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...!

Sparks, Sparks, Sparks A-Flyin'!!

All you need is a spark to ignite something, right? Well yesterday I received one of my many sparks, which lead me down a new road. I was conversing with fellow genealogist David Quénéhervé who has experience using Martinique records and we began to talk about my 4th great grandparents who immigrated from Martinique to Puerto Rico. You know the ones that I keep mentioning here and there and all the jumbled information I've gotten about them. Well, a link from this member may have helped me to unlock and straighten a lot of the information about at least one side of that family. The family I'll talk about is the Lotten family which is my 4th great grandmother's last name. (Remember there were some variations to the surname). He passed along a link which I'll put HERE for anyone else looking for ancestors from Martinique.

So, the website is called the Portail de la Banque Numérique des Patrimoines Martiniquias, or BNPM for short. This website has what are known as "Actes d'individualité". Simply put, they are acts of registrations which occurred after the emancipation of slaves on the island. The emancipated slaves would go into the local place to register themselves. Here a surname was either chosen or given to the person registering. David Quénéhervé told me that Pedro was a surname given to former slaves during the registration. I got nosy, however, and starting poking around typing in different names after not finding a Pedro Pedro. I tried a few names and one was the name Eglantin (both as Eglantin and Eglantine). Eglantin was supposedly my 5th great grandmother's last name in the Santa Isabel record. I came across a record of a Eglantine being registered with two other people with a common last name. So when I thought before that Eglantin was the elongated version of Lotten I was most likely incorrect and Eglantine would be the first name rather than last name of my 5th great grandmother. And here the spark would begin!

What's In A Name

The name which they were all three given was: LAUTIN! And where have we seen such a similar name? YES! Back in Puerto Rico where my 4th great grandmother used Lotten! Granted the spelling of course is different but we all know that immigration was and is never kind to foreign names. Registered were two girls: one named Pauline (hmmm... sound familiar?), and the other gave me some chills: Julienne Malvina Lotten. I internally almost shouted when I saw this! My 4th great grandmother was recorded as anything from Juliana, Julia, Balbina and I think once even as Barbara. These coincidences were overlapping too much! Julienne Malvina was born circa 1844 according to her Acte D'individualité which is possible seeing as how her daughter, (my 3rd great grandmother) was born around the 1860-1870s. What caught my eye as well was the 17 month old baby Pauline. Interestingly, my 3rd great grandmother would more times than few in records go by the name of Paulina, other times she used Octavia! Thanks to a simple search for a Pedro we've gotten some interesting stuff. [Warning: (For both myself and the reader), this could all just be simple coincidences. However, I'm choosing to believe for now that the evidence is pretty strong for there to be a connection. Things may change later on but only time will tell, for now this is just my theory.] UPDATE: I have solidified this line and these are truly my ancestors!!

Documents

Thanks to David (literally, infinite thanks to him)! Even though at the end if I find that these aren't my family members then I'll have had a good ride and learned so much about records in Martinique that I really can't complain!

So the first three are the Actes D'individualité:

Eglantine Lautin- Acte d'individualité

Julienne Malvina Lautin- Acte d'individualité

Pauline Lautin- Acte d'individualité

For the non-French speakers/readers out there basically these documents are just stating that these three women were coming forth to register themselves, rather Eglantine was registering herself and her daughters. Eglantine Lautin is the mother of Julienne Malvina and Pauline, she is from Africa and was born circa 1820s. Her daughters Julienne and Pauline were both born in Trois Bourgs, section of Rivière Salée in Martinique. Unfortunately, all three were slaves and thus no further records before this date of 21 December 1848 would exist for them. Yet knowing Eglantine is from Africa gives so much power to who this woman was and the life she would have lived.

Pauline would later pass away in 1855 at the age of about 8 years old. This for me also proves why Julienne's first daughter would be named Paulina, a memory of her young sister who sadly passed away at a young age. Julienne would be about 11 when she lost her sister and most likely shaken by having lost her only sister and closest sibling at the time. Eglantine, by 1851 had a son named Jean who would be have been about 4 by the time of his sister Pauline's died, and Eglantine would go on to have another daughter named Rose in 1858. Jean and Rose would be born free since they were born after 1848.

Interestingly enough, Pauline and her family were living in "L'habitation de monsieur Leclerc de Vièvres" in 1855. David enlightened me with the fact that in the West Indies, "habitation" was another way of saying plantation. Which would mean that Eglantine was most likely working on this plantation trying to make a living for her daughters. Earlier in 1851, they would living in "L'habitation du sieur Laroche Garnier and a few years later when Rose was born they were in living in "L'habitation de Saint Catherine Dubocage"in 1858. David tells me that since there was economic hardship throughout this time it was fairly common to jump around from place to place looking for work.

Eglantine would pass away at her home in Petit Paradis in the year 1889. Unfortunately Eglantine was written down as "célibataire" and so there is no hint to a father for any of the Lautin children. This would make sense as to why Julienne would stay with the surname Lautin from when her, her sister and her mother were registered. What I found interesting that connected was that when Martina Isabel was born in Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico in 1886, it was mentioned that Eleuteria Eglantine was still alive [...y Eleuteria Eglantin, de la misma naturaleza y domicilio, mayor de edad, vuida, y lavandera.]

Eglantine Lautin- Décès 1889

Conclusions

Are these the records of my 4th and 5th great grandmothers? Truly who knows. Until I find a record in Puerto Rico that will solidly point to Rivière Salée, Martinique or whether other town the "Lotten" family came from I'll never know for sure. Funny that this Lautin family lived in Rivière Salée and would later settle in Salinas, Puerto Rico both dealing with "sal" or salt. I hope and pray that these are them. The last name doesn't match 100% due to spelling changes but they are similar in pronunciation and I can't just whisk away the fact that my 4th great grandmother was Juliana Lotten and one of the actes d'individualité is for a Julienne Lautin. I won't know for sure right away but I'm excited about the prospect of discovering more and if these are them, then hopefully one day going to Rivière Salée to find out more about the Lautin family. [UPDATE]: These are my ancestors and I am happy that I have able to piece this all together with the help of others!