A Puerto Rican Look at: Y-DNA111 (Correa)

Like my Avilés/Magraner line, I tested my Correa Y-DNA line while I was in Puerto Rico, this time with my maternal grandfather. Though I originally tested this line at Y-DNA67, I have upgraded the line to Y-DNA111 on FTDNA and with the recent Thanksgiving sales I have finally upgraded the line to Big-Y 700. The results will take a while to upload, especially with what I can only imagine are a bunch of people taking advantage of the sale. So I figured I would write about what I know at this level and see what else comes from the upgrade.

CORREA - SURNAME ORIGINS 

Though I have posted about the Correa surname before (post here and here). I'd figure I cover this quickly again to tie it into the genetic understanding of this line. The Correa surname comes to me via my mother and her father, and from there runs via the paternal line up to the 1700s. This is what the paper trail has shown me at least, remember that there is always the possibility of a NPE (Non-Paternity Event) which are usually not traced on paper. Below you can see me, Luis, at the bottom and my line all the way until my 6th great-grandfather Juan Francisco Correa (I have blurred of people who are still alive).

9 Generations of Correa [Personal Photo]

In an ideal genealogical world, this would mean that my Correa cousins and any other male Correa tied to this line would all descend genetically via their Y-DNA from this same man. Matching other Correa men would help attest to this, but unfortunately so far there haven't been other men in my family or relatives that I know who have tested. Y-DNA testing (and rightfully so due to its cost) is something more serious geneticists/genealogists use to trace lines that either ran dry via paper-trail, experienced traumatic events such as slavery, the holocaust, wars that disconnected them from information, and/or was adopted and not sure of their origins. I personally have not tested all of my Y-DNA possible lines, especially since I would have to find distant males cousins to test for lines that have "daughtered out". So far, I have tested my own Rivera line (since I wanted to know more about it since it's a common surname), my maternal Avilés line (said to be tied to Mallorca via a NPE), the Charles line (arrived to Puerto Rico from Guadeloupe and was previously enslaved), and my Correa line (surname interest/since the paper trail ran out). 

When I mean surname interest, I have always been interested in this name for two reasons. 1) It's not that common of a surname in Puerto Rico, though there is always the mention of Capitán Antonio de los Reyes Correa it's not a surname I often hear when I meet other Puerto Ricans, and 2) I have always heard that the surname is tied to Sephardic Jewish origins in Spain. 

The surname for example appears in Amsterdam via Isabel (Rebecca) Correa, a famous Dutch Sephardic poetess who was born in Portugal.

Isabel (Rebecca) de Correa [Jewish Virtual Library]

It has also appeared amongst those tried for "judaizantes" ("Judaizers") during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. A quick search of Correa + Inquisición gave me various hits. 

Tribunal de la Inquisición en Llerena [PARES]

Tribunal de la Inquisición en Llerena [PARES]

Does this mean that my own Correa family were Jewish as well? Not necessarily but the genetic information is interesting to add. Let's see what my grandfather's genes say about this line!

CORREA - GENETIC ORIGINS

When I got the autosomal and haplogroup results for grandfather on 23andme, I was very interested since it seems that his haplogroup isn't that common amongst men in their database/that have tested. So I wanted to see what it would be like in FTDNA.

FTDNA Landing Page [FTDNA/Personal Photo]

My grandfather's haplogroup is current listed as "J-Z18271", this name is expected to change once I get my Big-Y700 results - expected to arrive sometime in February. Below you can see where this specific SNP (Z18271) has been found in Europe. This specific branch can be found in various parts of the world, but it's interesting to note that it's mainly found amongst Eastern European countries. This is a very different result than expecting to find many "genetic cousins" scattered amongst the Iberian Peninsula and other parts of western Europe.

SNP MAP [FTDNA/Personal Photo]

CORREA - HAPLOGROUP ASSIGNMENT

The main haplogroup my grandfather belongs to is "J" which you can see how it got into Europe below. Further below is an image of my specific haplogroup for my grandfather as well, currently at Y-DNA111.

Migration Map [FTDNA]

Correa Haplogroup [FTDNA/Personal Photo]

This group has its origins mainly in the Middle East amongst the Arab and Jewish populations. This was interesting to me taking into consideration the Sephardic Jewish theory of this surname. Remember that genetics predate current religious, political, geographic divides. It is possible that somehow my Correa family was a part of the Arab/Morsico or Jewish/Sefardí population in Spanish which was later pushed out during the reconquista. It made it's way into Puerto Rico where it has been present for the last 300 years.

Some research places the haplogroup amongst the "Kohanim" or Cohen branch of Jews, which is the "priest" class. If this is the case for my family, this would obviously be very far back and probably not in recent times, though it would be very interesting nonetheless! My family has likely been Christian/Catholic for at least the last 300 years while in Puerto Rico. Since I haven't been able to trace them off the island yet, I am not sure what their history and religious practices were before arriving to Puerto Rico.

J-Z18271 Branch [GenoGenea]

GENETIC MATCHES

Currently, I have one match from the entire database of FTDNA for my Correa Y-DNA111 test, and it's a genetic cousin who shares another line with me, so it was interesting seeing him match me on the Y-DNA level on another completely different line as well. As you can see the surname for his earliest ancestor is not "Correa", if not "Santiago". So somewhere along our lines there was a NPE, we're not sure who's line it comes from but we're thinking it might be his. Currently, this cousin is tested at Y-DNA37 so their haplogroup isn't as specific as mine. The genetic distance is 3 meaning that our relationship is further back in generations, but I'm not sure if this distance "closes" once they upgrade their Y-DNA test.

Y-DNA Match [FTDNA/Personal Photo]

CONCLUSIONS

I'm hoping that upgrading the test will give some more insight into whether it's more likely to be Arab or Jewish in origin. I have been in contact with some of the administrators of the FTDNA project I am a part of via my results in the J haplogroup. They are also interested to see what comes out of this result since I don't match many other people. This is very fascinating for me and definitely something I am learning along the way with. I'm not super well-versed in Y-DNA analysis so learning via my multiple accounts has been pretty helpful! Hoping my results come faster than I expect!

ARE YOU A CORREA FROM PUERTO RICO? 

HAVE YOU TAKEN A Y-DNA TEST? 

The Strange Case of the Carcaño Branch

About 7 years ago, I had discovered the names of my 5th great-grandparents and those of their parents in their marriage record in the year 1819. José de León Correa Carcaño, son of Juan Francisco Correa and María Eugenia Carcaño, said to be natives of San Juan and María de la Cruz Rodríguez Ruiz, daughter of Sebastián Rodríguez and María de Gracia Ruiz, natives of Coamo.

Out of these four lines - Correa, Carcaño, Rodríguez, and Ruiz, I have only been able to discover more information about only a few. Here are some links to previous posts on my blog about these lines.

Correa- Summarizing my research about my family, though I am currently stuck.
Rodríguez- Writing about my 6th Great-Grandfather during the 52 Ancestor Challenge.
Manuel Ruiz- Discovering that my 7th Great-Grandfather was a pardo slave in Coamo.

The Carcaño line (as well as the Correa line) has been extremely difficult to trace. So I wanted to focus a bit on what I know on the Carcaño and some theories in hopes of being able to discover more about my 6th great-grandmother.

CARCAÑO AS A SURNAME

Besides seeing the surname Carcaño in the marriage record of my 5th great-grandparents, it has not been a surname I often see in my genealogical searches. So first, I wanted to research the surname itself outside of Puerto Rico. I wanted to know how popular the surname might be in Spain. I have mentioned the use of the INE before (Intituto Nacional Estadística) and it is one of the main ways I check how or where a surname could have arrived to Puerto Rico from within Spain. Searching "Carcaño" didn't give me many hits, as you can see below the surname is used only by 100+ people and limited to a few regions in Spain. You can see that Cádiz and Alicante seem to be the "highest" concentration of Carcaño surnamed people in Spain and it makes a few appearances in Madrid and Barcelona. Since the surname is so limited, I would imagine these separate family branches are tied to each whether distantly or more closely related.

The version "Carcano" shows only about 20 people in Madrid using this variation, by the way! 

Carcaño Surname Map [INE]

CARCAÑO... ¿GENOVÉS?

My searching on the internet brought me to an article from Torrevieja that mentions a family reunion of the Carcaño branch bringing together about 150 family members. It also states that the family came to Spain from Genova, Italy around 1810 probably fleeing the siege of Napoleon, the first registered Carcaño in Torrevieja occurred in 1820.

Carcaño Family Reunion [DiarioInformación]

This would lead me to believe that the Carcaño family entered through Alicante (the region where Torrevieja is located) and from there the family spread to other regions. Could this mean that the surname has its origins in Italian rather than Spanish? It would explain why it isn't as commonly found in Spain and why it's harder to find in Puerto Rico as well.

CARCAÑOS IN SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO

My search for María Eugenia Carcaño took me to the San Juan church records in the early 1700s. So far, I have yet to find a marriage record for María Eugenia Carcaño and her husband Juan Francisco Correa, but I did run into another Carcaño branch which was interesting to find. Since I have no idea how, if at all, this branch is tied to me I decided to build out a tree and see what I could find on them. Even if they aren't related to me I hope that my research benefits another Carcaño family.

The first Carcaño branch I found was a marriage record for a Manuela Carcaño to a Juan Ferregut in the San Juan church records in the year 1777. Below you can see a snippet of the wedding record, stating that Juan Ferregut was from Pa[r]ma (Palma), Mallorca, the legitimate son of Guillermo Ferregut and Catalina Villa and Manuela Carcaño, a resident of this city [San Juan], the daughter of Josef Carcaño and Manuela Polanco, she deceased.

Manuela Carcaño, San Juan, Marriage, 1777 [FamilySearch]

Since José de León Correa was said to have been born in the 1790s in San Juan, I figured that Manuela could easily be a sister to María Eugenia, as their ages were probably in the same ballpark range. So I wanted to discover more about José Carcaño and Manuela Polanco, who were they and could they have been my 7th great-grandparents? 

I was able to find that Manuela was baptized as Manuela de los Reyes, daughter of José Carcaño and Manuela Polanco, parda in January 1764. Manuela was baptized in the book of blancos but as you can see her mother was listed as parda. This was important to note for me because my María Eugenia Carcaño is listed with her husband to be pardos libres in the records of Coamo. This type of evidence becomes important when trying to track family members across various towns and different race books of church baptisms and marriages. 

Manuela Carcaño, San Juan, Baptism, 1764 [FamilySearch]

Something extremely odd here is the math! If Manuela would have been born in 1764 and married in 1777, this would mean that she was only 13 years old when she married! Her marriage record does not mention her actual age or her needing permission from her father to get married. I have also yet to find another baptism for another Manuela Carcaño, so it is possible that the age was fudged either on the baptism or marriage. I'm not sure how common it was for girls to marry this young in the 1700s, I do however have a case of one of my 2nd great-grandmothers marrying at the age of 15 (based off her baptism and marriage records) in 1906, so it's very possible that was common amongst certain families for status reasons.

Having Manuela's baptism in 1764 gave me a starting point to check for marriage records for José Carcaño and Manuela Polanco... ultimately anytime before that year. Lucky for me, they would have married a year before that in 1763 in San Juan! 

José Carcaño + Manuela Polanco, San Juan, Marriage, 1763 [FamilySearch]

José Carcaño was said to be a native of Genova, from the Spanish kingdom, the son of De[c]iderio and Francisca Carcaño, Manuela Polanco was a native of this city [San Juan] and the daughter of Alonso Polanco and María del Rosario, she was deceased. It's interesting to see that José Carcaño is also tied to the community of Carcaños in Genova! It seems that for a while the Republic of Genoa aligned itself with the Spanish Empire to help in the decline it was experiencing, which is probably why in Puerto Rico it was mentioned as a part of the Spanish Kingdom.

José's wife, Manuela Polanco would pass away in May 1768 in San Juan and left behind a will. Before passing she had given birth to a girl named Isidora that same month who unfortunately passed two months later in July 1768. I'm not sure if that will would still be available in San Juan, if so, it might contain a clue to who were Manuela's children and whether a María Eugenia was one of them. 

José would go on to remarry in Bayamón in 1776 to a María del Carmen García Manzano. It is also possible that María Eugenia could have been one of the first daughters to this couple, except this is where the trail runs cold. 

I have no further information about José Carcaño and where he passed away, whether in San Juan or Bayamón. 

CARCAÑOS IN RÍO PIEDRAS, PUERTO RICO

While on a visit to San Juan last March I visited the Archivo Diocesano in San Juan to look for marriage dispensations. In talking to Elyse who runs the archivo, I asked about other documents in San Juan and the surrounding area for the 1700s. She showed me a couple of indexed books of San Juan and Río Piedras, in them I searched for any people surnamed Correa or Carcaño. 

In one of the entries, I came across a Nicolás Carcaño, illegitimate son of Eugenia Carcaño. I was surprised to see the name, I jotted it down and when I got home I did some more searching. Could this be my 6th great-grandmother?!

Nicolás Carcaño, native son of Eugenia married in October 1790 in Río Piedras to a María Joaquina, native daughter of María Tomasa. It lists them as morenos libres in the record, which again is interesting to note, as you saw above for Manuela Carcaño, she was baptized in the white books but had a parda mother. 

Nicolás Carcaño, Río Piedras, Marriage, 1790 [FamilySearch]

Nicolás would have been born in the 1770s, though a bit older than José de León, this wouldn't be completely impossible for him to be a brother. The interesting thing here though is that no father is listed for Nicolás meaning he would have been a "Carcaño" and not a "Correa Carcaño". Still, I figured it was worth an investigation.

Searching for death records of Eugenia Carcaño in Río Piedras I came across various death records for Nicolás' children: Lucas (1798), Gabriela (1798), Cipriana (1799), and María (1800), all passing away as párvulos (infants) - all children born shortly after their marriage but unfortunately who didn't live long into adulthood. Continuing my search higher in the years, I was able to find a death record for an Eugenia Carcaño. 

Eugenia Carcaño, Río Piedras, Death, 1803 [FamilySearch]

Here you can see a Eugenia Carcaño, resident of Río Piedras, married to "José", black, slave of José María Ruiz, she died in April of 1803. Though I was hopeful at first, a few things don't match with my 6th great-grandmother. The husband's name for example was different and neither Juan Francisco Correa or Eugenia Carcaño showed up as enslaved or moreno libre in Coamo. Could she have remarried? Possible. Could she have been moreno libre in Río Piedras and her son listed as pardo libre in Coamo. Also possible.

But there is another piece of evidence that might help us explain why she might not be my Eugenia Carcaño. When José de León Correa, her son, marries in 1809, it does not list her as "deceased". Other marriage records in that year show spouse's parents as difunto/a but Eugenia and Juan Francisco are not listed as that. Which would lead us to believe that she was still alive past 1803. Could this be an error? Possibly. But I'm hoping that José de León knew the status of the life of his parents' when he married and thus giving us hope that Eugenia Carcaño is still out there in the records... yet to be discovered. 

CARCAÑOS IN LOÍZA, PUERTO RICO

My final search was in Loíza, Puerto Rico, and there I was able to find a few more Carcaños. None of them matched the names I have in Coamo but it was interesting to find the surname there and see where they were placed in the different racial categories. Here are some examples below: 

José Carcaño, moreno libro, 1793 [FamilySearch]

Paula Carcaño, Pardo Libre, 1794 [FamilySearch]

First Twin of José Carcaño, Moreno Libre, 1795 [FamilySearch]

Second Twin of José Carcaño, Moreno Libre, 1795 [FamilySearch]

Felipa Carcaño, Parda Libre, 1795 [FamilySearch]

CONCLUSIONS

Honestly, I'm not sure that I have any, the only thing I have found is that in Puerto Rico there existed white, pardo, and moreno Carcaños across San Juan, Río Piedras, and Loíza. One branch came from Italy and might have ties to a current branch living in Torrevieja, Alicante, Spain with similar roots in Genova. A death record in 1803 for an Eugenia Carcaño was found in Río Piedras, but based off José de León's marriage record she doesn't match since my 6th great-grandmother wasn't said to be deceased when he married in 1809. 

I'm not sure, however, if there was ever a Carcaño slave owner. All the Carcaños I seem to find are all moreno libre/pardo libre and I have yet to find an esclavo de ______ Carcaño. I am not sure what this says about the white Carcaños as well. But at some point the morenos libres would have been freed from a white Carcaño owner or chose that surname (for whatever reason). 

I am hopeful that one day I'll be able to fully unravel this Carcaño mystery. Luckily for me, the surname is still pretty rare, meaning that when I come across it my eyes catch it automatically, unlike coming across more common surnames such as Martínez, Rivera, etc. I'll have to extend my search to other towns nearby and continue to track down the Carcaño branch located in San Juan and see where that trail ends. The question also still begs: where the heck is my Correa branch as well?!

Are you a Carcaño from Puerto Rico? 

Any ties to Juan Francisco Correa & María Eugenia Carcaño? 

Researching my Dávila Ancestors in Andalucía, Spain

Back in October 2018 (almost a year ago now), I posted about my Dávila-Cantos family who I had at the time traced via genealogical records on the island of Puerto Rico from Maunabo to Coamo and ultimately back to a town in Spain. That was where my search had ended - with the name of 6th great-grandfather, José de Cantos Dávila, and a yearning to want to discover more about this family in Spain. I was unaware of the possibilities of me actually discovering anything about them there but I figured since I was going to be in Spain this summer I would try and head down to San Juan del Puerto and figure out the archival situation there. This post will detail my experience before heading to Spain and up to the point of searching the archival records there and how I went about it. Hopefully this can be seen as a useful guide for those of you who have discovered ancestors from Spain but aren't fully aware of how to go about searching them in their respective towns.

What I Knew

The first part was laying out all of the information I knew about my ancestor from San Juan del Puerto, a small town (of about 8.5K inhabitants) a part of Huelva, in the southern region of Andalucía. Because his first child was born in Puerto Rico, I figured he probably married there and came alone from Spain. From the information I had attained on him from the parroquial records of Puerto Rico, I had no parent names or sibling names so I knew it wasn't going to be a quick and easy search. However, luckily San Juan del Puerto is a small town and if he actually was from there then I didn't imagine the search would be too difficult.

For simplicity and "direct application's" sake, I am going to use my ancestor's information throughout the post to help provide actual examples to show how this information had grown throughout my searches. This was what I knew so far:

Name: José Cantos/de(l) Canto Dávila
Birth: 1730-1750, San Juan del Puerto, Huelva, Spain
Marriage: Josefa García Rodríguez y Bonilla; Puerto Rico
Death: Coamo, Puerto Rico

Because I have no marriage or death record for José Cantos Dávila I wasn't sure of his parents' names and thus I was going into this search almost blindly.

Before Arriving 

I had read on another genealogical blog that reaching out to the church or diocese was the best move in terms of knowing who you needed permission from and how to go about spending time in the archives. Unfortunately for me this was the hardest part! First, I was able to locate the website for the town, I had sent an email to various people in hopes that I would receive permission to research my ancestors. After about a week and a half I had gotten no response about visiting the church and whether or not I would be able to conduct research there. Fortunately for me, I had a friend "on the ground", a friend who lives in Madrid and who was able to call and figure out the situation. By the time I was in Madrid myself, I had gotten the okay to do research and the phone number for the volunteer in charge of helping people in the church. If it wasn't for my friend I would have had to call internationally and to a different time zone in hopes of catching them at the right time. Given the green light for research, I planned my visit to the town.

Diócesis de Huelva Website

Getting There, Part I - Huelva

When I travel, I use an awesome website called Rome2Rio which gives you various options on how to get to where you're going, the time it'll take, and also the costs. What I like about the website is that you can build a route that includes various cities and countries and see which are the most convenient ways to get there and how much it'll approximately cost you in total. Since San Juan del Puerto is a small town I wanted to see what my options were.

Madrid to San Juan del Puerto Rico [Rome2Rio]

Since there weren't many AirBnB housing options in San Juan del Puerto I could stay in farther away Sevilla and take the train/bus or closer in Huelva and take the bus in - ultimately I decided on Huelva since it was closer to San Juan del Puerto and unlike Sevilla I had never been there before. I decided I would take the train into Huelva from Madrid, stay at a hotel centric enough to the train and bus station, and commute to San Juan del Puerto. Watching the landscape change was beautiful and being in Huelva was very calming, I think there was a combination of small town feel + people being away for summer vacation that gave the town an eerily calm and deserted feeling. After being in Madrid and Barcelona, I didn't mind the calm!

Landscape view from the train - between San Juan del Puerto and Huelva [Personal Photo]

Old Huelva Station [Personal Photo]

¡Llegué!/ I have arrived! [Personal Photo]

Walking around the deserted streets of Huelva [Personal Photo]

Getting There, Part II - San Juan del Puerto

In the town of Huelva there is a local bus company called "Damas" that runs the route from Huelva to San Juan del Puerto various times a day for 1.75€. Since I was going to be researching mainly in the evening I found times close enough to when I wanted to head over to the town and went to the bus station. In San Juan del Puerto the stops are basically one before entering town and the other at the other end of town practically exiting the town. I decided to get off at the first stop and walk into town, that way I could see the entrance sign versus doing a reverse trip into the town.

Bus Stop in Huelva [Personal Photo]

Bus Stop in San Juan del Puerto [Personal Photo]

Town Sign "San Juan del Puerto" [Personal Photo]

Statue dedicated to traditions from San Juan del Puerto [Personal Photo]

Street dedicated to the island of Puerto Rico [Personal Photo]

Iglesia de San Juan del Puerto [Personal Photo]

Researching

Researching the church records in San Juan del Puerto [Personal Photo]

Once I headed to San Juan del Puerto, I grabbed some snacks and water at the nearby Día supermarket and sat in the main square waiting to met the volunteer who would help me with the records. I was fortunate to have his personal number so I was able to call him in advance that day, set our meeting time, and then call when I had reached the town. Also, I was fortunate to have an American phone plan that allowed me to call for only .25¢ for every minute. After our introductions and explaining what I was searching for we settled in the office where the documents are held. Every church and diocese is different so I can't speak for all Spanish churches in regards to genealogy, for example here in San Juan del Puerto the volunteer sat with me while I researched, while other churches will trust you with the records in the room and occasionally check in on you.

My first quest was using the index (whew, thank God they had one!) to find my ancestor. The index for the town baptisms didn't cover all available years, however, it did cover the range I was searching for, and the index was based on first names which can be a hit or miss. If your ancestor went by their middle name or had a combination of names that wasn't the first one you knew in the New World, then your search could end in nothing - so honestly I was nervous. I jumped to the "J" section and in the mid-1700s looking for a José Cantos or a José Dávila. In the index it mentions the name of the baptized child and the name of his/her parents, so ideally this would be easy I would search for a "Cantos Dávila" "Dávila/de Cantos" combination next to a José and be done, right?! So I set off on my search and didn't find much, a bunch of Josés being baptized, but none had a surname Cantos or Dávila. I looked up at the volunteer from the index book and asked if the surname "de Cantos" was common in the town, he told me he hadn't really heard it before and I then asked about the surname "Dávila", to which he said yes and that there was a well known branch which had been written about. I kept searching and finally came across a "José Ávila García" and shook my head. This couldn't be my ancestor since he was Ávila García and my ancestor was Dávila Cantos. This being my only lead in the mid 1700s (I then searched a little before and after to rule out an older man or lately registered child) so I decided to check it out. I asked the volunteer for the book in the mid-1740s, jotted down the book number and folio (page) number and dove in. I was able to find a record and this was the entry: 

Baptism Entry for José Manuel Andrés de Ávila García [San Juan del Puerto Parroquial Record]

I noticed two things right away when I came across the entry: 1) The full name was José Manuel Andrés and the first two names "José Manuel" was also the name of my 4th great-grandfather born in 1818 in Maunabo, Puerto Rico - son of Bartolomé Dávila Cantos & María Cándida Rodríguez. 2) The father was actually "de Ávila" the symbol between Miguel and Ávila represented "de", also carried over and used in Puerto Rican church records.

So now I had a José Manuel Andrés de Ávila (Dávila) García, son of Miguel de Ávila and Juana García born the 3rd of January 1747. Could this be my ancestor? A few things overlapped: the use of "José Manuel", name given to my 4th great-grandfather, the use of the "de Ávila" surname, and the fact that the age was perfect. Back in Puerto Rico "José de Cantos Dávila" had his first daughter Catalina Dávila around 1765 (baptism not found yet) and the first official documented child my 5th great-grandfather Bartolomé Dávila in 1775, this would make this "José Manuel Andrés Dávila" about 28 when my 5th great-grandfather was born. Could it be him though? Luckily, the volunteer was pretty involved in my search and recommended I check to see if he married or died in the town, I went through the indexes searching for him and came up with nothing. No marriage, no death in San Juan del Puerto. With no other direction to go in, I decided to keep searching José Manuel Andrés' family and see what I could discover. 

My next step was searching for Miguel de Ávila and Juana García's marriage record. Since José Manuel's baptism record said that everyone mentioned were natural and neighbors of the town then technically they should have married in San Juan del Puerto. I searched within the 1742-1775 marriage book searching from 1747 backwards to see if I could find a Miguel de Ávila marrying in the town. 

Marriage Book 1742-1775 [San Juan del Puerto Parroquial Records] 

Bingo! - In the book I was able to find the marriage of Miguel de Ávila and Juana García. When I started reading the record I let out a kind of "oh" - Miguel's father was named "Bartolomé"! If you remember, Bartolomé Dávila was the name of 5th great-grandfather back in Puerto Rico! So here we now had two family names repeating themselves across various generations, the use of José Manuel and Bartolomé. I looked up at the volunteer and told him about the use of Bartolomé as well as José Manuel in my family back in Puerto Rico and that the information was lining up so far and that these were pretty big coincidences. He then told me that some coincidences are too hard to ignore. The next piece of information I would find would seal the deal for me.

Name repetition across various generations in my pedigree [Personal Photo]

I decided to keep searching this "de Ávila" family who had some pretty evident coincidences with my family back in Puerto Rico. My next search was for a marriage record for this Bartolomé Dávila, I was pretty surprised how lucky I was getting with finding records so far, since I was now reaching into the 1600s with this branch. And just like that I found Bartolomé Dávila's marriage record in the late 1600s, and when I read the name of his parents I jumped - his parents were named Miguel de Cantos and Francisca de Ávila. The surname I had seen in Puerto Rico had finally appeared in records! I told the volunteer about finally finding the "de Cantos" surname and he nodded, as if saying "this is it!".

Back in the days the tradition of using surnames wasn't as solidified in Spanish society as it is now, up until the 1600s and maybe even early 1700s surnames were chosen based off status and popularity of a certain surname. In this case, the "de Ávila" family had more status in the town (as I would later learn more about via a book of the Dávila family the volunteer found and copied for me) and thus the children became "Dávila/de Ávila" versus using the father's "de Cantos". Sometimes children even took the name of grandparents such as maternal grandmothers who came from illustrious families making genealogy in this time frame a bit more complicated, sometimes even siblings carried different surnames! However, it seems that years later the children especially José Manuel Andrés was still aware of this "de Cantos" name and would tack it on creating the "de Cantos Dávila" combination I repeatedly saw across various Puerto Rican records - yet 300 years later, Dávila would prevail and stay as the family's surname even up until today. 

As I kept searching throughout the town records, the use of "de Cantos" was very scant - practically no one in the town had the surname besides one other man who could probably be a father, uncle, sibling, or cousin to Miguel de Cantos. I imagine that this family maybe came from a nearby town but unfortunately there were a couple of books missing so finding the marriage for Miguel de Cantos and Francisca de Ávila was not possible.

Conclusions

In the 2-3 days that I was able to visit the church I was able to discover quite a bit. I was able to find a baptism record for a José Manuel Andrés de Ávila García born in 1747, though at first I was hesitant to believe this was my ancestor finding his grandfather's marriage record where it mentions his parents were surnamed "de Cantos" and "de Ávila" was helpful to me to solidify the theory that this man was one and the same to my 6th great-grandfather. I was able to trace about 2-3 generations back from José Manuel Andrés de Ávila and luckily I was given a copy of the Dávila/de Ávila book which traces the family's origins back to the mid-1400s. I have to read through the book again and see where I can find records to back up the family tree presented in the book. 

Before I parted ways with the volunteer, I thanked him for his time and asked how I could reach out to him in the future if I wanted to come back. He told me he worked for the diocese itself and had seen my email before my friend had called, which is good to hear because electronic communication is easiest across countries and time zones, I believe. I had also asked if there was any effort to digitalize documents and he said that since they were a small church the odds of that happening soon seemed little to none, funding would have to come from the church and it seems like too much of a monumental task at the moment for them - especially considering that there is only one volunteer who has a life/job as well. 

I also asked if I could see the inside of the church and leave a 'thank you donation' before I left. Mass had just ended so he went inside to find the parish priest to let him know I wanted to leave a donation. In the meantime I peaked inside the church and took some photos, it's always odd to see places where my ancestors would have stood because their history connects me to this location. To believe that my 8th great-grandfather would have married here in the late 1600s is kind of mind-boggling. 

Inside of La Iglesia Parroquial San Juan Bautista [Personal Photo]

After snapping some pictures I was presented to the priest, I told him I wanted to leave a donation and so he went to the back and got a donation envelope for me to leave behind money. I personally decided on leaving 50€ (about $55 USD), which isn't much but I wanted them to see I was appreciative of their efforts to conserve these documents. 

Thank you note and donation [Personal Photo]

Future Research

There is still much to research! Since I had limited time I basically focused on the main ancestor branches that would be my direct ancestors and tried to follow their trails as quickly as possible. Of course, there is still much desired to discover such as siblings and other records I might have glanced over in my haste to not waste time. Also, there are a few books missing here and there that might hinder my search for ancestors that might have migrated in from other towns. My goal is to hopefully visit San Juan del Puerto sometime in the near future and be able to dedicate enough time to searching without feeling too rushed - of course this would depend on how much time I can stay in the church researching and for how long I will be in Spain as well. So far I have been fortunate enough to research this branch and find out all that I did in the limited time I was there. Of course, with any research that is genealogy based there is the possibility that I've traced an incorrect family and miss associated my ancestor with them. So far, I am going off various elements of my research and I'm hoping that my research is correct and sound. 

For the time being, I will continue to search around the towns of Coamo and Maunabo and see if I can find a mention of "José de Cantos Dávila's" parents in order to help solidify the identity of my 6th great-grandfather. My current hunt is a death record for José Dávila or a marriage record which may shine some more light on my 6th great-grandfather!

Statue in front of Iglesia San Juan Bautista [Personal Photo]

Manuel Ruiz - A Pardo Slave in the 1700s

In line with my goals for the new year, I've been taking a look at my lines trying to push them back in the 1700s. Many of my Coamo lines have been pushed back to 1700s but I always like to take another look at them and see if I'm missing any children or to find new hints. Taking a look at the catalogue of indexed baptisms in Coamo created by another Puerto Rican genealogist, I noticed that in two years there is a Manuel (esclavo de María Ruiz) and Victoriana Sánchez listed. In my tree, I have a Manuel Ruiz and Victoriana Sánchez (my 7 great-grandparents) so immediately I was intrigued. So I began to search more into the possibility of them being my ancestors seeing as how both names matched up. So in this post I will break down the information I currently have on Manuel Ruiz and run through the documentation that these two men are one and the same.

Who was Manuel Ruiz?

Before finding this new information, I knew that one of my 7th great-grandfathers was named Manuel Ruiz. He lived what it seems most of his life in Coamo, Puerto Rico where he both married and passed away.

Coamo, Puerto Rico [Google Maps]

Manuel Ruiz would have married around the 1750s and 1760s based off the years of baptism from his children. He married a woman named Victoriana Sánchez (sometimes she just went by Victoria and in one occasion her last name was written down as "Matos"). Victoriana Sánchez fairly young, died around the age of 37 on the 15th of October 1775. No parents were listed for Victoriana and she had left no testament or will since she was poor. Later in 1784, almost 10 years after his first wife's death, Manuel Ruiz would marry for the second time to a woman named Lucia Morales.

From his first marriage, so far I have been able to count about 10 children: Francisco (1758), Manuel, José (1761), María (1763), Lucas (1765), Francisca (1768), Gregorio, Juan Manuel (1770), Josefa, and María de Gracia (1773) - my 6th great-grandmother. Those children who have no birth year listed after their names means that so far I have no baptism record in Coamo for them though I may have found a death or marriage record. Manuel would pass away in October 1795 in Coamo and left no will for lack of worldly possessions. 

Recently, I discovered sons Francisco and José by chance. I noticed that a Manuel, slave of María Ruiz was registering his children's births in 1758 and 1761 and that his wife was listed as Victoriana Sánchez. What are the odds that there were two men with the same wife's name in 1700s Coamo? I would guess the odds were slim. So I decided to take a look at the records. 

Tracing Manuel Ruiz through records

Originally, my earliest child for Manuel Ruiz and Victoriana Sánchez was María, born in 1763. Below, you can see underlined the name of Manuel Ruiz and Victoriana Sánchez. As you can see there is no mention of either of them being slaves, pardos libres, or white. 

María Ruiz, hija de Manuel Ruiz y Victoriana Sánchez [FamilySearch]

As I had mentioned above, there were various children from this couple that I had no idea when they were born exactly. One of them was Francisco Ruiz, who married in 1783 to a slave named Angela de Santiago. I found it interesting that Francisco Ruiz would marry a slave seeing as how in the 1700s, social class and status was probably a big deal. Thinking nothing of it, I tucked it away in the back of my head and keep researching for other siblings.

Francisco Ruiz y Angela de Santiago, eslava [FamilySearch]

Seeing as how they married in 1783, I would guess that Francisco Ruiz was born somewhere in the 1750-1760s. Usually when I find a marriage but no baptism, I take away 18 years from the marriage date to get a guesstimate of when the person was born. In this case, Francisco was potentially born in 1765 (this is definitely not an exact science, but it helps to give me an idea of where to search next for baptisms). I was very surprised when I found a "Francisco, legitimate son of Manuel, slave of María Ruiz, and Victoria Sánchez, parda libre" being registered for a baptism in 1758. 

Francisco, hijo de Manuel Ruiz y Victoria Sánchez [FamilySearch]

I was initial surprised to see this! Mainly because it went against one of my theories about the pardos libres in Puerto Rico. I had always thought that a pardo libre was someone who had never been a slave and was marked that way to signify their free status in society. Here we can see that Manuel Ruiz, who I am guessing was the same man, was originally a slave before receiving freedom. Though no race is mentioned in these current records, later on in his second marriage to Lucia Morales there are multiple times that he is mentioned as "pardo libre" (this term could possibly be akin to the term "mulato"): 1786 (baptism of his son Antonio), 1787 (baptism of his son José), and 1790 (baptism of his daughter Petrona).

If memory serves me correctly, Puerto Rico like the United States based the status of a slave on their mother. In this case, since Victoriana Sánchez was a parda libre herself, all of her children would have been born free despite Manuel Ruiz having slave status. Manuel Ruiz and Victoriana Sánchez had another child while he was still a slave, born in 1761 by the name of José Ruiz Sánchez.  I would imagine Manuel was freed between 1762-1763, since when María was born there was no mention of him being a slave.

José, hijo de Manuel, esclavo y Victoria Sánchez  [FamilySearch]

After finding these records, I was intrigued by Manuel's status of slave to pardo libre and continued to dig around. And this is where things got interesting!

Manuel Ruiz A.K.A. Manuel Torres?

Manuel Ruiz and his wife also served as godparents a few times for other children in Coamo. Here in 1767 for example, we see Manuel Ruiz coming forth with Victoria Sánchez to be the godparents to a boy named Manuel, son of Francisca (slave of María Ruiz) - to me this helps solidify that Manuel (slave of María Ruiz) and my ancestor are the same man. 

Padrinos: Manuel Ruiz y Victoria Sánchez [FamilySearch]

Now seeing that María Ruiz had another slave named Francisca Ruiz, I decided to look into her and see if she could potentially be a sister or of some other relation to Manuel Ruiz. I found another baptism for Francisca's son in 1762, a son named Martín was being baptized - 5 years earlier than this one above. This time the godparents were Manuel Torres and Victoria Sánchez. I did a double take, I thought my ancestor was Ruiz and not Torres? Martín Ruiz was registered as free though his mother was still a slave herself.

Martín, el que se bautizó libre [FamilySearch]

What's interesting here is the year 1762, the middle year between José Ruiz's birth and María Ruiz's birth when my ancestor went from enslaved to free. Could María Ruiz having passed away in 1762, given Martín freedom knowing she was at the end of her life and ultimately freed Manuel Ruiz upon her death? I was able to find a María de las Nieves Ruiz passing away in December 1762, who was married to Juan Manuel Feliz, no testament was left upon her death though. I'm not sure if I'm connecting threads that are supposed to be separate, but the odds here seem to be high that these are one and the same man. Could it have been that Manuel originally was the slave of a Torres and then transferred over to a Ruiz? Would that explain the back and forth of Ruiz and Torres? One more document helped to make things even more interesting.

Defunción - María de las Nieves Ruiz [FamilySearch]

As I had mentioned, there were some children of Manuel Ruiz and Victoriana Sánchez in which I only had a marriage for... another one of those was Francisca Ruiz Sánchez. Francisca would marry in July 1785 to man named Francisco de Borja Piñero, illegitimate son of Bernardina, deceased. 

Francisca Ruiz, hija de Manuel y Victoriana Sánchez [FamilySearch] 

Taking Francisca's marriage year and subtracting 18, I got 1767. I had found no Francisca being born to Manuel Ruiz and Victoriana Sánchez in that year, but could she have been born a "Torres"? BINGO! I was able to find a Francisca, born to a Manuel Torres and Victoriana Sánchez! 

Francisca, hija de Manuel Torres y Victoriana Sánchez [FamilySearch]

Remember that by 1767, Manuel would have been free already so the use of "Torres" is interesting. There is always the possibility that this was another man but seeing as how Victoriana/Victoria Sánchez was the wife and that is constant throughout all of these records helps to plead a stronger case for it being my 7th great-grandfather.

It seems like María Ruiz and another slave owner had a close connection seeing as how their slaves married and then based off his last name I think creates a bigger tie - his name was Manuel Torres. In 1756 a slave named "Vicente" was born to Andrés, slave of María Ruiz and María, slave of Manuel Torres. Later, a set of twins were born in 1759 to Andrés, slave of Manuel Torres, and María, slave of Manuel Torres. It seems that Andrés would have been transferred over from María Ruiz to Manuel Torres now that these two slaves were married. The twins, Tiburcia and Valeria, had two separate godparents. Tiburcia's godparents were Felipe Torres and Anastasia Torres while Valeria's were Manuel Torres and Victoriana Sánchez, and here Manuel is a Torres again, could he have been named in honor of his first original master? 

Andrés, esclavo de María Ruiz y María, esclava de Manuel Torres [FamilySearch]

As you can see there is still some searching to do. Could Manuel Torres or María Ruiz have left wills in Coamo detailing their slaves and what to be done now that they had died? What was Manuel's life like as a slave in the 1700s? Would his life been any different to other slaves since he was pardo? Did pardo slaves have a certain mix to them,  for example white father, slave mother? No records point to parents for Manuel Ruiz and the baptisms from the 1730s in Coamo seem to be missing, so for right now there is no more to learn about his background. 

I'll definitely have to keep my eyes out now for pardos libres who potentially were slaves before they received their freedom status!