Well, a short visit this week with a close relative added the beginnings of a branch, the maternal grandfather branch. While my sister and I visited, we began speaking of genealogy, and she brought out her genealogy book. She took out one of the pages and handed it to us. It was a page I had forgotten about.
Many years ago, my mother had listed the first and last name of her father on this page. She also listed 4 siblings, half brothers and sisters. This happened way before I was interested in genealogy. Truth be told, I had helped her complete the form. Most of it was written in my own handwriting. It should have been something I treasured. At the very least, I should have copied it. (Lesson to be learned--we forget important stuff. Write important stuff down)
In my mother's handwriting were the list of foods she cooked for us that were favorites. (You know I had to have my sister take a picture of the page.) Since I had never copied the page, the information on it was just about all erased from my memory. After all those years, I could only remember one other name besides her father's name. It was the name of one of her half sisters. I remembered it because I am named after her. She is my namesake.
What I didn't know, as I copied the names into my smart phone, was that it would make finding him, my maternal grandfather, so much easier. I had been searching for him for years. I knew his first name and surname. But I didn't have his surname on his mother's side. And because in Puerto Rico, as in many Latin/Hispanic countries, both names were/are used, identity is facilitated by having 2 surnames.
Late that night, I placed the names of the half siblings on my tree at Ancestry.com and then did a search on one of them. I found him (the missing Lopez) and them (half brothers and sisters) on the 1910, 1920, and 1930 census done in Puerto Rico. In 1898 the island of Puerto Rico became a United States territory when Spain ceded the island to the United States. In 1899 the War Ministry conducted its own census. But the first U.S. decennial census took place in 1910. The 1940 census will be available on Ancestry.com in March. I will probably find them on the 1940 census as well.
You can just imagine how I felt. I was overjoyed. I had been searching for so long. Finally, I really knew who he was. I had both surnames. That, in and of itself, would facilitate the research still ahead. But for now, there was a connection I had to honor. My maternal grandmother had fallen in love with this man. Even if the circumstances were wrong, I had to honor the love that resulted in the birth of my mother. As in so many cases, the love affair did not last. My grandmother never spoke of him. My mother never met him. And here I was peeping in on him and his family in 1910-1930 via the census and learning that he worked as a supervisor/manager in a coffee plantation. Could that be where he met my grandmother? Was she someone he supervised? He was 24 years her senior, was he charming and mysterious? Was she swept off her feet? Was the coffee plantation the only place she could find work in the town of Utuado? See where your imagination can lead you. That's right, to too many unanswered questions. Sometimes you just have to tell your imagination to shut down!
There are several reasons why I desire to meet members of this side of the family. The first would be to succeed where my mother failed, and in the doing, to claim her rightful place in their family tree. The second, to determine if there are important medical conditions we should know about. Can you guess what the third would be? Yep, DNA.
At Sephardim.com I have seen many family crests for the name Lopez. This family crest has the Star of David. It is one of my favorites.
No comments:
Post a Comment