Searching My "Lamboy" Branch

In the summer of 2018, I clocked in a lot of hours looking into my Yabucoa side of the family. Discovering the church death record of my 4th great-grandfather Manuel de Santiago fortunately unlocked for me new names of ancestors to search. These searches ultimately took me from Yabucoa to the towns of Humacao and Las Piedras, and what was once a dry well of information became a well filled with new surnames, dates, and ancestors. In this maternal line, I discovered a 7th great-grandfather with the surname "Lamboy" and this is who I want to focus on today. Below you can see how I descend from Feliciano Lamboy via my mother's side of the family.

Feliciano Lamboy - 7th great-grandfather [Personal Photo]

As you can see above, my 6th great-grandmother was the last member of my line to hold Lamboy as a paternal side where afterwards it gets daughtered out, meaning that the descendants of this line changed names based on the fathers, men who were not Lamboy. Here you can see it jumps to Ramos, Santiago (2 generations), Orozco, Dávila, and finally down to me as a Rivera - this is because if most of my ancestors in this line were women.

My 6th great-grandmother Lucrecia Lamboy Rabelo/Rivera was one of many children from her parents Feliciano Lamboy and María Rabelo/Rivera (she jumps from one or the other depending on record and year). In total, Lucrecia was a part of 13 children in total from this couple (so far) and interestingly enough, her mother's death record in 1803 states that Lucrecia along with Bernarda were born before her marriage with Feliciano. Which means two things: 1) Feliciano and María married and recognized their two first daughters thus giving them the surname "Lamboy" or 2) Lucrecia and Bernarda are from another relationship and Feliciano gave them his surname to protect the girls and the family from being social outcasts. Nonetheless, here we are, searching into this line my family - only DNA will tell if we are genetically "Lamboy", and even then being 7 generations far from me dilutes the amount of DNA I would inherit from this branch of my family. 

3 generations of Lamboy [Personal Family Tree]

Why are am I so interested in my Lamboy family you may ask? 

Lamboy - ¿Español?... ¡No!

Every time I come across a new surname in my family that I haven't heard of before, I jump on INE to find out its potential roots. For example, finding the surname "Magraner" in my family and seeing that the surname wasn't too common or popular in Puerto Rico lead me to search the INE and find out the surname is mainly concentrated on the east of Spain and mainly on the islands of Mallorca. 

And so I eagerly typed in the surname, only to discover... 

Lamboy Results... Or lack thereof [INE]

There were ZERO hits! No one (currently) in Spain uses the surname Lamboy (or less than 5 in total), which means that this surname probably isn't Spanish! I'm not too surprised though, the surname doesn't really have a Spanish ring to it and the -mb- combination feels a bit weird. The surname however has another variation on the island - Laboy.

What about Laboy?! 

I decided to type in this surname variation and see what hits I would get... and again, NOTHING! With this one it's also not too surprising since it seems that Laboy probably stems from Lamboy, whether as an orthographic mistake or an intentional doing... I'm not sure. Another branch of my family has the surname "Laboy" also from the southern area of the island but I haven't been able to search that line further yet. 

So this begs the question, who were the Lamboy? Where they one contacted branch of various arrivals? Where were they from? And how did they arrive in Puerto Rico?

Breadcrumbs

Searching for the Lamboy in Humacao, I was able to start putting some information together to see how many branches there might be and if/how they interacted with one another. If there were a ton, then this name was more common than what I thought. If there were a few, then there was likely a familial relationship between them. It seems that my family was in Humacao since the town's inception and so they were some of the first settlers to arrive. Where from? Well let's see what we know!

Working our way backwards up the tree, Marcelina Ramos Lamboy (my 5th great-grandmother) was baptized in 1799 in Humacao and her godparents were Feliciano Lamboy and his daughter María Magdalena. We can assume that this Feliciano Lamboy is her maternal grandfather and María Magdalena her aunt (my 7th great-aunt). Later in 1801, María Magdalena Lamboy appears again at the godmother of Juana Ramos Lamboy, my 6th great-aunt. Lastly, she serves as madrina (godmother) of José Ramón Ramos Lamboy in 1805.

María Magdalena Lamboy would go on to marry Toribio Solís Rodríguez in May 1806, mentioning that her parents were Feliciano Lamboy deceased and María Rivera. That record confirms that María Magdalena was the aunt of all of these children in their baptism.

In Las Piedras we find that the family was here before settling into Humacao's records, finding a baptism in 1788 for Florencio and his padrinos were Juan Lamboy and Isabel de los Reyes.

Since Humacao has an index for most of their baptism records I was able to document all of the Lamboy children born within 1793-1825, similarly I was able to document deaths in the town as well. See below for the excel I created with green marking baptism records and red-orange marking death records.

Lamboy Baptisms in Humacao, Puerto Rico

Lamboy Deaths in Humacao, Puerto Rico

Many of the records point to Feliciano Lamboy and María Rabelo/Rivera though there are other couples as well and one specifically caught my eye: Vicente Lamboy and his wife Bernarda Rabelo. As you can see both have the surname combo of "Lamboy Rabelo" which makes me think that Vicente and Feliciano would be brothers while Bernarda and María were sisters, respectively. Though I have no evidence to tie them together yet I decided to explore this couple and see if they had crossed paths with my 7th great-grandparents. 

Vicente Lamboy & Bernarda Rabelo

To begin, I was able to find their marriage record in Humacao, Puerto Rico - they were married in July 1796. Notice the information about Bernarda that struck me as interesting!

Vicente Lamboy & Bernarda de Rivera - Matrimonio 1796 [FamilySearch]

In the record above you can see that Vicente Lambo[i] (first time I saw Lamboy as "Lamboi", a typo I imagine) was a native of Guayama and the son of Marcos Lamboy and Baltazara Rodríguez while Bernarda was the daughter of María de Rivera. Did you catch what I caught?!

Here you can see that Bernarda appears as "Bernarda de Rivera" while in her children's baptism indexes above she appears as "Bernarda de Rabelo"... where have we seen this before? With my own 7th great-grandmother who sometimes as "María de Rivera" and "María de Rabelo"... leading me to think they are sisters! Equally, in various records Feliciano Lamboy and his daughter Lucrecia for example appear as natives of Guayama and here we see the same thing with Vicente Lamboy. 

From there marriage I have been able to identify four children born in Humacao: 

• Lorenza (1797) 
• Juan Evangelista (1800)
• María del Carmen (1802)
• Nicolasa (1804) 

If we take a look at their godparents we get to learn a bit more about who the family was surrounded by: 

• Padrinos de Lorenza: Feliciano Lamboy & María de Rivera
• Padrinos de Juan Evangelista: Severino Maldonado & María Magdalena Lamboy
• Padrinos de María del Carmen: Miguel Berríos & Estefanía Cordovés/Córdoba
• Padrinos de Nicolasa: Juan Antonio Lamboy & Paulina Rodríguez

From the four children listed above, three have "Lamboy" surnamed godparents and two right away we can identify - the first being Feliciano Lamboy (my 7th great-grandfather) and María Magdalena Lamboy (my 7th great-aunt). 

Lorenza Lamboy Rivera - Bautismo [FamilySearch]

Juan Evangelista Lamboy Ravelo - Bautismo [FamilySearch]

The third record points to a Juan Antonio Lamboy married to a Paulina Rodríguez as the godparents of Nicolasa. I have two Antonio Lamboy brothers for María Magdalena: the first an actual "Juan Antonio" born about 1783 and the second an "Antonio Lamboy" born in 1790. The former option makes the most sense as the latter would have only been 14 years old when Nicolasa was born in 1804.

Nicolasa Lamboy Rivera - Bautismo [FamilySearch]

This Juan Antonio Lamboy (my 7th great-uncle) was born in 1783 was married in 1808 to a "Victoria" mulata libre, though no surname is mentioned their children would go to carry "Lamboy Nazario" or "Lamboy de Matos". Could he have been previously married before 1804 to Paulina Rodríguez? His marriage record doesn't mention him as a widower but we know records often make mistakes. I would have to find a marriage record prior to 1804 to prove him as the same man. 

If this is the case, this would potentially mean that Feliciano Lamboy was a brother to Vicente Lamboy and María Magdalena and Juan Antonio would have been nieces and nephews appearing as godparents for their uncle Vicente. Not further evidence is discovered I can only speculate their relationship. 

Final Clues

A few months ago a kind Puerto Rican genealogist uploaded a list of foreigners in Puerto Rico in the year 1816, though not an all encompassing list, it mentions various towns and people from other countries along with their profession. Below, we see a Vicente Lamboy listed as French and he seems to be a carpenter. Now, could this be the same Vicente Lamboy that appears in Humacao? Possible. 

Extranjeros en Puerto Rico, 1816 [Shared by Puerto Rican Genealogist]

Some records point to Vicente Lamboy as being from Ponce or Guayama, both towns in the south and though not directly neighboring towns to one another, it's important to note that town borders have changed over the years and "Ponce" and "Guayama" as we know them now are much smaller than in the past. This historic map shows us how much bigger the borders of these towns were. 

Map of Puerto Rico [Google Images]

Though Humacao's territory lies on the east, it's possible that Vicente Lamboy moved around a bit and/or was officially registered as a foreigner in Ponce. A Google search in the "Books" section provides us another clue of a "Vicente Lamboy" present in Ponce again. 

Actos de Cabildo de Ponce [Google Books]

What's interesting is that the 1816 Register mentions "French" as the origin, which is interesting to consider because in no other records does Vicente Lamboy mention French. Of course, it is possible that these aren't the same men but considering late 1700s-early 1800s in the Ponce/Guayama area... how many Vicente Lamboys could there actually be? One truly doesn't know until you've exhausted all possible theories. 

Conclusions

My current research now lies in Guayama, trying to find any clues or evidence of Vicente Lamboy or Feliciano Lamboy. Could they have been brothers or even cousins themselves? Though Ponce is still on the table, the church's records online aren't as far back as Guayama and the evidence, for now, overwhelming points more to Guayama versus Ponce. I have been able to find some Lamboy in Guayama but so far none that have matched what I have in my tree, nonetheless, it's good to see that the name is present in the town. 

For now, French seems to be the only possible indication of a place of origin and though "specific" it's quite the opposite. I have seen French refer to Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Corsica, and finally France itself. So there really isn't a clear indication to where exactly he would have been from. Maybe another more detailed registration for Vicente would hold that information. The current 1815-1845 Registry of Foreign Residents of Puerto Rico online on FamilySearch has no entries for "Lamboy" or "Laboy". Hoping to discover more in the Guayama records!

"L" Registrations for Foreign Residents, 1815-1845 [FamilySearch]

Do you have Lamboy ancestors from Guayama/Ponce?

How One Death Record Got It Wrong

I wanted to focus this post on an aspect of genealogy I think most newbies tend to oversee, whether due to excitement or blindly trusting what we first see - mistakes on records. When you first start out in genealogy, you tend to take all information on records as genealogical gold. But what happens when a record is wrong? More often than not this is likely to occur (in certain types of documents over others) and there are probably more instances of this happening than we actually know of. These types of 'clerical mistakes', whether on purpose or mistake, are becoming easier to break down with the advent of DNA testing. Today, I wanted to focus on two records, a civil death record and a church death record, essentially the same, but with very different information on them and how one created a brick wall for me while the other broke it down.

One Death, Two Sets of Different Information [Ancestry & FamilySearch]

When I first began my genealogy 15 years ago, one of the easiest sides to research was my maternal grandmother's side of the family from Yabucoa, Puerto Rico. This side was the easiest since I am fortunate enough to have my maternal grandmother still alive. I could ask her questions about her parents, grandparents, cousins, etc. until the genealogical well of information ran dry. Since my grandmother was born in Yabucoa but raised in San Juan, she had limited knowledge past her great grandmother "Pancha", Francisca Orozco Santiago, who passed away two years before my grandmother was born. Fortunately for me, the Puerto Rican Civil Registry records were available on FamilySearch and I was able to pick up on where my grandmother's information left off.

Working my way backwards from my 2nd great-grandmother, I began searching in the Yabucoa civil records. From what I have on my tree, it seems that back in 2011 I uploaded under Francisca's gallery the civil registry birth record for Francisca, which mentions her maternal grandparents as Manuel de Santiago, married, a farm worker, alive, and living in Calabazas, Yabucoa and Juana Balbina Burgos, also alive and residing in Calabazas - these were my 4th great-grandparents. Years later, the Puerto Rican Civil Registry would become available on Ancestry so I could now merge the records to my family members' profiles.

Manuel de Santiago & Juana Balbina Burgos (4th Great-grandparents) [Ancestry]

My grandmother had never known the names of her 2nd great-grandparents and excitedly wrote them down during our phone conversation years back, I told her I'd keep working on the tree to see what else I could find. In the same year of 2011, two months after uploading Francisca Orozco's birth record, I uploaded to my tree Manuel de Santiago's civil death record. This death record, left a lot to be desired and in the next 7 years to come I'd be stuck with no solids leads.

Manuel de Santiago, Defunción 1888 [Ancestry]

What's marked in green above was confirmed information I knew, the name of my 4th great-grandfather was Manuel de Santiago, he was living in Calabazas where he passed in 1888 (our extended family lived/lives in this part of Yabucoa to this day), he was married to Juana Burgos and had a daughter (my 3rd great-grandmother) named Dolores Santiago Burgos. On this record it states that he was the illegitimate son of a Petrona de Santiago who was already deceased. The person who came forward to make Manuel's death known was a Juan Gómez, who according to this record was in charge of the family. Currently in my tree there are two potential Juan Gómez who could be this man that came forward.

For years to come, my tree was stopped at Manuel de Santiago, son of Petrona de Santiago. Back in 2013-2014, I had spent some time visiting the LDS church in New York City to have access to Yabucoa's church records and my searches for Petrona's death, Manuel's baptism, or even his marriage to Juana Burgos were fruitless. When the church records for Yabucoa became available online on FamilySearch my searches went elsewhere in Yabucoa and to other towns now easily accessible. Last summer, however, I decided to locate Manuel's death record in Yabucoa's Parroquia Santos Ángeles Custodios' church records. Little did I know this record would make my brick wall come tumbling down. 

Manuel's death is recorded in the Civil Registry on the 19th March 1888 and mentions he had passed away one day before at 6 in the morning [18th March 1888] due to pneumonia. Having this date in hand, I began to search the Yabucoa church records for a death record for Manuel de Santiago. 

Manuel de Santiago, Defunción de iglesia 1888 [FamilySearch]

The first thing that shocked me was a second surname for Manuel listed as "Ramos". I initially thought, this can't be my Manuel, he doesn't have a second surname on his civil death record. But the closer I looked at the death record, I noticed that everything matched up - Manuel de Santiago, passing away the 18th of March 1888, married to Juana Burgos. Except this time it listed his parents as Claudio Santiago and Marcelina Ramos. My mind began to race, How could there be two different recorded parents on one death? Who then reported his death to the church? Here you can see there is no mention of who came forward to register his death at the church, but was there a way to figure out which record was correct? Of course! If I could located Manuel and Juana's marriage record, I could hopefully once and for all confirm who his parents were. Since he was alive for his wedding and most likely relying the information himself of who his parents were, this would help to confirm which of the two records were correct. So last summer, I spent a lot of time searching the Yabucoa church records painstakingly going through images one-by-one searching for more confirmation of Manuel's parents. And final, at one point early in the summer, I was able to locate their marriage record.

Manuel de Santiago & Juana Burgos, Matrimonio 1853 [FamilySearch]

Manuel de Santiago and Juana Burgos were married on the 17th of September 1853 (166 years ago this month!) and though hard to see on the record, playing around with the brightness you can make out his parents' names - Manuel de Santiago, vecino de Las Piedras, hijo legítimo de Claudio y de Marcelina Ramos. Though I'm not 100% sure it says "Las Piedras", based off the script/handwriting, knowing that it doesn't say "de esta feligresía" (parishioner of this town) like his wife, and that his father was born in Las Piedras himself, I'm fairly sure that it's Las Piedras. 

Here we now had another record to confirm his church death record's parents' names - Claudio Santiago & Marcelina Ramos (my 5th great-grandparents). By finding both his church death record and his marriage record, I was able to find out the names of my 5th great-grandparents and continue to research these lines. Last summer I was able to discover that before arriving to Yabucoa, my family had lived in Las Piedras and Humacao as well as the names of Manuel's 4 grandparents and 4 out of 8 of his great-grandparents - these being my 6th and 7th great-grandparents. I was pretty excited about this new information as it brought some of these branches back to the early 1700s. 

This past July 2019, before heading out to travel for the summer, I was searching the early 1800s baptism records in Yabucoa. Luckily for me, I was able to find Manuel de Santiago Ramos' baptism record! 

Manuel de Santiago Ramos, Bautismo 1822 [FamilySearch]

Baptized on the 1st of July 1822 (I found this record 197 years and 3 days after he would have been baptized!) and born on 19th of June 1822, Manuel was the legitimate son of Claudio de Santiago and Martina Ramos (though listed here as "Martina", I'm confident this was supposed to be recorded as Marcelina). It mentions that his godparents are Juan de Santiago and Luisa Ortis [sic], and based of a baptism I found in Las Piedras for Claudio, these would be his paternal grandparents, my 6th great-grandparents. 

Had I not looked into the Yabucoa church death records it would have probably taken me some more time to realize there was a mistake on his civil death record. Finding this "second" death record allowed me to find his marriage record and ultimately his baptism record. Though I was stuck for about eight years, finding this one church record allowed me to research and find three more generations in the span of one year. This is why it's important to cover of all of your bases when searching for an ancestor and use multiple records to corroborate your findings. Hopefully this post can serve as an inspiration to those of you stuck searching for an ancestor! Keep trying, looking in new places, and using multiple records and sources to aide your search. 

Related to Manuel de Santiago & Juana Burgos? 

Reach out to see where and how much DNA we might share!

A Puerto Rican Look at: Ancestry's "MyTreeTags"

A bit earlier on in the year, around spring/early summer, Ancestry released "MyTreeTags" which can be added to your ancestors in your tree. Hyperlinked above, you will find how to set up the tags and the different types that exist already. Another feature of the tags is that you can create your own "custom tags" which you can make and define to your liking. In this post I want to highlight some of the different ways I've used the MyTreeTags in order to build out specific aspects related to Puerto Rican genealogy. Definitely feel free to play around with the tags and create your own that may fit the specific needs of your tree.

Ancestry's MyTreeTags

When this feature was initially released, I was a bit hesitant in its use. I knew my family pretty well as I work on genealogy basically everyday and so I wondered how it could help me. So I decided to explore some of the pre-designed tags (some pictures below). The tags are broken down to various categories, for example: DNA, Life Experience, Research, and Relationships.

MyTreeTags - Research [Ancestry]

MyTreeTags - DNA [Ancestry]

Right away "actively researching", "brick wall", and "immigrant" stood out to me. These were tags that I could easily attach to some of my ancestors. My Correa ancestors were definitely under the list of actively researching and brick wall while my Guadeloupean, Martinican, and Mallorcan ancestors fell under immigrant. Here's an example of how the tags look on an ancestor's profile, below I've marked my ancestor with two preset tags created by Ancestry.

My 5th Great-grandfather, a brick wall I'm actively researching [Personal Ancestry Tree]

However, these were facts that I knew pretty well - so I thought, how can I make these tags work for me personally? I tried to think of tags that would make sense for my family and aspects that were important when it came to genealogy when suddenly it clicked (hint above). Why don't I create tags that track race and social statuses in Puerto Rico? 

Creating My Own Personal Tags

MyTreeTags - Custom Tags [Ancestry] 

As you can see above I've created the tags: Blanco, Español, Pardo, Slave, Slave Owner, and Twin. Forgive my Spanglish creations, at some point I'll probably switch them all to Spanish as most of my notes on my tree are in Spanish to match documents. The "race" tags reflect what was written on the documents, for example blanco or pardo seem to be the main two I've found so far through my tree. "Negro" hasn't really appeared in my documents besides my ancestors that came from the French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe but I've categorized them as "slave" since I know both had served as slaves on their respective islands. Below is another example of a custom tag and a preset tag, my 4th great-grandmother Julienne Lautin was an immigrant from Martinique who had previously been enslaved until 1848, she would have been four years old when she received her freedom.

My 4th Great-Grandmother from Martinique [Personal Ancestry Tree]

On the other hand, my 7th great-grandfather Manuel Ruiz had been a slave on the island of Puerto Rico but was listed as 'pardo' on his documents. Linked above is the post about how I traced his enslavement on the island. Below you can see an example of two custom tags on his profile.

Manuel Ruiz, Pardo slave in Puerto Rico [Personal Ancestry Tree]

What's cool about the tags is that you can search in your tree for everyone you've tagged with that specific phrase/word. So for example, if I wanted to see who was enslaved in my family, I could search 'slave' and retrieve a list. Below, you can see a few of my direct ancestors who were slaves at some point of their life. 5 of these 6 ancestors were from outside of Puerto Rico while Manuel Ruiz is currently the only slave I've traced in Puerto Rico. I know there are probably more slave ancestors hidden somewhere in the mid-early 1600s in Puerto Rico but I have yet to identify them.

MyTreeTag - Slave [Personal Ancestry Tree]

Another tag I've created is "Español", this tag is reserved for ancestors who themselves immigrated from Spain to Puerto Rico. Recently, I discovered my 6th great-grandfather Dávila ancestor who came from southern Spain, and thus I tagged him as "Español". Also, my 3rd great grandfather Damián Magraner is also tagged as "Español". 

6th Great-grandfather, Spanish Immigrant [Personal Ancestry Tree]

Finally, another interesting tag I've created is "Slave owner". I don't have many of these in my tree but it is important to know who owned slaves as it influences the narrative and story of my ancestors. One specific ancestor is my 4th great-grandmother who owned slaves in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico. Discovering this information allowed me to better understand her life in the late 1800s in Puerto Rico and how her own mother (my 5th great-grandmother) also owned slaves thus leading me to find her last will and testament. 

4th Great-Grandmother, Slave Owner [Personal Ancestry Tree]

What's next?

As I continue to learn more about my family, my goal is to continue creating tags that will allow me to quickly identify facts about them that might not be obvious from their biographical information. Some of the tags I've recently added include, for example: "twin" and "triplet" as I've had a couple cases of twins and one case of triplets in my family. There are some pre-created tags for DNA such as "common DNA Ancestor", "DNA Match", and "DNA Connection" but I'm not sure if I want to use those yet. We'll see how these keep developing and how I can seamlessly incorporate them into my tree. 

Do you have any special tree tags you've created? 

A Consanguineous Family: The Martínez of Guayama/Maunabo

Earlier in the year (a few months ago actually), while I visited Puerto Rico I made sure to revisit the Archivo Diocesano in San Juan. Here, my goal is always to try and find marriage dispensas (marriage permissions) given to my ancestors who needed permission to marry cousins of varying degrees. This specific time I was searching for my 4th great-grandmother's marriage record who in Maunabo, Puerto Rico married for a second time on the 19th of July 1860. Her name was Dorotea Ramos Martínez and her second husband's name was Manuel Ruiz Soto. I was interested in finding out more about Dorotea and potentially finding how she and her husband were related.

Matrimonio - Dorotea Ramos Martínez & Manuel Ruiz Soto [FamilySearch]

Searching through the 1860 marriage dispensations of Maunabo I found no mention of Manuel and Dorotea. There could be a few reasons for this: misplacement of the dispensation, it was never actually registered, damaged and tossed, etc. However, I came across the surname Martínez on various dispensations. Since I couldn't find my ancestor, I decided to invest some time looking at these Martínez dispensas a bit. Interestingly enough, I discovered that each of these marriage dispensations all tied back to a family I had in my family tree. Out of the four dispensas in Maunabo with the surname Martínez I had located - all of them tied back to my 6th great-grandparents José Martínez and Águeda de Soto. In this post, I will explore this family's migration, connections, and a theory of consanguinity.

Origins

My connection to José Martínez and Águeda de Soto comes to me via my mother's side of the family. Their daughter, Andrea Martínez Soto, was born in Maunabo in 1804 and the next five generations would live in the Maunabo/Yabucoa area - meaning my family lived in this area at least 145 years! Andrea is only one child of the 13 that I have been able to identify for this couple - sometimes José appears as José Antonio, since I don't have a baptism record for him I haven't been able to confirm his full name though seeing as how the wife constantly appears as "Águeda de Soto" (sometimes just as 'Soto') I think it's safe to assume this is the same couple. Andrea is also not the first born of the bunch, she had a few siblings come before her. It seems that the family has its origin in Guayama based on some baptism records I was able to find, the earliest being in 1795 of their son Felipe Martínez Soto. Another son Pedro Martínez Soto is estimated to have been born in 1792 but so far I haven't been able to find a baptism record for him.  

Later, in 1804 Andrea was born in Maunabo. This means that around that 9 year gap the family was either in Guayama or Maunabo or even in Patillas, a town located between the aforementioned towns. Based on the older map I found of Puerto Rico, you can see that the towns were divided up differently and thus the borders of what was once Guayama are different than what they are today. A few other records help us narrow down where they were and when - For example, in May of 1798 José Martínez and Águeda Soto served as godparents to a child named Marcelina in Guayama, while in December 1801 they were godparents to a child named Saturnino Güisado in Maunabo. 

Family Migration - Guayama to Maunabo [Google Images]

Our timeframe for their move has now shortened to between May 1798-December 1801. This is why documenting other events that occurred in the lives of your ancestors is important, thanks to their service as godparents I can more accurately predict where certain children might have been born!

Family Structure

Through my searches, I have been able to identify 13 children so far for my 6th grand-grandparents, which for the early 1800s isn't too surprising. Attached below is a chart for all of the children of this couple, they include: Florencia, Felipe, Pedro, Justa, Fabiana, María, Victoriano, Andrea, María 2º, Fermín, Hermenegildo, Cipriana, and Juan Martínez Soto. María (1802) and the rest of her younger siblings were born in Maunabo while her older siblings were probably born in Guayama. Fabiana who is guesstimated to have been born in 1798 falls within the cusp of years around their move.

Children of José Martínez and Águeda de Soto [Personal Photo]

I'm not exactly sure however when many of these children died or even when José Martínez and Águeda de Soto themselves died in Maunabo. For whatever reason the Maunabo death records were not digitalized and/or added to FamilySearch. I'm just hoping they actually exist and weren't damaged, lost, or destroyed!! 

Los Dispensados

(1828) Eleuterio Garay Martínez + María Martínez Soto
2º grado de consanguinidad en línea trasversal igual

This first marriage I have was dispensed was between María 2º (I title her with 2º -second- since she was the second María born to my 6th great-grandparents) and Eleuterio Garay Martínez, though I don't have their actual dispensa since most begin the 1840s, it mentions in their church marriage record that they have a 2º grado de consanguinidad en línea trasversal igual. Having their parents' names and looking at their trees, it would seem that Cayetana and José were both siblings seeing as how they're both Martínez and no other surnames overlap - with that being the case, it would seem that Cayetana and José were siblings and both from Guayama. 

August 1872- Manuel de los Reyes Martínez Ban + Gregoria Lebrón Díaz
2º grado con 3º grado de consanguinidad

Manuel de los Reyes Martínez Ban is my 1st cousin 6x removed, the son of Fermín Martínez Soto - my 6th great-uncle. As you can see from the chart below, their relationship stands at a 2nd and 3rd degree of consanguinity by how they're related. Manuel de los Reyes' dad is a brother to his wife's grandmother, meaning Fermín and Justa are brothers and sisters.  

September 1872- Manuel de Jesús Martínez Colón + María Vicente Rivera Martínez  

3º grado de consanguinidad

Manuel de Jesús Martínez Colón is my 2nd cousin, 5x removed. His grandfather was Felipe Martínez Soto while his wife's grandfather was Fermín Martínez Soto, brothers to Andrea Martínez Soto - my 5th great-grandmother. This is the second child of Fermín Martínez and his wife María Josefa Ban to marry a cousin. 

1882- Luis Lebrón Martínez + Ramona Martínez Colón

2º grado de consanguinidad

Both Luis Lebrón and Ramona Martínez are my 1st cousins, 6x removed. Their respective parents, Fabiana Martínez Soto and Juan Martínez Soto, were siblings. Here we have two more of my 6th great-uncles/aunts having their lines intermix. That brings it up to 5/13 siblings that have children marrying cousins - who knows how many others there are!

Another Martínez connection?

1860 Dorotea Ramos Martínez + Manuel Ruiz Soto
2º grado de consanguinidad 

As you saw earlier Dorotea Ramos and Manuel Ruiz were said to have a 2nd degree of consanguinity. This should mean that one of their grandparents was related to their spouse's grandparent. The question though is: who? I'm not sure how tangled this family becomes, is it just the Martínez that are all related or is there a connection through the "de Soto" branch as well? I'm not sure if there's an easier way to find out since I don't have the record to tie these branches together. However, as I continue to discover other relationships I am able to better determine the relationship between all of these cousins. 

The question then becomes: Why was this family constantly marrying into each other's lines? Based off records, it seems that this family was a pardo libre mixed family so there wasn't a need to keep pure lines. Yabucoa and Maunabo were towns full of other families, I have lines from Maunabo that managed to avoid marrying into themselves; so why didn't this Martínez family do the same? 

Truly, what stories are being held between the webs of this complicated family tree? 

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! 

Those Places Thursday – Salinas, Puerto Rico

Finally a prompt I can use on the actual day! This post is similar to Tuesday's prompt so I want to focus on a specific town I visited back in March 2015. One of the main towns I wanted to visit while I was in Puerto Rico was Salinas in the southern region of Puerto Rico. I mainly wanted to visit Salinas because my great grandfather Manuel Correa Rivera was from this town – who was a very hard line to crack! This was also the town my 4th great grandparents Jean Charles Gustave and Julienne Malvina Lautin settled in after reaching Puerto Rico through Vieques and traveling down the eastern coast. So I knew this town meant a lot to my family history and I wanted to set foot here.

My first stop in Salinas was the church which was located downtown. I stopped by to see the church where many of my ancestors had married and were baptized. While there, I started talking randomly to some people who were there setting up for an outside mass. The man had keys to the church so let me in to see this inside which was nice of him. He gave me a quick little tour giving me some information about the church and the parts that were recently renovated. I appreciated the fact that he took the time to give me this little tour though he had something else to do – Puerto Rican hospitality at its best!

Iglesia de Salinas, Puerto Rico [Personal Photo]

Inside the church [Personal Photo]

Cuna del Mojo Isleño - Salinas, Puerto Rico [Personal Photo]

My next stop was heading towards Playita or Playa, the area of Salinas I knew my family had last lived in. I knew distant family had owned a restaurant there named "Ladi's Place", so I headed there with the help of GPS to see if family still lived nearby. We parked the car and headed towards the water to get a view. It was amazing to see how close to the shore things were in this area of Salinas. Literally the ocean was the backyard to many families here!

As I stopped to take pictures we were approached by a woman selling lottery tickets. My grandmother decided to buy one and this is where my genealogical trip took a turn for the best! 

The ocean and mangroves [Personal Photo]

As my grandmother bought the ticket I worked up the courage to ask her if she knew of any "Correa" families living in the area. She stated that she herself was a Correa (from Río Jueyes… which is another area my family is from though she didn't want to engage me on her family history) and she pointed across the street and said that the man there was a Correa himself. I was excited because he was probably a cousin as well! We knocked on his door and he came out to speak to us – turns out he WAS a cousin! I think I scared him though when I started rattling off names and relations to his family and mine. He said that if I wanted to learn more, there was a cousin who would know more information about the family and that she was another cousin who lived down the street and was 100 years old.

100, I thought?! I asked him for her name and was surprised when he said the name, as I already had her on my family tree with the help of census records! We walked over and knocked and luckily she was there! We were let in and we chatted about our family's connections, she showed us pictures, and talked about our family's origin in Salinas. Apparently our family had been one of the first families to arrive in Playa, Salinas, Puerto Rico and helped to settled the area. They had come from Coamo before that which was nice to hear because it is true on paper trail as well! She told me stories of how her father was referred to as "Monsieur" because of his mother's Martinican & Guadelupean mix; her father and my 2nd great grandfather were brothers! 

Salinas, Puerto Rico [Personal Photo]

I was amazed to have met this family and yet kicking myself in the butt for not having a DNA kit with me at the time to see if she was willing to test!! Pro-Tip: Have at least one DNA kit with you as you travel just in case you meet distant family members willing to test! I'm hoping she's still alive and that I can write to them and send a letter over explaining my interest in getting her tested! I imagine her African percentages are higher than most Puerto Ricans seeing as how she is a descendant of slaves on various lines and fairly recently as well. Fingers-crossed she's alive and able/willing to do it!

My family in Salinas were mainly fishermen and sugarcane workers while they lived there. This statue below is dedicated to those fishermen in Salinas who day-in and day-out worked in the waters to provide for their families. I'm glad I was able to take a picture of his statue while there. Here's to returning to Puerto Rico soon and returning to Salinas!