could be possible that she was around 100 but 125 is probably overestimated. My Juliana was born in 1844, so 1844 and 1859 aren't really too far apart considering that it was most likely estimated. 

Unless I find an English background woman born around the 1860s who lived in Ponce, Puerto Rico and was named Julia Juliana, I will hold this record as the death certificate for Julienne Malvina Lautin.

UPDATE: I was able to find my 3rd great grandmother's death record! Ironically she died the same year, 1897, but in Salinas, Puerto Rico under the name "Balbina Pérez Glantin". All the information about her matches and I can surely say it is 100%. Though this Julia in Ponce, Puerto Rico isn't my ancestor, I will leave this post up since it is a part of genealogical research. Always check, re-check, and confirm that you have the right ancestors and family branches! 

Early Christmas Miracle!

Two days ago I got a really nice Christmas miracle. Ironically or coincidentally,  every time I help someone out with something genealogical, I get, or rather gave myself, something back in return. I never do anything expecting something back, rather I love genealogy and love providing help whenever I can squeeze myself in. I do believe everything happens for a reason and there is some sort of system of Karma set into place in our world. But enough about that, and onto genealogy!

A couple of days ago I was chatting with my grandmother about her dad's family. My great grandfather is still alive at 90 years old but due to his health he isn't very knowledgeable about genealogical queries. I was looking into one of his dad's sibling's family who relocated to Vega Alta from Vega Baja. [This isn't too important but provides the background]. So I attempted to find some children born in Vega Alta with the last name Calderon and came across something completely different by chance. Another spark!

I came across someone born with the surname Charles! Seeing as this name isn't too common due to its foreign introduction, I decided to track down the person's birth certificate. On the child's birth certificate, it stated that her father was from England and her mother from Vieques, Puerto Rico. Seeing as how Vieques is where my Charles family most likely passed by, I decided to follow up on Jorge Charles, the father of the registered child. Typing Jorge Charles into the Ancestry search bar gave me something very interesting.

Ever since I discovered my Charles/Gustave(o) family I've searched these surnames throughout the various census records, family trees available and another other possibility where they might pop up. Yet, for whatever reason something new appeared yesterday. A passport registration appeared for a Tomas Charles. My heart jumped!! If this man was somehow related to me, then there would be a picture attached and I could get a glance of a child of Juan Carlos Gustavo and Juliana Lotin.

Looking at the Passport Application so many things jumped out at me: Tomas Charles was born in Vieques, his profession was a carpenter, he was living in Guanica before heading out to La Romana, Dominican Republic before his re-entry into Puerto Rico and lastly his deceased father's name was Gustavo J. Charles. I was beyond sure that he was a 3rd great granduncle. Many things matched and overlapped with the information I previously had, but I needed more solid proof.

Luckily Tomas re-entered Puerto Rico to reside, providing me with his wife's name as well as his childrens'. I headed over to the Yauco and Guanica records to find information to help me prove his relation to me. The main record which I'll talk about is his marriage record to Ramona Cortes which mentions his last names as Charles Lotin! Here we see the surname which appears first in 1885 as Lotten and here in 1918 as Lotin. Interestingly since most of the other children (or rather the writers) by this year were providing very different variations. I'm glad to see that Lotin is SO close to Lautin which to me proves that there was just a small discrepancy between the Spanish and French spellings. Here is a clip of the marriage certificate:

Tomas Charles Lotin, and his parents listed in the marriage certificate

Here we also see that his father appears as Juan Charles, natural from Guadeloupe and his mother Juliana B. Lotin, natural from Martinique. I wonder why Juan appears sometimes from Guadeloupe, did he arrive from Guadeloupe to Martinique and then later they traveled to Puerto Rico? Or was there just some confusion on some of the information? So much to still discover about him!

So he definitely is related to me! Also, Tomas was still living in Puerto Rico in 1910 so he appears in the census and interestingly enough a nephew is listed as Jose Rosado Charles. So turns out there is another sister named Alejandrina who also lived in Ponce and had this child with Pedro Rosado!! Alejandrina most likely died between 1897-1910 seeing as how Jose was living with Tomas in 1910. 

Back to the passport! So now that I had my confirmation I could accept this new branch to my tree. And with it came pictures which literally were a gold mine! I was able to look back five generations to how my ancestor's sibling looked phenotypically and also giving me a small glance into how Maria Paulina Gustavo would have looked like. 

Tomas' description in the passport goes as follows: Age: 48 years; Stature: 5 feet, 8 inches; Forehead: High; Eyes: Black; Nose: Large; Mouth: Large; Chin: Round; Hair: Black-grayish; Face: Round. And finally here is his picture!

Tomas Charles Lotin

I couldn't believe it and as I stare at the picture I still can't. If you look at my profile picture you can see that I'm pretty light, actually very light. I'm able to tan and get some color and it can be noticeable, but it takes me being out under the sun to tan. But nonetheless, a lot of people probably wouldn't believe that this was a relative of mine by blood. Yet if you look at my grandfather and then his father (Manuel Correa- who's picture is here in the blog), you'll notice that each generation further back gets progressively darker and not just 'native' darker but African darker. Also, his wife registered for a passport and his children were photographed as well so it shows another generation closer to me. Here it is: 

[Family Charles Cortes] Ines (left), Hipolito (top), Juan (bottom) and Ramona (right)   

You can also see that Ramona is much lighter than Tomas yet their children are pretty dark, Ines darker than Juan and Hipolito.

I'm to happy to have extended my Charles/Gustavo Lotin family collaterally to include 6 children in total. So far I've only found one death certificate so there's still a lot of searching to be done! I'm hopeful that I'll found some cousins along the way you can add sometime to these families. I'm just waiting for another little miracle to happen ;) 

Tracing a Surname

There's a pair of 4rd great grandparents that have been the topic of a few of these posts and the point of some of my frustrations with searching for their information.

They are Juan Carlos Gustavo and Julia/Balbina Lotten (and all their many alternations/alter-egos included) who according to documents immigrated from either Guadeloupe or Martinique (some documents mention Saint Thomas! -___-)

I decided to look at their grandchildren's birth records to trace their surnames and see how they've changed over time and how often they changed. The first apparently starts out at Gustave in 1885 but changes quickly to Gustavo and stays that way for the remainder of the documents. Sometimes Charles appears as their last name; both Gustave and Charles might not have even been their original surname! Here are the images of the surname "Gustave" across the years:

Gustave- 1885

Already "Gustavo" in 1887!

Still "Gustavo" at 1890- stays that way 

The second name starts out as Lotten and sometimes even looks like Lobben to me. I say though that the original was somewhere near Lotten instead of Lobben because every other alternative to the name includes a "T" rather than a "B" in its spelling. The name has had some crazy variations from Lotiz, to Sotin and everything in between. Here is the name also traced across some years:

"Lotten" or "Lobben"?- 1885

"Lote"- 1890

"Lotett"- 1893

"Loter"- 1895

"Lotis"- 1898

In the same year (1898) appear as "Lotiz"

"Soti"- 1899

The second surname has had many a variations throughout the years as we can see even within the span of two years the name can be changed very quickly. It all depended on 1) Who was speaking, 2) Who was recording and 3) Who cared to actually make it sound as close to the original name as possible. Even in 1920, in Alberto Gustavo y Lotten's census record his name appears as "Sotin", picture below.

1920 Census- Alberto Gustavo Sotin

Oddly enough, he also appears as Alberto Gustavo Perez in his 1910 Census and 1917 WWI Record.

Appears as "Gustavo Perez" instead of "Gustavo Lotten"

So I am all kinds of confused with what was the original spelling if they even got it right at all. The name to me sounds sort of French/German if I'm anywhere near right. 

Hopefully, I'll find their mother's death certificate (which I haven't been able to find yet) or maybe in some of the immigration records from the LDS, I'll be able to find it.

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.