The Ending to a Search?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exploring my Slave Roots in Martinique, Part II

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

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

Updated Famille Garnier-Laroche Lapierre Tree

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

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

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

Exploring my Slave Roots in Martinique, Part I

Map of Martinique

Part I

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

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

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

Unofficial "snake flag" of Martinique

Part II

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

Julienne dite Malvina- Naissance

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

Early Christmas Miracle!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tomas Charles Lotin

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

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

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

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

When You Least Expect It...

I took a little hiatus from searching for my ancestors after I started working and since I was stuck at home due to Hurricane Sandy I decided to give it go again. (I can't stay away from my tree for that long anyways!) I decided to glimpse through my line of potential Martinique ancestors. There's one document which I've always found extremely helpful and this time it helped me out once again. The document is the birth certificate of my 2nd great aunt, Luisa Correa Gustave (Gustavo). She was born in Salinas, Puerto Rico on the 2nd of June 1885. She is the first child born to Manuel Correa and Paulina/Octavia Gustavo at the start of the civil registry and I'm pretty sure the only child to be registered as Gustave rather than Gustavo. I've posted about the surname here and the changes it has gone through throughout the years.

Luisa Gustave being registered in Salinas, PR

I've always looked at this document because it states that her grandfather, Juan Carlos Gustavo was still alive, was from Guadeloupe and was a carpenter (I believe that he was from Martinique from all the other evidence I have). He was also listed as one of the 'testigos' or witnesses to her birth. But it wasn't until yesterday that it clicked! Most of the witnesses sign their names at the end of the certificate. Could Juan Carlos Gustavo, my 4th great grandfather been able to write and sign his name as a witness? Lo and behold, his signature was there to my surprise!! Also he signed his name the way it was before the Spanish-fication of it. Therefore he signed his name as Jean Charles Gustave.

1885 Salinas, PR- Juan Carlos' signature

Now I had a new piece of evidence that I could use. Sadly, in 1887 when his 2nd grandchild Cruz Correa Gustavo was born he was not present and neither was he for any other's birth. From the certificates, we know that Jean Charles died some where between 1885-1890 but we don't know where. I've checked Salinas where his daughter lived, my 3rd great grandmother, and he was not there. Jean Charles' wife is said to have lived in Ponce, but I haven't found her death certificate and Jean Charles also was not there.

Yesterday I decided, for whatever reason, to check the town of Santa Isabel. I decided to check the index for births from 1885-1931. There I checked for any possible Gustavo/Charles families. There I came across a birth registered as "Martina Isabel Gustavo Pedro" in 1886 and decided to check it out. Despite the fact that I wasn't aware of any "Pedro" surnames in my family I suspected that this could be a possible connection.

Martina Isabel registered along with others in 1886- Santa Isabel,  PR

When I found her birth certificate I was very surprised! The father who appeared to make the declaration of her birth was named JUAN CARLOS GUSTAVO! From Martinique and a carpenter! I was so excited to find this! But I had to keep in mind that this could be someone else, especially since it was Gustavo Pedro, rather than Gustavo Lotten (and all its variants). I kept looking at the document and found more interesting things. The wife was Juliana Pedro, also from Martinique. It also matched! Juan Carlos' wife has gone by many names and Julia/Juliana is one of them along with Balbina and Barbara. This was the first document to mention parents for Juan Carlos and Julianna, which was interesting to see.

Juan Carlos' parents according to the document were Juan Carlos Gustavo and Maria Lucia both from Martinique and had passed at the time of Martina's birth. Juliana's parents were Pedro Pedro and Eleuteria Eglantin, both from Martinique. He had passed and the mother was alive, a widow, a washerwoman, who was still alive [from what it seems she lived in Martinique still. At first I thought it said in Santa Isabel but it says in Spanish "de la misma naturaleza y domicilio", which would mean from the same origin/nature and address.] This was one of the most interesting parts of the document. Pedro Pedro most likely doubled his name or took his dad's first name (Pedro) as a surname. Eleuteria Eglantin is probably most of the interesting pieces to this puzzle. Her last name when pronounced sounds VERY similar to the name Lotten which was what passed to my 3rd great grandmother. This,  probably real last name brought over from Martinique (probably somewhat distorted from its original spelling) and worked better than Pedro. The 'Eg' part could have been dropped and when pronounced was written simply as Lotten. Feel free to write "Lantin" into French>English Google Translate to see what I mean. [I would later learn that 'Eglantin' was her first name.] Interestingly enough, I can't find Martina Isabel in the 1910 Census as well so she might have died as a child.

The Maternal Grandparents of Martina Isabel

Lastly, I decided to check for a signature! This could be the confirmation that I needed to prove whether or not they were related to my Charles/Gustave(o) line. Here are both signatures. I believe that they are the same man. Despite the small differences such as neatness and depth of the ink, etc. I believe that this is the same man's signature.

Salinas, Puerto Rico 1885

Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico 1885

Both for some reason it seems are spelled "Jeain" with the "J" having the bottom looped hook. Both Charles have the "Ch" connected then "ar" and then "les" connected. Then "Gustavo" has the same bottom looped hook in the "G" and then "gus" in connected and then "tavo" with the "o" connecting to the line beneath it. Also, notice that all three are lower case while I've seen other people capitalize their first and last name. I do believe that both of these are the same people. Also, Santa Isabel and Salinas are actually both southern towns and here you can see that they're both neighbors to one another.

Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico

Salinas, Puerto Rico

Hopefully I'll find out more about this family and keep extending this line. I would love the opportunity to be able to find where in Martinique they would have been from and actually visit the town they lived in and figure out the historic background to their lives. Of course, it might not be possible if they didn't mention where they were from in Martinique but with the records from that island I hope that hopefully it'll be possible!

Tracing a Surname

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

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

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

Gustave- 1885

Already "Gustavo" in 1887!

Still "Gustavo" at 1890- stays that way 

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

"Lotten" or "Lobben"?- 1885

"Lote"- 1890

"Lotett"- 1893

"Loter"- 1895

"Lotis"- 1898

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

"Soti"- 1899

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

1920 Census- Alberto Gustavo Sotin

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

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

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

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