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? 

A Marriage Where You Least Expect It

Recently, I was taking a look again at my "Rivera" line. This is my direct line going back to the early 1700s in Toa Alta. Besides my father and my grandfather, every male ancestor (4 in total so far) have been born in Toa Alta. Though 4 may seem insignificant, that's a total of close to 300 years of my family living in this one town. This post is going to be about discovering some new information about my 4th great grandparents!

Setting the Stage

My Rivera family was one of my catalysts for wanting to research my ancestry when I was younger. I wanted to know where my Rivera family was from and wanted to know where potentially in Spain they were from. Though initially it was difficult to find out about this family, I was fortunate to find out that they were from Toa Alta, Puerto Rico which led me to using the Civil Registry and the church records in order to push my ancestors back to the early 1800s. My earliest ancestors were José de Rivera and Gertrudis Román. José passed away sometime between 1824-1844 and Gertrudis passed in 1844, but besides that I had no idea of their parents' names. The "Rivera Román" children were all born during a time grandparents weren't added into baptism entries so I had no idea of their parents' names. I also had no siblings for José and Gertrudis to help with my search for parents or potential origins outside of Toa Alta.

Toa Alta [Google Images]

One day however, while looking through the records for Guaynabo I came across a "Rivera Belén" marriage entry in 1773. The reason this was important was because José was written as "Rivera Belén" in one of his son's baptism record. However, in neither of the other 8 baptism records does José appear as "Rivera Belén". Not wanting to lose the record I attached it to José as a possible brother and moved on.

Recently, I took a look at other marriages in Guaynabo to see if I could find any other "Rivera Belén" siblings and found a new record that completely shocked me!

A New Record

José de Rivera & Gertrudis Román - Marriage [FamilySearch]

José de Rivera & Gertrudis Román - Marriage [FamilySearch]

Searching my way up from the 1770s I bumped into a record that made me gasp - it was a marriage record for a José Rivera and Gertrudis Román. Could these be my ancestors?! The marriage took place on the 2nd of March 1802 and my ancestor's first registered child was in 1806 in Toa Alta so it was possible... So I took a closer look at the record:

José de Rivera was widowed of María Feliz and the legitimate son of Pedro and María Morales, resident of Toa Alta and Gertrudis Román legitimate daughter of Manuel and Margarita Ayala, all pardos libres.

So here we had some new information, José was widowed before he married Gertrudis and now we had the names of both of their parents, interestingly enough José named a son Pedro so having a father with the same name wasn't surprising.

With this I was able to go back into the marriage records of Guaynabo and find José's first marriage to María Feliz in 1791, stating again that he was a native of Toa Alta. Gertrudis herself was probably from Guaynabo seeing as she had other siblings born there, I have yet to find a baptism record for her there though.

At first I was hesitant to believe these were my ancestors, but the lack of a marriage in Toa Alta, the fact it mentions José was a native of that town, and Gertrudis Román's fairly uncommon name was enough to convince me that these were my 4th great-grandparents. The question remains though why José de Rivera lived in Guaynabo for a while and then ultimately decided to move back.

Something else that's interesting is the use of "Belén" in that one baptismal record. Could there be a connection to the Rivera Belén family somehow still?

I recently heard a genealogist say "solving one mystery, means adding two" (sorry I can't remember where I read it, if I find who I'll add credit here!), and this is absolutely true! Having a new generation of the Rivera family is amazing because hopefully I can research some more into these lines and find out more about them. I also have to learn more about Guaynabo, its history, and find out more about the Román Ayala presence there. 

52 Ancestors – #37 Gertrudis Román (1790-1844)

I'm going to keep this ball rolling and continue posting about my ancestors. So here's post 37 about yet another ancestor from Toa Alta, my 4th great grandmother Gertrudis Román.

When I first discovered Gertrudis through the Toa Alta church records I was really excited, being the wife of my 4th great grandfather, Joseph de Rivera, it made her a part of the oldest set of ancestors on my direct paternal lineage.

I started digging deeper into the records searching for their death records, I was fortunate to stumble upon a "Gertrudis Romana" who I'm pretty sure is my 4th great grandmother. It states… "al cadaver de Gertrudis Romana [sic] como de veinte y seis años viuda de José Rivera, pardos libres". 

Gertrudis passed away on the 29th of December 1844, having already been widowed of her husband José Rivera. Her age is listed as "26 years old" which would mean she would have been born about 1818 which I know is incorrect. This is the only little bit of information that is very inaccurate, and for now I do believe this is my Gertrudis Román but it does bother me a bit that it's so wrong. Very possibly, her age was guessed at the time of her death. She could have been in her late 40s and someone gave a wrong age and that's what was written down. I'm not sure if there was another Jose Rivera and Gertrudis Roman couple in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico at the time (at least I haven't found one) so even though the age is wrong I believe firmly she is my 4th great grandmother.

What's interesting is that it states she is a "pardo libre", and the fact that it's in plural probably means it was referring to her late husband as well. I have talked about this term before in other posts, how "pardo" for a while was a term used to describe people of color in Puerto Rico and later the term "trigueño" kind of substituted this word, sometimes the word 'mulato' was used as well. However, there is some debate to what the "pardo" mix actually entails. I'm under the impression (and agree with) the belief that pardo was a term used for mixed Spanish and native Taíno people. It is also very possible that it was used for mixed Spanish and African people (and possibly for someone of all three). We know for sure that José Rivera would have been a descendant on his paternal side from a European man seeing as he (and I) are I2a1*, a European haplogroup. This is the first time I noticed on the record that it was in plural and that it could be a reference to the husband. Potentially both José and Gertrudis were mixed free people of color in the Toa Alta society and married because they were in the same social class.

Gertrudis and José would have nine children in total, from what I have so far! I'd have to look and see how they were identified in terms of "color". In my 3rd great grandfather's death record there is no note of his color, probably because the entries were much shorter during the time period he passed away in. None the less, it's very interesting to see my 4th great grandmother listed as "pardo libre", I would love to do some more research into that term and see what kind of life - whether they enjoyed certain privileges or hung in between two worlds - and how this category would impact their lives and that of their children.