The Many Voyages of Tomás Charles

Recently while searching through ancestry's database I noticed there was an update on the "San Juan, Puerto Rico, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1901-1954" and even though I didn't have many different ancestors that traveled to the US and elsewhere I decided to search for my Charles/Gustave ancestors who indeed traveled a bit. My first and main search was for Tómas Charles Lotin [sic] who had lived and worked for a bit in La Romana, Dominican Republic as a carpenter. I knew that Tomás had left Guánica on the 29th of October 1916 and returned to Puerto Rico on the 31st of May 1918. Yet were those the only times Tomás came and left Puerto Rico. I decided to dig a little further. I searched for Tomás Charles in the database and was surprised with the number of hits! See below how many voyages were found for a Tomás/Thomas Charles.

Voyages of Tomás Charles [Ancestry]

The first six voyages seemed for sure to match the Tomás Charles I had and the latter half of the list interested me. Here are the some of the voyages Tomás my 3rd great-uncle took in chronological order and some information that the manifest lists revealed to me. Get ready to journey the Caribbean!

Tómas Charles- Passport Photo [Ancestry]

The first voyage I find is on a ship called the SS Falcon which traveled from La Romana, Dominican Republic the 7th of March 1917 and arriving in the port of Guánica, Puerto Rico on the 8th of March 1917. He is listed as Tomás Charles, Male, Married, born in Vieques, PR on the 29th of December 1873. All of the information matches what I have almost to a "T" except he was born on the 28th of December 1869, his birthday creeping up and making him younger will come to play a little later. The boat was inspected by Immigration Officer Frank L. Dayton and listed that only three men of "Porto Rican Citizenship" were on board. 

Tomás Charles- SS Falcon [Ancestry]

A few months later Tomás can be seen traveling from La Romana and this time arriving at the port of Ponce, Puerto Rico on the 29th of September 1917. All of the information provided for Tomás reminded the same. This time however 30 passengers in total were listed on the manifest.

Tomás Charles- SS Marina [Ancestry]

It seems that Tomás took about four more voyages between the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico in the years 1918, 1920, and two voyages in 1921. Interestingly, during this voyage in 1918 to Ponce he is listed with a wife and child. The wife is named Valentina Malave[s] and their son Hipolito, finally some more information is provided about this mysterious Valentina! It seems she might have been Tomás' first wife and was listed in his passport record. On the manifest record she is listed as being from Peñuelas, Puerto Rico and born on the 20th of January 1876. According to Tomás' second marriage to Ramona Cortes his first marriage ended with no children, I'm still very confused as to who Valentina was and what role she played.

Valentina Malaves and Hipolito Charles- Passport Photo [Ancestry]

Tomás, Valentina & Hipolito- SS Marina [Ancestry]

On his next voyage on the SS Cricket he is listed as traveling alone from the Dominican Republic to Guánica in 1920. 4 other passengers and Tomás himself were listed on the manifest list. Similarly, in 1921 Tomás travels alone from La Romana, DR to Guánica, PR. While abroad the SS Romanita and the passengers listed how they proved their citizenship: some with birth certificates, others with witnesses and affidavits, but Tomás is listed "Known to the Inspector". I imagine he knew the inspector from all the travels between La Romana and Guánica.

Tomás Charles- SS Romanita [Ancestry]

One of the last voyages in which Tomás took included his second wife Ramona Cortes, his mother-in-law Magdalena Cruz and their three sons: Inés, Hipolito, and Juan. They took the SS Falcon from La Romana on the 21st of July 1921 and arrived in the port of Guánica on the 22nd of July, 1921. 

Tomás, Ramona, Magdalena, Inés, Hipolito, & Juan- SS Falcon [Ancestry]

What interested me the most about searching the database was that another Tomás/Thomas Charles appeared as well. This Thomas was slightly younger (born circa early 1880s) and was traveling between Puerto Rico and Saint Thomas. What's interesting is that I have yet to find another Thomas/Tomás Charles living in Puerto Rico. I do know that my Tomás Charles eventually moved up to San Juan and lived there throughout the 1930, 1935, and 1940 census records. I do know that there were other Charles families living in Puerto Rico, and their countries of origin varied as well. But could this Thomas Charles be the same man as my Tomás Charles? Their identity as a black male around 5'8" and living in San Juan definitely give me an inkling that it could be the same man. The year of his birth is slightly off, but seriously, Puerto Rican records are riddled with errors and why not make yourself a bit younger anyways if no one really cared? The only thing is that this Thomas Charles was married to a woman named Angelina and had a few children with her. Could it be wife #3?

I have heard stories that my Charles family had distant relatives or originated in Saint Thomas. Documents point to Gustave Jean-Charles having lived in Guadeloupe, but what if he originally was from Saint Thomas or his parents were? I don't know if this is the same man or what, I'd have to find more records to officially tie the two together or not. There are definitely some overlapping information going on and it's just going to take sifting through records and information to see if they could be the same man. Time to put on my detective hat once again!

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 ;)