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]

Tracing a Line to Spain - The Cantos Dávila Family

Recently, I've been out of the "blog game". And to be honest, with school starting up again I always find it hard to balance personal time and work time, though I try to continue searching here and there when I can. I also want to continue cataloguing towns as I was doing this summer and I'm hoping to crank out some more when I can soon.

And so for my first post back (and a rather long one!), I want to talk about a line I've recently starting digging into again, and this is my maternal Dávila line. In the past I have blogged about this family various times, recently I talked about this family in the post "A Family's Move Through Paper Trail" where I traced my 5th great grandparents from Maunabo back to the town of Coamo. 4 years ago (wow, time flies!) I posted about my 5th great grandfather Bartolomé Dávila Cantos (one of the ancestors I traced back to Coamo).

Back when I posted about Bartolomé I knew that he lived in Maunabo, probably died there as well and that was it. Fastforward 4 years later I found him in records, along with his wife Cándida Rodríguez in Coamo where their first four children were born. Because the surname Dávila was tied to "Cantos" I figured it would be easy to distinguish them from other Dávila families - though mine go back and forth dropping and adding the "Cantos" bit. So I started digging around Coamo to see what I could fine.

A Family Presence in Coamo

One of the most important things when researching your family is paying attention to who else the family was surrounded by in records. For example, who declared a birth or death? And especially important, who were the child's godparents? While researching the children of Bartolomé Dávila and Cándida Rodríguez, I took note of who the godparents were. In chronological order, these where the godparents that were either "Dávila" or "Cantos". These are godparents that both appeared in Coamo and Maunabo:

1808- Bernardino Ramos + Marcelina Cantos Dávila (Coamo)
1809- Hilario José + Josefa Gracia Cantos (Coamo)
1814- José Hilario Cantos + Inés García (Maunabo)
1820- Félix Rodríguez + Catalina Dávila (Maunabo)

Notice the usage of Cantos, Dávila, and Cantos Dávila - as you can see there was a lot of back and forth with the surname, which wasn't too uncommon for double-barreled surnames of the time. From this you can see that there were other Cantos Dávila living in Coamo besides Bartolomé.

Equally, Marcelina was married in 1806 to Bernardino (Aponte de) Ramos, and it states her parents were José Cantos Dávila and Josefa García Rodríguez Bonilla, which is interesting to see all of these surnames together. When Marcelina marries, none of the parents are listed as deceased.

Marriage Record, 1806 [FamilySearch]

Equally, Hilario married in Maunabo in 1815 to a María del Rosario Ortiz. Again, the parents are listed as José and María Josefa García. Also underlined in red, notice that the parents are listed as "white" in this record.

Marriage Record, 1815 [FamilySearch]

Finally, there was one more record to help add to this clan. A marriage record between José Gabriel Sánchez and Catalina Cantos in 1796 in Coamo. This record is very hard to read so I won't post it above but playing around with the image you can make out "José Cantos" and "Josefa García" as the parents as well.

So now we have new names to search - José Cantos Dávila and María Josefa García Rodríguez Bonilla.

Proving Relations - My 6th Great-Grandparents?

Finding Marcelina's and Hilario's marriage record opened up a new possibility, that these two new names of José and María Josefa could be my 6th great-grandparents. Seeing as how Marcelina and Hilario were godparents to Bartolomé's children, it's easy to see how these two were uncle and aunt to their brother's children and were chosen as godparents for them. 

I wanted to find out more about them. Thanks to some members of the genealogical community, a good number of the early records in Coamo have been indexed into charts which are easily searchable. By searching the surnames "Cantos" and "Dávila" I wanted to see what I could find. I was able to pick them out a few times through various years as godparents - the years being 1775, 1777, 1796, and 1799. There was a year they appeared as godparents in Cayey in 1787 but they mentioned they were residents of Coamo. We can see that José Cantos Dávila and María Josefa García were pretty well established into the life of Coamo having been there since the mid 1770s and probably still living there when their daughter Marcelina married in 1806. 

Baptism Record, 1777 [FamilySearch]

Baptism Record, 1796 [FamilySearch]

As you can see above, they were serving as godparents for a span of 20 years. In the 1770s they were probably in their late 30- early 40s and in the 1790s around their late 50-early 60s. Notice in red in the second record that they are godparents for the son of a Esteban Rodríguez García Bonilla, I am imagining he is the brother of Josefa.

My last piece of evidence to seal the deal is a baptism record that I am pretty sure is for my 4th great grandfather. The year this child is born, in Coamo, and then to José Cantos Dávila and Josefa García in my mind helps to prove that Bartolomé was the son of José and Josefa, brother of Marcelina, Hilario, and Catalina which again helps to explain why he would choose them as godparents. The only caveat here is that the son is registered as Bartolo instead of Bartolomé, however in my paternal side of the family in the early 1800s I had a similar situation with an ancestor who was both Bartolomé and Bartolo. Here is the record! 

Baptism Record, 1776 [FamilySearch]

The only extra piece I would need to help to back up this claim is finding the marriage record between Bartolomé Dávila and Cándida Rodríguez, I have searched in Coamo in the late 1790s and early 1800s around the time frame their first child was born in Coamo, but so far no luck!

This last piece of this puzzle is the most interesting, in Hilario's baptism record in 1785 it mentions: "Joseph Cantos Dávila natural de los reynos de españa en Sn Juan de Puerto..." [sic]. I was pleasantly surprised to see this! We now had a town of origin for José Cantos Dávila, and it was in Spain! (Checking off New Years Resolution to find a direct Spanish ancestor!) 

Baptism Record, 1785 [FamilySearch]

San Juan del Puerto, España

Of course at first after finding this I thought, "oh darn! This record must be wrong, I think the person is trying to say the city of San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico!" But a quick Google searched proved me wrong! 

San Juan del Puerto, Spain [Google]

There actually is a town named San Juan del Puerto and it's in southern Spain! Looking at the map, it seems to be a pretty small town near Huelva and Palos de la Frontera, other towns in southern Spain my ancestry is said to go back to. As you can see below, it's a fairly small town!

 San Juan del Puerto [Google Maps]

San Juan del Puerto [Google Maps]

In 2016, the population was just near 9,000 people - funny enough that this town is named after Saint John the Baptist the same way Puerto Rico was in the beginning of its history. Reading its Wikipedia page in Spanish it mentions that the town's founding dates back to 1468.

Conclusions

I wonder when José would have made his journey to the new world and under what circumstances. Also, something interesting to note is José's last name "Dávila". Most sources say that it is a combined surname for "de Ávila" meaning from the town of Ávila. Which makes me wonder if ultimately their family was from there. In my linguistics class we learned that some Spaniards moved to the south before venturing off to the New World, ultimately acquiring a southern Spanish accent that was brought to the New World. Which makes me wonder if José Cantos Dávila would be one of those men. 

For now, with all of the research and different information collected, I am rooting for the fact that José Cantos Dávila and Josefa García are my 6th great-grandparents. I've mulled it over the past few weeks and writing it all out helps to clarify for me the strength between the documents. Ultimately the icing on the cake would be finding the marriage record of Bartolomé to see if his parents listed there are José Cantos Dávila and Josefa García. Onwards to searching more! 

First Puerto Rican MLB player - Hiram Bithorn

Hispanic heritage month came and went faster than I could blink an eye! I wanted to write a post and as you can see never got the chance; but while doing some research I came across someone I had not previously heard about from Puerto Rico and decided to find out some more information about his background after not seeing much about his origin, despite having a surname like "Bithorn". So I decided to do some digging on Puerto Rico's first MLB Player- Hiram Bithorn Sosa.

Hiram Bithorn Sosa [Google Images]

Initially when I saw his name I thought, "Wait… this guy is Puerto Rican? And his name is Hiram Bithorn..? And I don't know anything about him??" As you can see I was just all around surprised. During my time in high school and most of college I looked up and researched a lot about Puerto Rico -- its history, its politics, its linguistics… anything I could get my hands on. But for some reason, I never came across Hiram. I was especially surprised since he was the first Puerto Rican baseball player to play Major League Baseball. I decided to see what I could find out about Hiram Bithorn Sosa. 

Wikipedia told me that Hiram was born in 1916 in San Juan and so I knew where to search for his birth certificate. I was mainly interested in finding out where this "Bithorn" surname came from since I had never seen it in my searches and isn't a common surname. Hiram was born as "Hiram Gabriel Bithorn Sosa", on the 18th of March 1916 in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Hiram was the son of Waldemar Bithorn and María Sosa, both from San Juan. His paternal grandparents were listed as Fernando Bithorn Andersen and Tomasa Huicy both deceased by 1916. And through his maternal line, Roque Sosa Reyes from Trujillo Alto and Santos Castillo, deceased. 

Hiram Gabriel Bithorn Sosa, 1916 [Ancestry]

Paternal Family 

Looking at his paternal grandfather's second surname Andersen we can guess sometime type of Danish origin or even Swedish if the person incorrectly wrote "Andersson". Huicy on the other hand I had no lead as to where that surname was from. The more I dug into his paternal family, the more information I found. It turns out that Fernando Bithorn Andersen was a native of St. Croix, at that point a Danish  island, son of a Danish man from Copenhagen and his mother a native of St. Croix. I was even able to find a 1846 census record from St. Croix listing his father, Carl Bithorn (originally from Copenhagen), his mother Elisa (née Andersen) along with his siblings Anna and Eugene. Notice that his name was originally Ferdinand and when moving to Puerto Rico he became "Fernando". We see this a lot with immigrants that come from non-Spanish countries who suddenly become "Juan" instead of John and "María" instead of Mary. 

St. Croix, 1846 Census [Ancestry]

So far I've been able to find one record for a potential baptism for Carl Bithorn in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1805. My guess is that it is the same man since it matches the information we have. 

Carl Bithorn - Danish Baptism, 1805 [Ancestry]

Hiram's paternal grandmother Tomasa Huicy has a different ancestry all together. Tomasa Huicy Marín died on the 24th of January 1889 and was the daughter of Bernardo Huicy and Catalina Marín Molinari. Her father was from Vizcaya, Spain while her mother was a native of Puerto Rico. Her grandparents though, Santiago Marín and Tomasa Molinari, where said to be from Corcega and the Dominican Republic respectively. I tried looking up more information about Bernardo Huicy (potential maternal surname "Ordorgoiti" but I can across nothing about his actual origin in Vizcaya. He was however important in Arecibo with different roles such as a member of the Board of Trustees as well as mayor in the early 1900s. 

Maternal Family

On Hiram's maternal side we see that his grandfather Roque Sosa Reyes was the son of Domingo Sosa Suarez and María Andrea Reyes Betancourt, both from the Canary Islands. María Andrea Reyes Betancourt specifically from the island of Lanzarote. Hiram's grandmother, Santos Castillo Pastrana has been the only ancestor hard to track. We know that she was from Trujillo Alto and passed away before 1906. Her parents were Fernando Castillo and María Pastrana but no idea if they were from Puerto Rico or somewhere else. 

It is interesting to notice that Hiram's family is fairly "recently" Puerto Rican seeing as how 3 out of his 4 grandparents had at least one parent born outside of Puerto Rico. From most of my searches, Puerto Ricans have deep roots on the island through at least one line or one side of the family, so it was interesting researching Hiram and finding his family easily traces out of Puerto Rico to various places such as Spain (Vizcaya and the Canary Islands), Italy, the Dominican Republic, and especially to Denmark. 

This link about Hiram's life gives a very interesting look into his career, life, and even some of what he faced due to his race. It's interesting how during those times, and even now a days, people quickly want to classify someone to a certain box in regards to race. With a name such as Hiram Bithorn, one might not expect a Puerto Rican to walk into the room, but that's the beautiful thing about our small island-- that there is such diversity amongst its inhabitants. 

Bithorn unfortunately passed away on the 29th of December, 1951 at the age of 35 in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, México after being shot by a police officer. It was very interesting learning about Hiram his ancestry, and the life he lived as the first Puerto Rican MLB player.  

Travel Tuesday – Sóller, Mallorca

This post will be about my visit to the island of Mallorca, specifically about the town of Sóller, where the Magraner family originally came from before arriving to Río Prieto, Lares, Puerto Rico. I came to Sóller to learn more about Damián Magraner Morell and his life before and after Puerto Rico. I believe that Damián is possibly my 3rd great grandfather on my paternal side of the family.

I headed to Sóller from Palma on the touristic train hoping to catch some views of the island as I headed to the northern town of Sóller. Every time I visit a town where my ancestors lived there's a weird feeling of euphoria. Not only because I am visiting a new place, but because of this deeper connection with the town. Knowing that an ancestor lived their lives in a certain town, gives new meaning and appreciation to being able to travel there. One of my first views as I stepped off the train and towards the main square was the church of Sant Bartomeu, where Damián would have been baptized circa 1846.

Iglesia de Sant Bartomeu [Personal Photo]

While in Sóller I was able to learn more about Damián's life; he served as mayor for two years in the mid-1880s and was able to learn that he passed away in 1910. I was fortunate to see the "padrones" showing him and his family in Sóller. Since two of his sons traveled to Puerto Rico in 1911, they listed their mother's address in Sóller allowing me to easily find them listed by their address. Also, since the address still exists I was able to visit the street and the houses they would have lived in. I was told the addresses could have moved up or down one house since 1910, but generally they were in that same vicinity. Here is a picture below of the house(s) which were listed in Damián's death certificate where they would have been living since about 1880. I asked in the supermarket across the street if there was a Magraner family here in these houses but I was told the houses were currently being rented out.

Calle Sant Jaume [Personal Photo]

I also headed to the cemetery in search of Damián's tomb since the archives don't have him listed, most of their records start after his death and so there is no evidence of where exactly he would be buried though he is buried there. I walked around the cemetery looking for any Damiáns or Magraner tombs and I couldn't find many that really that tied into my family. I was, however, lucky to find the tomb of a Nicólas Magraner Morell, most likely the brother of Damián. Unfortunately, it doesn't list who else from his family is buried in the plot but it was nice to see at least one person's tomb. Here are pictures of the view as I walked up towards the cemetery (absolutely amazing!) and a picture of the tomb itself. 

View near the cemetery [Personal Photo]

Tomb of Nicólas Magraner Morell [Personal Photo]

Conclusions

Even though I learned a lot more about Damián, his family, and his life in Sóller I am still unsure of his connection and whether or not he is my third great grandfather. Damián spent some time coming back and forth between Puerto Rico and Sóller and so knowing whether or not he was officially in Puerto Rico to be José's and Lorenzo's father is a bit difficult. He was listed as living in Puerto Rico around 1887, but there is no proof (that I know of) that he was there in the years of 1891 and 1894. We do know that Damián would eventually return to Sóller, helping the town during the time of the Spanish-American War. In Palma, I tried to retrieve Damián's last testament/will to see if there was any mention of land being given to a José Avilés, but unfortunately I would have to prove my connection to Damián via a paper trail in order to see his will. Which, as we know, would be impossible since I am basing this on family lore, information from census records, and coincidences (which don't sound like too much to rely on really!)

Recently, while looking at the 1910 and 1920 census records and José Avilés' WWI Registration Card I was able to finally figure out who the "Ramón Magraner" on his WWI card was! It seems that there was a mistake on various WWI cards for a "Ramón/Raimundo Rullán Pons", who was the administrator of a coffee farm. Ramón Rullán Pons was living with Damián in the late 1880s and it is highly likely that he was working on the Hacienda Margarita de Magraner, which belonged to the Magraner Morell siblings -- Damián being one of them. So we know that José and Lorenzo did work on Damián's lands before owning their own; which helps to establish a connection between both families. 

While I was in Sóller, I began to think a bit more of Damián and the probabilities of him being my 3rd great-grandfather. It seems that Damián held some sort of status in Sóller: he helped build the Banc de Sóller, was mayor for 2 years, and probably held other positions before his death. If Damián truly was the father of José and Lorenzo, I think there were little odds back then for him to recognize his illegitimate children. Imagine a man of status and married, accepting these two children as his own -- there would have been much stir in Lares, Puerto Rico and Sóller, Mallorca about his relationship with a Puerto Rican woman and would have probably been scandalous. As we know, many of our ancestors did things that either were unearthed then or are being unearthed now by us genealogists. If I were able to establish a firm connection to Damián I really don't know how the Magraner family would react to this. Did the family know about it? Could the descendants already be informed about potential Puerto Rican cousins? Hopefully I'll be able to answer these questions one day and the million others surrounding my ancestors! 

I hope to return to Sóller one day and do more research. I would love to visit during the summer and stay a month to learn and research more about the Magraner family. Hopefully I'll able able to find some descendants of Damián and see my theory proven or disproven, and I'm really hoping for the former! 

Travel Tuesday – El Puerto de Santa María, Spain

I know today is no longer Tuesday but I wanted to write this post and heck why not still post it even though it's Wednesday! But I wanted to talk about my trip to Andalusia in the south of the Spain and the wonderful opportunity I got to visit a town in which I have ancestors from. This town is called El Puerto de Santa María!

Friday I traveled to Cádiz, all the down in the southern part of Andalucía, a town of importance during the Spanish's hold of their overseas territories and the import and export of goods to those colonies. 30 minutes a bit north by fast train is a town called "El Puerto de Santa María", a town in which my 9th great grandfather was born in!

Now some of you might ask, "How do heck do you know who your great grandfather is?!". Luckily with my searching and the help of other genealogists I have been able to trace my line to Miguel de Miranda, my 9th great grandfather who would move to Puerto Rico, marry, and live there. Miguel de Miranda would marry in San Juan, Puerto Rico on the 7th of January 1668 to Andrea Rodríguez and there it would mention his town of origin. Knowing that there was a concrete place in Spain I could visit, I knew that at some point I had to go!

Marriage certificate - San Juan, Puerto Rico [FamilySearch]

I arrived through the train station to El Puerto de Santa María and was actually very giddy to get off the train and start exploring the streets and places of the town my family had lived in about 365+ years ago, which is absolutely mind boggling. I had jotted down some places I wanted to visit beforehand while in Cádiz the day before and wanted to visit as much as I could in the hours that I was there.

RENFE Station [Personal Photo]

I was fortunate enough that on a Saturday a lot was still open that I could go in and see. I stopped by the tourist office to pick up a map and then right across the plaza was a castle that I visited quickly. Being the only person there for the tour between 10:30-11:30 (in English), the security guard let me in for free and I was able to wander around alone since the tour guide wasn't around and was busy elsewhere. It was actually pretty cool and at the same time pretty creepy to walk around since there was literally no one else there except the guard who checked up on me twice and then left me alone wander around for the rest of my time there. 

Castillo de San Marcos [Personal Photo]

Inside Castillo de San Marcos [Personal Photo]

After, I headed over to La Iglesia Mayor Prioral which was pretty much the highlight of my trip to El Puerto de Santa María. I knew that the church was in use during the time that my ancestors lived there and so I wanted to go inside and see what the church was like. I have visited various different churches will traveling Spain but entering Iglesia Mayor Prioral was a completely different experience for me. I knew that this church had some sort of connection to me and I knew that visiting it would sort of reconnect me to Miguel de Miranda. I walked around, taking the church in as much as possible, prayed a bit thanking God for the opportunity to retrace my roots back to this church, and then headed over to the little office to see if I could buy something in order to remember my visit. Unfortunately, there weren't any rosaries that I could purchase but I did get a little cross that I hope but on a string/chain and wear.

Iglesia Mayor Prioral [Personal Photo]

I started chatting with the older man who was helping me and I asked about the use of the church. He told me that it was built in the XV century and has been in use since then, with some reconstruction in the XVII century after an earthquake (if I'm remembering correctly). I told him I was very interested in the church because I had an ancestor that migrated to Puerto Rico from this town and had lived here in the mid-late XVII century. He told me that if I knew some dates and names that I could potentially find some information in the church's parochial archives. I was super excited and ready to rattle off names, dates, and anything else to get me closer to new information. Unfortunately, the man who is in charge of the records wasn't there on Saturdays which was a bummer. Luckily, I asked for a phone number and name I could reach telling him that I was only in town for a day. He was very kind to provide the information and told me that they should be able to pull something up with the information I have. I'm very excited with the prospect of new information and hope to call soon to get some more information on Miguel de Miranda and hopefully of his parents, Miguel Martín and Isabel Rodríguez, as well. 

Inside - Iglesia Mayor Prioral [Personal Photo]

After visiting the church I headed to the Plaza de Toros and got to walk around the area where the Matadores go up against the bulls in the main ring. It was interesting standing there on the sand (vs sitting on the stands), where the bulls unfortunately are killed, as three young boys were practicing joyfully for their future career. I grabbed some lunch at a little Italian restaurant and saw some others places around El Puerto de Santa María. Luckily for me, the weather was amazing that Saturday and the sky was beautiful blue. Walking around the town and seeing palm trees made me feel like I was in the Caribbean, and I can see why so many southern Spaniards probably settled easily into islands such as Puerto Rico. 

Walking around El Puerto de Santa María [Personal Photo]

Hopefully I'll be able to find some more information once I call the church and do hope that Miguel de Miranda was baptized there and that his parents married there. Maybe they'll even be able to extend my tree further with the information they can provide? I might need to return in the spring if they aren't able to do over the phone requests of searching for information, but we shall see! Nonetheless, I had a great time walking around the town, seeing old sites, thinking about my ancestors, and their lives here in El Puerto de Santa María. 

52 Ancestors – #30 Pedro Fernández

It feels awesome to be back writing about my ancestors! I was a bit nervous at first that I would just get lazy and never get around to it, but I'm almost at the half way mark of the 52 Ancestor Challenge. This is definitely hard to keep up with, with the rest of live going on and what not -- but none the less I'm up to my 30th ancestor! This post will be about my 10th (woah!) great grandfather Pedro Fernández. If you notice, I didn't place a birth year and death year at the top and that's because I have no exact date for either (even the birth year is greatly estimated) but no fear, I'll post none the less!

One of my 10th great grandfather's via my maternal side of the family is Pedro Fernández. The only reason I have even a name for him is due to the help of other genealogists who have paved the way with hours and hours of research probably before I was even born! To them, I raise my (figurative) glass and can't thank them enough! Hopefully, one day I'll be able to do the same for the next generation of genealogists to come.

Pedro Fernández is one of my Spanish ancestors, literally -- he was born in Spain and later migrated to Puerto Rico. Pedro, from what we know, was born in a town called Pastrana located in the province of Guadalajara, in the autonomous community of Castilla-La Manca in Spain (whew!). According to Wikipedia the town was especially important in the 16th and 17th century, around the time my ancestors would have been born there.

Pastrana, Guadalajara, España [Wikipedia]

Here is an aerial view of some of Pastrana. The town is only 95km from Madrid, which is very exciting because I'll be there in a few weeks and hope to visit Pastrana! Also according to wikipedia, the town's population is that of…1,054 (extremely small!). There are a few monuments and museums to visit in the town, so I think a day-trip will be sufficient to see most of the town. There's even a Palacio Ducal (The Spanish Wiki has more information) and there are Jewish and Arab quarters.

I'm not sure what drove Pedro Fernández and his wife Isabel Ruiz to find a new home; whether religious, political, or economic reasons both Pedro and Isabel (whether together or separately I'm not sure) left Pastrana and headed over to Puerto Rico somewhere in the mid-1600s. I'm also not sure how many generations the Fernández and Ruiz family was there, whether many or a few, but it seems they were ready to begin a new life somewhere new. My 9th great grandfather, who took on two completely different last names, was born about 1645 in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. His name was Pedro Díaz Muñiz de Pastrana, and he was also an Alférez from what he know about him. According to Wikipedia (my best friend today), an Alférez was "in medieval Iberia, was a high-ranking official in the household of a king or magnate. The term is derived from the Arabic الفارس (al-fāris), meaning "horseman" or "cavalier", and it was commonly Latinised as alferiz or alferis". I'm not sure how or where he got the title from, seeing as how Pedro Jr. was born in Puerto Rico and not Spain.

Before, it wasn't necessary that a child had to take on either of the parents' surnames; if a grandfather or grandmother had a higher ranking surname by which the child could go by to get better footing in society, the parents could choose to give them that surname. I'm not sure if Díaz and Muñiz are paternal or maternal surnames but I'm guessing they held some sort of title or importance to the family. There is also the slim (yet possible) fact that Pedro and Isabel were trying to escape some sort of past in Spain, whether religious or political and didn't want their child involved or followed by those surnames. Both Fernández and Muñiz seem to be found heavily on the north-western side of Spain, so potentially my ancestors moved down from there into Pastrana.

I don't know how possible it is to get specific information on Pedro Fernández and Isabel Ruiz since they lived over 400+ years ago but I would love to know what kind of Spain they lived in, or rather how the town of Pastrana was set up and why they would want to leave. Who knows if there is a common descendant of the Fernández and Ruiz lines living amongst those 1,054 inhabitants. It's kind of surreal to think of a 10th great grandfather, because that is REALLY far removed from where I am today. If and when I step into the town of Pastrana, it will have been somewhere near/close to 370 years (a rough estimate passed around the time Pedro Díaz Muñiz was born in Arecibo) since that family left the town for good. How odd that will be to return and walk potentially the same streets they did. If and when (because I really want to) go I will definitely give another update on the town!