Can you tell me more about how to research Puerto Rican ancestors?
Are the research techniques the same as what is typically used for United States Research? or what major differences in techniques do you use?
Answers
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Carolyn,
Just like for any country with Spanish culture, women preserve their maiden name and their name doesn't change by marriage. For Spanish names: given name+paternal last name+maternal last name. However, sometimes you'll also see e.g. "de Martinez" at the end of the name, meaning "of Martinez" and this shows you she was a married woman and her husband was a Martinez.
For natural children we've seen several ways they were named. Since it was shameful to only have one last name, most of the time people went by just their mother's last name, but you can find them using given name+maternal last name+paternal last name. This can make the searches very confusing.
Before certain dates, and it seems to vary exactly when in each region, we also observe compound last names. There are many of them, but the only surviving compound last name in Puerto Rico is "Ramirez de Arellano". These compound names were created when a family added a distinguished last name of one of their important family members. For example: Hernandez del Rio, Garcia de Estrada,Velez Borrero, Ortiz de la Renta, Ortiz de la Peña, Lopez de Segura, Lopez de Victoria, Perez de la Cruz, Perez Gerena etc.
When the Spanish Government put a stop to the compound last names (names were becoming very long) we see siblings from the same parents using a different part of the original compound last names. For example the sibling Jose Perez and Maria Gerena were originally named "Perez Gerena". I have a great great grandfather that had a long name: Juan Jose Sotomayor y Velez Borrero Ortiz de la Peña. Juan Jose was his given name and middle name, "Sotomayor" was his paternal last name, and "Velez Borrero Ortiz de la Peña" was a double compound maternal last name" However, his death record calls him "Jose Soto Peña".
The use of "y" between paternal and maternal last names was necessary to separate paternal from maternal last names during those times, but not anymore.
Another custom in earlier records (late 1700's and earlier) was to to give children the mother's surname or one of the grandparent's surnames. Children of the same parents would have totally different last names. To add to that, the same person could be recorded differently in many documents, as if even the parents couldn't keep track of their original names.
It's not rare to find all the boys in the family named "Juan" with a different middle name and all the girls named "Maria" and then when we find their individual records
they would not include the middle name making it difficult to figure out which one of the Marias was the one recorded.
We also see that by 1872, many slaves used "Liberto" (freed) as their last names for a while. This last name doesn't exist anymore, as far as I know.
Another thing to keep in mind is how the Spanish military moved their service members around the world. I've seen people from places such as Los Angeles, Mexico (before it was US) or
Isla de Catalina (Catalina Island) settling in San Juan in the 1650's. Soldiers from Cuba being sent to Venezuela and marrying there, then their children moving with them to Puerto Rico and settling there. So, there was high mobility for some military families, especially for the officers.
Race is also a factor to consider when researching. Church Books were divided into "Blancos" for white people, and "Pardos" for people of color. However, many times families lied about their
race, so searching in both books is always a good idea. Also, the concept of "Limpieza de Sangre" is another issue. The Spanish government required people to show baptismal records and
witness testimony of many distinguished people to show a "clean blood" free of any colored race, or any Moor or Jewish origin. These Limpiezas de Sangre were required for naturalization, marriage of military personnel, and government employment.
The availability of Church records on Family Search has been affected by who was the region's Catholic bishop. Therefore, a large number of books were not allowed to be recorded. To bypass that, many people with access have written transcriptions of those books. Those transcriptions are usually hard to come by, and in some cases they can be a little pricey.
For Aguada, one of the most important cities historically, their church suffered fires and the loss of a great number of early records. The history of the families from this area can only be pieced together with other records from the government. However, the tropical climate and the lack of resouces for preservation of these records make it very difficult for researchers. Recently, with hurricane Maria, the archives for the country have been shut down and we don't know the extent of the damages to the resources stored there.
When people live in such a small island, it was very important people were cleared before marriage to make sure they were not too closely related. Families used to consolidate power by marrying their children with the children of people of similar social status. This was done for long enough that today strangers of the same region in Puerto Rico will find themselves related to each other several times. The Catholic Church would often have to clear people for marriage. Church records would often say "consanguinidad de --- grado" (Consanguinity of --- degree) and would tell you how closely related the couple was. This was both very useful for research, and very confusing to descipher.
I am sure I cannot remember everything at the moment, and I hope to get help from others explaining the differences researching genealogy in Puerto Rico. But please, feel free to ask me anything.
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Thank you Maria for sharing so much useful information. I hope that more records will be made available soon.
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