In my research on St. Augustine, Florida, during the years 1784-1821 (the Second Spanish Period), I often come across discrepancies in names which indicate that there may be more than one individual with the same name. This time I found two different names for one individual. I found a marriage record with the bride's name recorded as Agnes Rodríguez. The groom's name was Jorge Clak. I have been investigating this population for ten years now, and I never have come across an Agnes Rodríguez in connection with Jorge Clak. His wife's name has always been recorded as Ynes (or Inez, or a few other spellings) Pablo. Here is what I found when I pored through the original records I have found for these people:
1. There is no record of Agnes Rodríguez other than in the marriage record styled Jorge Clak and Agnes Rodríguez.
The parents of Agnes Rodríguez are not named in the marriage record. (1)
2. Ynes (or Inez) is a form of the name Agnes.
3. Agnes Rodríguez was supposedly, according to this marriage record, married previously
to Andrew Brown, who died 15 January 1785, according to his death record in the
diocesan archives. (2) The death record does not mention his marital status, nor does it give a spouse's name. Andrew Brown probably died single or a widower. However, this is not the right person. The groom's name is found in other records to have been Andres Bron. (3)
4. Ynes Pablo shows up first in the baptism records of the parish of San Pedro de Mosquitos (called the Golden Book of the Minorcans), on the New Smyrna Plantation, in the early 1770s. Her husband is listed as Pedro Duran. (4)
5. Their son Pedro, age 18, is also enumerated
on the 1793 census in the household of his stepfather, Jorge Clak. (5)
Pedro Duran is last shown alive on the baptism record of his son Pedro Juan on 19 Nov
1775. There are no death records from San Pedro parish, but Pedro Duran (the elder) probably died somewhere around
1776 or 1777.
6. Ynes is next found in the marriage records of San Pedro parish. She and Andres Bron are shown as married in these records. (5) She is also shown as having been previously married to him on the 1793
census, on which their son Andres, age 10, is enumerated in the household of his stepfather, Jorge Clak.(6)
7. Ynes (Agnes) Pablo and Andres Bron married 20 August 1778. (7) They were parishoners of the Minorcan chapel after it moved to St.
Augustine in 1779, and, again, there are no death records. Andres Bron is last shown as alive on the
baptism record of his son Andres Francisco, 16 December 1782. (8) He probably died somewhere around 1783 or
1784.
8. Ynes Pablo married Jorge Clak 29 Mar 1785, but is identified on the record as Agnes Rodríguez. (9)
9. On
the marriage record for her marriage to Andres Bron, Agnes (Ynes) Pablo’s mother’s maiden name is Rodríguez. (10) This is probably, through clerical error, the
root of the identification of Ynes Pablo as Agnes Rodríguez on the record of her marriage to Jorge Clak.
10. To recap, Ynes Pablo married: 1. Pedro Duran, probably before or during 1770. 2. Andres Bron, 20 August 1778. 3. Jorge Clak, 29 Mar 1785.
Agnes Rodríguez and Ynes Pablo are one and the same, and Ynes Pablo is the correct name.
-----------
Notes:
(1) Marriage of Jorge Clak and Agnes Rodríguez, White Marriages 1784-1801, page 2, entry 4, "Ecclesiastical Records of the St. Augustine Diocese," Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies, http://vanderbilt.edu/esss/spanishflorida/index.php
(2) Death Record, Andrew Brown, Deaths 1784-1793 [1809], page 2, entry 6, "Ecclesiastical Records of the St. Augustine Diocese," Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies, http://vanderbilt.edu/esss/spanishflorida/index.php
(3) Marriage of Andres Bron and Agnes Pablo, Records of the Parish of San Pedro de Mosquitos ("The Golden Book of the Minorcans"), page 11, entry 8, "Ecclesiastical Records of the St. Augustine Diocese," Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies, http://vanderbilt.edu/esss/spanishflorida/index.php
(4) Baptism of Catalina Duran, Records of the Parish of San Pedro de Mosquitos ("The Golden Book of the Minorcans"), page 9, entry 18, "Ecclesiastical Records of the St. Augustine Diocese," Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies, http://vanderbilt.edu/esss/spanishflorida/index.php
(5) Marriage of Andres Bron and Agnes Pablo, op. cit.
(6) 1793 census, Censuses 1783-1814, Reel 148, Bundle 323A, Folio 2-159R, East Florida Papers.
(7) Marriage of Andres Bron and Agnes Pablo, op. cit.
(8) Baptism of Pedro Juan Duran, Baptisms, page 33, entry 36, Records of the Parish of San Pedro de Mosquitos ("The Golden Book of the Minorcans"), "Ecclesiastical Records of the St. Augustine Diocese," Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies, http://vanderbilt.edu/esss/spanishflorida/index.php
(9) Marriage of Jorge Clak and Agnes Rodríguez, op. cit.
(10) Marriage of Andres Bron and Agnes Pablo, op. cit.
Showing posts with label St. Augustine Florida. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St. Augustine Florida. Show all posts
Saturday, May 12, 2018
Thursday, February 15, 2018
Maybe Dead Men Can Vote Twice; They Can Also be Counted in Censuses
I am working with a group led by my former major professor at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg on what's called, in fifty-dollar language, a prosopography. That simply means an attempt to identify and describe all the people in a certain place at a certain time. The certain place in question here is Colonial Spanish Florida, and the time, or times, in question span from 1565 to 1763, and from 1784 to 1821, called, respectively, the First Spanish Period and the Second Spanish Period.
I am entering some of my data into a template. These data will become part of this massive project, which will be an online database, searchable by anyone who is interested.
Now, let me say that I've seen people who were counted twice in censuses. My great-great grandfather Charles Reed was counted twice in the 1860 U.S. Census, and my father was counted twice in the 1930 U.S. Census. I've seen people whose names were mangled in the censuses. I've seen male people identified as female people, with a female name substituted for the male name. That happened to the famous Prohibition agent Eliot Ness, in the 1910 census in which he was identified as Ella, seven-year-old daughter of Peter Ness, when in fact he was, of course, Eliot, Peter's son. Since the U.S. censuses are kept from public view for 72 years after they are taken, I'm sure Mr. Ness, who died in 1957, never knew of this goof. I've seen people given odd professions. One man in the 1935 Florida census is identified by profession as a lobster! The enumerator, of course, meant "lobsterman," but the form did not give him enough room to write the entire word.
However, I have never seen a dead person enumerated in a census post-mortem. Until now.
I am working on entering some data from the 1793 census of St. Augustine, and there is an entry for a man whose name was Theophilus Hill. What a great name! The Spanish rendered it as Teofilo Hill. When I came across this entry, my reaction was, "Theophilus Hill was alive in 1793?" I had seen his death record, it is in his file in my file cabinet, along with over 1600 other residents of St. Augustine during the Second Spanish Period, on which I am still gathering names and data. I remembered vaguely that he had died earlier. I pulled his file, and there, in the back of the file, is his death record, taken from the St. Augustine parish death records, the original documents. The information is on a form I have created just for this purpose. And the date of death? 20 December 1790.
When the census had been taken, Theophilus Hill had been dead for around three years.
Is there a chance that there was another Theophilus Hill in St. Augustine? No. He and his wife Teresa Thomas had four daughters and a son named Juan (John), who died at age 9 in 1796. There was no Theophilus Hill, Jr. I have not found any other Hill family in St. Augustine. The data in the 1793 census matches the information I have on the deceased Mr. Hill. There is no notation in the census, as was customary, that someone else was informing for Mr. Hill on the census. The 1793 census of St. Augustine is one of the few, if not the only, census on which we know, at least in a small percentage of the entries, who the informant was, prior to the 1940 U.S. Census. When a householder was absent, the census-taker would obtain the necessary information from someone else, and would record the name, or at least the relationship to the householder, of the individual reporting for him.
I have no idea how a man who had been dead for around three years ended up enumerated in the 1793 St. Augustine census. Was the grieving widow that much in denial? Was there some reason someone wanted Mr. Hill recorded in the census -- as a memorial? Was there another motive? And since, obviously, Mr. Hill could not have responded to the census-taker himself, why did that official not record who was giving the information?
Or could the death record be in error? I doubt that. Theophilus Hill and his family were well known to St. Augustine's people. One of his four daughters was married to one of the most prominent men in St. Augustine, don Francisco Xavier Sánchez. Certainly the priest who conducted the burial, Father Thomas Hassett, knew Theophilus Hill, his wife, Teresa Thomas, and his four daughters. After all, he was the priest who conducted the marriage between Theophilus Hill's daughter and don Francisco. No, I think the death record is correct.
Which provides us with a dandy mystery.
I am entering some of my data into a template. These data will become part of this massive project, which will be an online database, searchable by anyone who is interested.
Now, let me say that I've seen people who were counted twice in censuses. My great-great grandfather Charles Reed was counted twice in the 1860 U.S. Census, and my father was counted twice in the 1930 U.S. Census. I've seen people whose names were mangled in the censuses. I've seen male people identified as female people, with a female name substituted for the male name. That happened to the famous Prohibition agent Eliot Ness, in the 1910 census in which he was identified as Ella, seven-year-old daughter of Peter Ness, when in fact he was, of course, Eliot, Peter's son. Since the U.S. censuses are kept from public view for 72 years after they are taken, I'm sure Mr. Ness, who died in 1957, never knew of this goof. I've seen people given odd professions. One man in the 1935 Florida census is identified by profession as a lobster! The enumerator, of course, meant "lobsterman," but the form did not give him enough room to write the entire word.
However, I have never seen a dead person enumerated in a census post-mortem. Until now.
I am working on entering some data from the 1793 census of St. Augustine, and there is an entry for a man whose name was Theophilus Hill. What a great name! The Spanish rendered it as Teofilo Hill. When I came across this entry, my reaction was, "Theophilus Hill was alive in 1793?" I had seen his death record, it is in his file in my file cabinet, along with over 1600 other residents of St. Augustine during the Second Spanish Period, on which I am still gathering names and data. I remembered vaguely that he had died earlier. I pulled his file, and there, in the back of the file, is his death record, taken from the St. Augustine parish death records, the original documents. The information is on a form I have created just for this purpose. And the date of death? 20 December 1790.
When the census had been taken, Theophilus Hill had been dead for around three years.
Is there a chance that there was another Theophilus Hill in St. Augustine? No. He and his wife Teresa Thomas had four daughters and a son named Juan (John), who died at age 9 in 1796. There was no Theophilus Hill, Jr. I have not found any other Hill family in St. Augustine. The data in the 1793 census matches the information I have on the deceased Mr. Hill. There is no notation in the census, as was customary, that someone else was informing for Mr. Hill on the census. The 1793 census of St. Augustine is one of the few, if not the only, census on which we know, at least in a small percentage of the entries, who the informant was, prior to the 1940 U.S. Census. When a householder was absent, the census-taker would obtain the necessary information from someone else, and would record the name, or at least the relationship to the householder, of the individual reporting for him.
I have no idea how a man who had been dead for around three years ended up enumerated in the 1793 St. Augustine census. Was the grieving widow that much in denial? Was there some reason someone wanted Mr. Hill recorded in the census -- as a memorial? Was there another motive? And since, obviously, Mr. Hill could not have responded to the census-taker himself, why did that official not record who was giving the information?
Or could the death record be in error? I doubt that. Theophilus Hill and his family were well known to St. Augustine's people. One of his four daughters was married to one of the most prominent men in St. Augustine, don Francisco Xavier Sánchez. Certainly the priest who conducted the burial, Father Thomas Hassett, knew Theophilus Hill, his wife, Teresa Thomas, and his four daughters. After all, he was the priest who conducted the marriage between Theophilus Hill's daughter and don Francisco. No, I think the death record is correct.
Which provides us with a dandy mystery.
Friday, June 2, 2017
Casa lóbrega (Bleak House)
I am having to take a break from work, because I feel like I've been reading a Spanish version of Charles Dickens's Bleak House. If you have never read Bleak House, I advise against it. I have read it, and it's a slog. It is the story of a lawsuit that drags on for years and years, involving inheritance and the squabbles produced at times by such matters.
In 1806, Agueda Seguí, citizen of St. Augustine, Spanish East Florida, died at the age of 80. Her third husband, Juan Capó, followed her in death two years later, at 96. What occurred after that sure reads like Bleak House, especially when the story is found in some eighteen pages of cramped, crabbed, two-hundred-year-old handwriting that suffers from fading, wormholes, bleed-through, and smudges.
Juan and Agueda both died intestate. Thus, an administration was conducted, to see what the contents of the estate were, what they were worth, and how they would be distributed. Agueda's three daughters from a previous marriage and Juan's three sons from a previous marriage entered into a squabble over the few simple belongings of the deceased couple, who had no children together. The sons claimed exclusive rights to all the belongings, never mind Agueda's contribution to the 23-year marriage. The daughters, of course, felt cheated. And thereby hangs the tale which, like Dickens's story, does not seem to have reached a true resolution, except that the governor told the sons that they could do nothing more than liquidate the assets of the estate, rather than taking and using the property, which included 8 slaves.
Lorenzo Capó, who may have been Juan's nephew or cousin (I have yet to determine the family relationships here through original documents, but I'm working on it) was asked to be the administrator, and he must soon have realized what a mess he had walked into. He petitioned Governor Enrique White to appoint an impartial expert for the evaluation of the estate. The governor responded with two appointees -- Bartolomé de Castro y Ferrer, a lawyer, and Martín Hernández, the city's master carpenter.
There is a silver lining, however: Genealogical information. A whole boatload of it! Death records, marriage records, baptism records -- all are referred to in this long file, with certifications by various priests stationed in St. Augustine over the years. The children of each are identified, along with the husbands of the daughters, which makes them a little easier to trace, though the task is generally easier in Spanish documents (and those of other Romance-language countries) anyway, because they tend to identify women by their maiden surnames rather than their married names. English-based documents tend to forget women's maiden surnames, making them much harder to trace.
In this file also is a chilling look at the institution of slavery, practiced in Spanish Florida. There is a list of the inventory of slaves, including children. One four-year-old is assessed at 100 pesos. Another, a six-month-old little boy who was ill, is assessed at 30 pesos. These eight human beings were the costliest, and most valuable, assets of the estate.
The file also contains a glimpse of the daily life of this couple, who did not have much besides their slaves. The inventory of their house and its meager contents takes up barely half a page, and the house ends up being valued at 104 pesos, 3 reales, 1/2 maravedí*.
Though this real-life Spanish version of Bleak House is difficult to slog through, the gems and nuggets contained in it are worth the slog.
[* The peso at the time of this inventory, 1809, was roughly equivalent to the U.S. dollar. 8 reales made up 1 peso, and a maravedí was around 1/30 a real, of less value than a U.S. penny. The value of the house comes to, in round numbers, $1616.22 in 2016 U.S. dollars. The sick little enslaved boy's value comes out to $466.22, and the healthy four-year-old girl to $1554.05.]
[Estate of Juan Capó and Agueda Seguí (Administration), Testamentary Proceedings, Reel 142, Bundle 312, No. 4, East Florida Papers.]
In 1806, Agueda Seguí, citizen of St. Augustine, Spanish East Florida, died at the age of 80. Her third husband, Juan Capó, followed her in death two years later, at 96. What occurred after that sure reads like Bleak House, especially when the story is found in some eighteen pages of cramped, crabbed, two-hundred-year-old handwriting that suffers from fading, wormholes, bleed-through, and smudges.
Juan and Agueda both died intestate. Thus, an administration was conducted, to see what the contents of the estate were, what they were worth, and how they would be distributed. Agueda's three daughters from a previous marriage and Juan's three sons from a previous marriage entered into a squabble over the few simple belongings of the deceased couple, who had no children together. The sons claimed exclusive rights to all the belongings, never mind Agueda's contribution to the 23-year marriage. The daughters, of course, felt cheated. And thereby hangs the tale which, like Dickens's story, does not seem to have reached a true resolution, except that the governor told the sons that they could do nothing more than liquidate the assets of the estate, rather than taking and using the property, which included 8 slaves.
Lorenzo Capó, who may have been Juan's nephew or cousin (I have yet to determine the family relationships here through original documents, but I'm working on it) was asked to be the administrator, and he must soon have realized what a mess he had walked into. He petitioned Governor Enrique White to appoint an impartial expert for the evaluation of the estate. The governor responded with two appointees -- Bartolomé de Castro y Ferrer, a lawyer, and Martín Hernández, the city's master carpenter.
There is a silver lining, however: Genealogical information. A whole boatload of it! Death records, marriage records, baptism records -- all are referred to in this long file, with certifications by various priests stationed in St. Augustine over the years. The children of each are identified, along with the husbands of the daughters, which makes them a little easier to trace, though the task is generally easier in Spanish documents (and those of other Romance-language countries) anyway, because they tend to identify women by their maiden surnames rather than their married names. English-based documents tend to forget women's maiden surnames, making them much harder to trace.
In this file also is a chilling look at the institution of slavery, practiced in Spanish Florida. There is a list of the inventory of slaves, including children. One four-year-old is assessed at 100 pesos. Another, a six-month-old little boy who was ill, is assessed at 30 pesos. These eight human beings were the costliest, and most valuable, assets of the estate.
The file also contains a glimpse of the daily life of this couple, who did not have much besides their slaves. The inventory of their house and its meager contents takes up barely half a page, and the house ends up being valued at 104 pesos, 3 reales, 1/2 maravedí*.
Though this real-life Spanish version of Bleak House is difficult to slog through, the gems and nuggets contained in it are worth the slog.
[* The peso at the time of this inventory, 1809, was roughly equivalent to the U.S. dollar. 8 reales made up 1 peso, and a maravedí was around 1/30 a real, of less value than a U.S. penny. The value of the house comes to, in round numbers, $1616.22 in 2016 U.S. dollars. The sick little enslaved boy's value comes out to $466.22, and the healthy four-year-old girl to $1554.05.]
[Estate of Juan Capó and Agueda Seguí (Administration), Testamentary Proceedings, Reel 142, Bundle 312, No. 4, East Florida Papers.]
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Another Disambiguation: Three Miguel O'Reillys in St. Augustine!
In 1788, there were three men named Miguel (Michael) O'Reilly in St. Augustine, Spanish Florida. Their disambiguation was necessary to identify the one who was a witness to the petition of Guillermo (William) Gernon and Isabel (or Elizabeth) MacEnery for permission to marry, filed 17 December 1788.(1) In his witness statement, the particular Miguel O'Reilly stated that he was 31 years old. According to the 1793 census, there was a Miguel O'Reilly in St. Augustine who was either married or widowed, with three sons, a businessman or trader (tratante in Spanish).(2)
The most well-known man of the same name was the Irish assistant priest at the Catholic church. He would have been 36 years old in 1788, the year of the above petition. He died in 1812.(3) As a Catholic priest, he was, of course, single. He can be ruled out.
Another Miguel O'Reilly was a single young man, according to his death certificate, 25 years old at the time of his death, possibly in some sort of industrial accident. He would have been either 22 or 23 in 1788, too young to be the witness to Gernon's petition. Nothing else is known of him besides his marital status, his age at death, and his date of death, 28 November 1791.(4)
The third Miguel O'Reilly, the businessman, self-described as above as 31 years old and shown to have children, signed his name to the petition of 1788. At that time, many men, especially those of importance or substance, added a flourish to their signatures, known as a rubric. Father Miguel O'Reilly, the priest, had a rubric which was complex, with an ornate flourish at the end.(5) His handwriting differs significantly from the signature on the petition, and he has already been ruled out.
Miguel O'Reilly the businessman had a rubric which was simple and quick to execute, indicative of one who deals with a considerable amount of paperwork, as seen on his signature on the 1788 petition. The Miguel O'Reilly who witnessed Guillermo Gernon's petition in 1788 was the businessman O'Reilly.
(1) Petition of Guillermo Gernon for permission to marry Ysabel Mac-Enery, Matrimonial licenses, Reel 132, Bundle 298R9, #31, East Florida Papers. (Names are as they are in the document.)
(2) 1793 Census, Reel 148, Bundle 323A, East Florida Papers, f. 135v.
(3) Michael V. Gannon, The Cross in the Sand (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1965), 116.
(4) Death certificate of Miguel O'Reilly, Death records, Book 1, 1784-1793, Ecclesiastical Records of the St. Augustine Diocese, Vanderbilt University (online).
(5) For an example of Father Miguel O'Reilly's rubric, see any of the church records, Ecclesiastical Records of the St. Augustine Diocese, Vanderbilt University, (online), between 1784 and 1812.
The most well-known man of the same name was the Irish assistant priest at the Catholic church. He would have been 36 years old in 1788, the year of the above petition. He died in 1812.(3) As a Catholic priest, he was, of course, single. He can be ruled out.
Another Miguel O'Reilly was a single young man, according to his death certificate, 25 years old at the time of his death, possibly in some sort of industrial accident. He would have been either 22 or 23 in 1788, too young to be the witness to Gernon's petition. Nothing else is known of him besides his marital status, his age at death, and his date of death, 28 November 1791.(4)
The third Miguel O'Reilly, the businessman, self-described as above as 31 years old and shown to have children, signed his name to the petition of 1788. At that time, many men, especially those of importance or substance, added a flourish to their signatures, known as a rubric. Father Miguel O'Reilly, the priest, had a rubric which was complex, with an ornate flourish at the end.(5) His handwriting differs significantly from the signature on the petition, and he has already been ruled out.
Miguel O'Reilly the businessman had a rubric which was simple and quick to execute, indicative of one who deals with a considerable amount of paperwork, as seen on his signature on the 1788 petition. The Miguel O'Reilly who witnessed Guillermo Gernon's petition in 1788 was the businessman O'Reilly.
(1) Petition of Guillermo Gernon for permission to marry Ysabel Mac-Enery, Matrimonial licenses, Reel 132, Bundle 298R9, #31, East Florida Papers. (Names are as they are in the document.)
(2) 1793 Census, Reel 148, Bundle 323A, East Florida Papers, f. 135v.
(3) Michael V. Gannon, The Cross in the Sand (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1965), 116.
(4) Death certificate of Miguel O'Reilly, Death records, Book 1, 1784-1793, Ecclesiastical Records of the St. Augustine Diocese, Vanderbilt University (online).
(5) For an example of Father Miguel O'Reilly's rubric, see any of the church records, Ecclesiastical Records of the St. Augustine Diocese, Vanderbilt University, (online), between 1784 and 1812.
Friday, February 10, 2017
Disambiguating the Two Francisco Genovars
Among the many pairs or groups of same-named individuals in St. Augustine, Florida, during the Second Spanish Period (1784-1801), there were apparently two men named Francisco Genovar. They were not father and son.
Here is how I differentiate them to conclude that they were indeed two separate and distinct persons:
Francisco Genovar, son of Juan Genovar and Antonia Murillo (1)
There is no record of a Francisco Genovar in the Golden Book of the Minorcans, the church records of the parish on the plantation of Andrew Turnbull at New Smyrna. The birth or baptism records of the first Francisco, above, born ca. 1764, would not appear, as the plantation did not begin until 1768. Age of the second Francisco Genovar, signed Yenobart, is not known. Juan Genovar and Antonia Murillo, parents of the first Francisco, above, do appear in the Golden Book, as parents of daughters baptized in the New Smyrna parish. As the first Francisco Genovar's father appears in the 1784, 1786, and 1793 censuses of St. Augustine, and the parents of the second did not, by his testimony and the testimony of witnesses, live in St. Augustine or in the province of East Florida but remained in Minorca, these two Francisco Genovars are sons of different parents, and are two separate and distinct persons.
(1) 1786 Census, Reel 148, Bundle 323A, East Florida Papers, folio 22v.
(2) Ibid.
(3) Ibid.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Ibid.
(7) 1784 Census, Reel 148, Bundle 323A, East Florida Papers, p. 26
(8) Baptism of Francisco's sister, María Antonia, abstracts of baptismal records, 1784-1792, typed manuscript at the St. Augustine Historical Society, page 21)
(9) 1793 Census, Reel 148, Bundle 323A, East Florida Papers, f. 111r
(10) Witness statement of Juan Geonvar, Petition of Juan Gianopoly for permission to marry, Matrimonial licenses, Reel 132, Bundle 298R9, #33, East Florida Papers.
(11) White Marriages, Book 1, 1784-1801, Ecclesiastical Records of the St. Augustine Diocese, page 136, entry 152, Vanderbilt University (online)
(12) Ibid.
(13) Petition of Francisco Yenobart for permission to marry, Matrimonial licenses, Reel 132, Bundle 298R9, #110, East Florida Papers.
Here is how I differentiate them to conclude that they were indeed two separate and distinct persons:
Francisco Genovar, son of Juan Genovar and Antonia Murillo (1)
- Native of Mallorca (2)
- 22 years old in 1786 (3) (therefore, born ca. 1764, Mallorca)
- Single (4)
- Sailor (5)
- Parents from Minorca (6)
- Father from Minorca (7)
- Father from San Miguel, Minorca; mother from Mahon, Minorca (8)
- Father, Juan, from Mallorca (9)
- Juan Genovar, father, native of Mallorca (10)
- Literate enough to sign his name (most sailors were not)
- Occupation unknown
- Son of Juan Mariano Genovar (or Genovart) and Juana Marquez (11)
- Parents native of Minorca (12)
- Had no parents or other relatives in St. Augustine or the province of East Florida (13)
There is no record of a Francisco Genovar in the Golden Book of the Minorcans, the church records of the parish on the plantation of Andrew Turnbull at New Smyrna. The birth or baptism records of the first Francisco, above, born ca. 1764, would not appear, as the plantation did not begin until 1768. Age of the second Francisco Genovar, signed Yenobart, is not known. Juan Genovar and Antonia Murillo, parents of the first Francisco, above, do appear in the Golden Book, as parents of daughters baptized in the New Smyrna parish. As the first Francisco Genovar's father appears in the 1784, 1786, and 1793 censuses of St. Augustine, and the parents of the second did not, by his testimony and the testimony of witnesses, live in St. Augustine or in the province of East Florida but remained in Minorca, these two Francisco Genovars are sons of different parents, and are two separate and distinct persons.
(1) 1786 Census, Reel 148, Bundle 323A, East Florida Papers, folio 22v.
(2) Ibid.
(3) Ibid.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Ibid.
(7) 1784 Census, Reel 148, Bundle 323A, East Florida Papers, p. 26
(8) Baptism of Francisco's sister, María Antonia, abstracts of baptismal records, 1784-1792, typed manuscript at the St. Augustine Historical Society, page 21)
(9) 1793 Census, Reel 148, Bundle 323A, East Florida Papers, f. 111r
(10) Witness statement of Juan Geonvar, Petition of Juan Gianopoly for permission to marry, Matrimonial licenses, Reel 132, Bundle 298R9, #33, East Florida Papers.
(11) White Marriages, Book 1, 1784-1801, Ecclesiastical Records of the St. Augustine Diocese, page 136, entry 152, Vanderbilt University (online)
(12) Ibid.
(13) Petition of Francisco Yenobart for permission to marry, Matrimonial licenses, Reel 132, Bundle 298R9, #110, East Florida Papers.
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: My Genealogy Life
From Randy Seaver's Genea-musings, here is tonight's challenge.
Tonight's rules:
How much genealogy and family history work do you do, on average, each week? What tasks do you routinely perform every day, every month, every year?
Share your genealogy life in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or on Facebook or google+.
These days, my family genealogy has taken a back seat to my work as a historian, researching the people and families of St. Augustine, Florida, during the Second Spanish Period (1784-1821). I am taking a historical and genealogical approach to my subject. Most days, I am still translating the marriage permission petitions filed by people who did not have qualified relatives in St. Augustine or nearby who could grant them the required permission to marry. I have finished the rough translations, the first pass-through, and am now working on the smooth translations. They are about halfway done.
This project will, I hope, be published in a book. That will probably come in a year or two. The book will include these translations, commentaries on them based on the law that was in force at the time, how these petitions reflect the implementation of that law in St. Augustine, extracts from the actual marriage records from the Catholic diocese, and background and discussion of the law. Most of the latter will be drawn from my master's thesis.
The book is part of my effort to delve into the relationships between the various ethnic or national groups that made up St. Augustine at that time. Work has been done on the Minorcan population of St. Augustine, and the African-American population, and the British, and the Spanish, but no one has really inquired into how these groups interacted and were inter-related. That is what I hope to accomplish, and it will probably span several books.
I have just upgraded my Legacy genealogical software, which I will be using to enter the data I am gathering on the people of St. Augustine during the subject period. I think Legacy will help greatly in analyzing these data.
I have also done some translation work on old Spanish documents for a couple of clients, though I usually do not do client work. One also, however, does not turn away such paying work when it lands in one's lap!
I have already amassed two file cabinets full of dossiers on people who lived in St. Augusting during the Second Spanish Period. I characterize myself as the J. Edgar Hoover of old St. Augustine!
So my own family history has languished in the process.
Tonight's rules:
How much genealogy and family history work do you do, on average, each week? What tasks do you routinely perform every day, every month, every year?
Share your genealogy life in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or on Facebook or google+.
These days, my family genealogy has taken a back seat to my work as a historian, researching the people and families of St. Augustine, Florida, during the Second Spanish Period (1784-1821). I am taking a historical and genealogical approach to my subject. Most days, I am still translating the marriage permission petitions filed by people who did not have qualified relatives in St. Augustine or nearby who could grant them the required permission to marry. I have finished the rough translations, the first pass-through, and am now working on the smooth translations. They are about halfway done.
This project will, I hope, be published in a book. That will probably come in a year or two. The book will include these translations, commentaries on them based on the law that was in force at the time, how these petitions reflect the implementation of that law in St. Augustine, extracts from the actual marriage records from the Catholic diocese, and background and discussion of the law. Most of the latter will be drawn from my master's thesis.
The book is part of my effort to delve into the relationships between the various ethnic or national groups that made up St. Augustine at that time. Work has been done on the Minorcan population of St. Augustine, and the African-American population, and the British, and the Spanish, but no one has really inquired into how these groups interacted and were inter-related. That is what I hope to accomplish, and it will probably span several books.
I have just upgraded my Legacy genealogical software, which I will be using to enter the data I am gathering on the people of St. Augustine during the subject period. I think Legacy will help greatly in analyzing these data.
I have also done some translation work on old Spanish documents for a couple of clients, though I usually do not do client work. One also, however, does not turn away such paying work when it lands in one's lap!
I have already amassed two file cabinets full of dossiers on people who lived in St. Augusting during the Second Spanish Period. I characterize myself as the J. Edgar Hoover of old St. Augustine!
So my own family history has languished in the process.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
What's in a Name, or: Who was Juana Salom Marrying, Anyway?
I am in Washington, D.C. until nearly the end of July doing research in the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, for my master's thesis on marriage in Second Spanish Period St. Augustine, Florida (1784-1821). These documents pose a variety of problems, one of which can get downright amusing: the various spellings of names.
I just transcribed one record, the petition of a soldier named Francisco Macharely and Juana Salom. Well, that's how their names appear on the cover page of the file.
His name is also spelled Macarely, Machareli, and Bacharely.
The awful thing here is, he did not write or sign any of the documents in the file. One of the things I am attempting to do in my research on St. Augustine in this period is to determine just what people's names were, and what spelling did they themselves prefer.
This is made difficult, if not impossible, by the fact that a number of inhabitants of the town were illiterate. Or, in this case, by the complete absence of any input by the individual himself. So, with four choices -- none of which may have been how the name was actually spelled -- there is not much chance I can come to a conclusion in this case. For all I know, he may have been an Italian, and the proper spelling -- as close as there ever was in those days, at any rate -- may have been Macciarelli.
But I doubt I will ever know.
Even Juana's name appears in two different spellings: Salom and Soloma. Testimony in the file is given by her brother, Juan Salom -- who, according to the Spanish marriage law, the Real Pragmática de Casamiento, had to give his consent to the marriage. In that document, Juan's sister's last name is spelled as Salom. Salom is the generally accepted spelling among historians who write about St. Augustine during this time.
However, we really cannot know for sure if this was the spelling. Juan Salom was illiterate, as was his sister Juana.
The task of determining what is in a name in this time and place is made easier by the literate, who signed their own names to documents. Most of the time it helps, anyway. But not always.
For instance, there is one individual who was associated with the Minorcan population of St. Augustine, who rose to some prominence. His name is represented in Spanish documents as Domingo Martinely or Martinoly. However, he was literate -- at least, he could sign his name. He was Italian, and he signed his name as Domenico Martinelli.
The problem is when someone was inconsistent in signing his name. There is another marriage document in which one man's name is spelled three different ways: Juan Genopoly, or Gianopoly, or Yoannoply. He signed his name Juan Gianopoly. On one document. On another, he signed it as Giovanni Gianopoly.
So sometimes you just have to choose one!
.
I just transcribed one record, the petition of a soldier named Francisco Macharely and Juana Salom. Well, that's how their names appear on the cover page of the file.
His name is also spelled Macarely, Machareli, and Bacharely.
The awful thing here is, he did not write or sign any of the documents in the file. One of the things I am attempting to do in my research on St. Augustine in this period is to determine just what people's names were, and what spelling did they themselves prefer.
This is made difficult, if not impossible, by the fact that a number of inhabitants of the town were illiterate. Or, in this case, by the complete absence of any input by the individual himself. So, with four choices -- none of which may have been how the name was actually spelled -- there is not much chance I can come to a conclusion in this case. For all I know, he may have been an Italian, and the proper spelling -- as close as there ever was in those days, at any rate -- may have been Macciarelli.
But I doubt I will ever know.
Even Juana's name appears in two different spellings: Salom and Soloma. Testimony in the file is given by her brother, Juan Salom -- who, according to the Spanish marriage law, the Real Pragmática de Casamiento, had to give his consent to the marriage. In that document, Juan's sister's last name is spelled as Salom. Salom is the generally accepted spelling among historians who write about St. Augustine during this time.
However, we really cannot know for sure if this was the spelling. Juan Salom was illiterate, as was his sister Juana.
The task of determining what is in a name in this time and place is made easier by the literate, who signed their own names to documents. Most of the time it helps, anyway. But not always.
For instance, there is one individual who was associated with the Minorcan population of St. Augustine, who rose to some prominence. His name is represented in Spanish documents as Domingo Martinely or Martinoly. However, he was literate -- at least, he could sign his name. He was Italian, and he signed his name as Domenico Martinelli.
The problem is when someone was inconsistent in signing his name. There is another marriage document in which one man's name is spelled three different ways: Juan Genopoly, or Gianopoly, or Yoannoply. He signed his name Juan Gianopoly. On one document. On another, he signed it as Giovanni Gianopoly.
So sometimes you just have to choose one!
.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Tangled Web
This has been a terrible week - I've been sick, and everything has gone wrong, messing me up in my classes something fierce. In the midst of all this, in working on my St. Augustine project, I discovered a problem.
Looking at the transcribed information in the marriage document of Diego Carreras and Clara María Pacetti, I found Diego's parents identified as Juan Carreras and María Triay. In the marriage license application of Diego and Clara, which I transcribed myself from the microfilmed original, the information states that one of Diego's parents was dead and the other living in Menorca, the island in the Balearic chain, in the Mediterranean off the southeast coast of Spain, which was the family's home.
Yet there is a married couple, Juan Carreras and María Triay, living in St. Augustine. Other records state that Diego had two brothers, Juan and José. This Juan Carreras, the one living in St. Augustine, was born in 1746. José Carreras was born in 1755, and Diego in 1757. This Juan Carreras was unlikely to have been the father of Diego.
With some grim and ghoulish humor, we may be put in mind of Oedipus, but the records state that in the 1786 census, when Juan Carreras of St. Augustine (Juan the younger) was 40, his wife, María Triay, was 21 years old. There is absolutely no Oedipal event here. She whom I will call María Triay the younger was also apparently Juan the younger's second wife, as the 1784 census shows Juan as a widower.
What I am left with is the possibility that the parents of Juan, José, and Diego were named Juan Carreras and María Triay, who never left Menorca; and then Juan the younger just happened to marry a girl named María Triay, who lived in St. Augustine.
So what I need to do now is find a marriage document for Juan (the younger) and María (the younger), and possibly other documents which will name the parents of Juan and of José.
Genealogical truth is quite often stranger than fiction, and forms a tangled web, indeed.
.
Looking at the transcribed information in the marriage document of Diego Carreras and Clara María Pacetti, I found Diego's parents identified as Juan Carreras and María Triay. In the marriage license application of Diego and Clara, which I transcribed myself from the microfilmed original, the information states that one of Diego's parents was dead and the other living in Menorca, the island in the Balearic chain, in the Mediterranean off the southeast coast of Spain, which was the family's home.
Yet there is a married couple, Juan Carreras and María Triay, living in St. Augustine. Other records state that Diego had two brothers, Juan and José. This Juan Carreras, the one living in St. Augustine, was born in 1746. José Carreras was born in 1755, and Diego in 1757. This Juan Carreras was unlikely to have been the father of Diego.
With some grim and ghoulish humor, we may be put in mind of Oedipus, but the records state that in the 1786 census, when Juan Carreras of St. Augustine (Juan the younger) was 40, his wife, María Triay, was 21 years old. There is absolutely no Oedipal event here. She whom I will call María Triay the younger was also apparently Juan the younger's second wife, as the 1784 census shows Juan as a widower.
What I am left with is the possibility that the parents of Juan, José, and Diego were named Juan Carreras and María Triay, who never left Menorca; and then Juan the younger just happened to marry a girl named María Triay, who lived in St. Augustine.
So what I need to do now is find a marriage document for Juan (the younger) and María (the younger), and possibly other documents which will name the parents of Juan and of José.
Genealogical truth is quite often stranger than fiction, and forms a tangled web, indeed.
.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
The REAL First Thanksgiving
We here in northeast Florida have known a secret for a long time. That secret came out but with little notice in 1965 when Michael Gannon, Ph.D., wrote The Cross in the Sand, his history of St. Augustine, Florida. That secret has been taken up by newspaper reporters looking for a feature story and then by a fifth-grade teacher in St. Augustine, who in 2007 wrote a children's book about it.
The secret? The first Thanksgiving on the North American continent was not in Massachusetts. My cousin Bill West of West in New England may want to scalp me, but the first Thanksgiving was here in Florida on 8 September 1565, when Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded the oldest continuously-occupied North American settlement - St. Augustine, Florida.
The Spanish role in early American history is largely ignored in American History classes, even here in Florida. In the fourth grade, we had a slim green-backed book called La Florida which was our Florida history text. It was not very thorough, and probably not all that accurate, either. For one thing, it told us that Ponce de León discovered Florida in 1513 while looking for the Fountain of Youth.
Well, let us analyze that . . .
So what happened was that Ponce de León's navigator missed Bimini and hit Florida. So he decided to go ahead and take a look around.
Ponce de León -- yeah, that was his name.
So there is a definite need to bring the early Spanish role in American History to light, and one of those stories was that first giving of thanks for a safe voyage and landing in a strange and promising new world.
So whether you live in Florida, New England, or way out west, Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!
(But we did it first.)
.
The secret? The first Thanksgiving on the North American continent was not in Massachusetts. My cousin Bill West of West in New England may want to scalp me, but the first Thanksgiving was here in Florida on 8 September 1565, when Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded the oldest continuously-occupied North American settlement - St. Augustine, Florida.
The Spanish role in early American history is largely ignored in American History classes, even here in Florida. In the fourth grade, we had a slim green-backed book called La Florida which was our Florida history text. It was not very thorough, and probably not all that accurate, either. For one thing, it told us that Ponce de León discovered Florida in 1513 while looking for the Fountain of Youth.
Well, let us analyze that . . .
- He did not discover Florida. The Spanish knew it was here, already, because they'd been nosing about in the neighborhood for some 21 years, and had already established themselves all around the Caribbean basin and the Gulf of Mexico. They just had not bothered to get off their ships and go take a look at it until León did.
- 1513? That may depend on whether one is using the modern Gregorian calendar or the Julian calendar. The Julian calendar would have been in force in 1513, as the Gregorian was not called for until 1582. In Spain, 1 January was selected as the beginning of the new year in 1556, years before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. But as of 1513, the new year may have begun on either 25 December or 25 March, depending on what the Catholic Church had felt like at the time (when most of Western Europe chose one or the other of those dates, during the Middle Ages). To today's calendars, it could have been 1512 or 1514.
- He was not looking for the Fountain of Youth. He probably knew the legend, as most people in Europe were familiar with several legends, such as the voyage of St. Brendan in the 6th century, when he supposedly set sail to westward and found a land of bounty. Or there was a legend about seven caves, which, when transplanted to the New World, became seven fabulous cities of gold -- Cíbola. No, not the Fountain of Youth.
So what happened was that Ponce de León's navigator missed Bimini and hit Florida. So he decided to go ahead and take a look around.
Ponce de León -- yeah, that was his name.
So there is a definite need to bring the early Spanish role in American History to light, and one of those stories was that first giving of thanks for a safe voyage and landing in a strange and promising new world.
So whether you live in Florida, New England, or way out west, Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!
(But we did it first.)
.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
A True Vocation
All my life, I have heard and read of people who had a true vocation, a calling to this or that field whether it be medicine or the priesthood or public service, among other fields. I have rattled around in life looking for mine. I was not ready when I went to Florida State University in 1965, after graduating from high school. I have always been an academic overachiever, but I went to university without a clear plan or a clear calling.
I have been a librarian, a nurse, a member of the armed forces. That latter was for a number of years the closest I have come to feeling that I had a calling I enjoyed the Coast Guard, and felt like I was part of something that made a difference. But after that was done, after arthritis took me out of active participation, I felt once again like I did not have a calling.
Another reason I was not ready out of high school to find my vocation was that I had been raised in a traditional family in the 1950s. Girls were not "supposed" to aspire to more than either being at home or being a secretary, a teacher, or a nurse. I broke one of those taboos many years into my adulthood by enlisting in the Coast Guard, and I also shattered my family's notion of the character of women in military service. However, what I had really been discouraged from pursuing was my desire to be a journalist. Girls just did not do that (never mind Nellie Bly or Margaret Bourke-White or Adela Rogers St. John). It was a long, long time before I was able to revive that dream.
My first attempt at actually being a writer was in fiction, since I had lost the dream of being a journalist. I was a member of a local writing group and an online writing group. I tried various genres and methods, having some short stories published in little magazines, but just not finding a fiction voice. Then I turned to non-fiction. After my first book, a history and critical review of a television series, I floundered for subjects, and then I found genealogy. After getting a genealogical education through the National Institute for Genealogical Studies in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, I then found a subject: a guide to sources for Florida's colonial, territorial, and state censuses. That book was published last year.
Work on that book led me to the University of North Florida, first to brush up on my high school Spanish from forty some-odd years before, and then one thing led to another, and I found myself on a path to a second bachelor's degree with a double major in history and Spanish. Now I am about to finish that up. I will graduate at the end of the 2012 spring term. And as I have blogged previously, I will be starting work on a master's degree in history in the fall.
This path has been something strange and wonderful. Associations, opportunities, nearly all my class work has in one way or another led me to study the history and families of St. Augustine, Florida, during the second Spanish period (1784-1821), or has contributed in some way to my investigation. I have become enchanted with the place and the people -- though some of them at times behaved in less-than-enchanting ways. But even rascals should have their stories told. All my education, including the genealogical education, seems to have led up to this area of study. I feel like I have been taken up by an inexorable current, and cannot escape from it. Nor do I want to.
I have found my vocation.
.
I have been a librarian, a nurse, a member of the armed forces. That latter was for a number of years the closest I have come to feeling that I had a calling I enjoyed the Coast Guard, and felt like I was part of something that made a difference. But after that was done, after arthritis took me out of active participation, I felt once again like I did not have a calling.
Another reason I was not ready out of high school to find my vocation was that I had been raised in a traditional family in the 1950s. Girls were not "supposed" to aspire to more than either being at home or being a secretary, a teacher, or a nurse. I broke one of those taboos many years into my adulthood by enlisting in the Coast Guard, and I also shattered my family's notion of the character of women in military service. However, what I had really been discouraged from pursuing was my desire to be a journalist. Girls just did not do that (never mind Nellie Bly or Margaret Bourke-White or Adela Rogers St. John). It was a long, long time before I was able to revive that dream.
My first attempt at actually being a writer was in fiction, since I had lost the dream of being a journalist. I was a member of a local writing group and an online writing group. I tried various genres and methods, having some short stories published in little magazines, but just not finding a fiction voice. Then I turned to non-fiction. After my first book, a history and critical review of a television series, I floundered for subjects, and then I found genealogy. After getting a genealogical education through the National Institute for Genealogical Studies in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, I then found a subject: a guide to sources for Florida's colonial, territorial, and state censuses. That book was published last year.
Work on that book led me to the University of North Florida, first to brush up on my high school Spanish from forty some-odd years before, and then one thing led to another, and I found myself on a path to a second bachelor's degree with a double major in history and Spanish. Now I am about to finish that up. I will graduate at the end of the 2012 spring term. And as I have blogged previously, I will be starting work on a master's degree in history in the fall.
This path has been something strange and wonderful. Associations, opportunities, nearly all my class work has in one way or another led me to study the history and families of St. Augustine, Florida, during the second Spanish period (1784-1821), or has contributed in some way to my investigation. I have become enchanted with the place and the people -- though some of them at times behaved in less-than-enchanting ways. But even rascals should have their stories told. All my education, including the genealogical education, seems to have led up to this area of study. I feel like I have been taken up by an inexorable current, and cannot escape from it. Nor do I want to.
I have found my vocation.
.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Blog Action Day: Food in St. Augustine, 1784-1821
This year's Blog Action Day has the theme of food. The focus is on any aspect of food, but the imptus behind it is the existence of hunger around the world. People blog about areas where there is hunger today, or how food is part of their culture. I am going to blog a little food history, and talk about the food situation in St. Augustine during the Second Spanish Period, my academic area of study.
One of the sources we have that describes the native foods available to residents of East Florida in the late 17th and early 18th centuries is William Bartram's Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, generally referred to simply as Bartram's Travels. He describes the crops the Indians -- mainly the Seminoles, by that time -- grew, such as corn and pumpkins and beans. There were fruits such as melons and oranges (which the First Period Spanish had brought with them). He also describes the fresh- and salt-water fishes and shellfish available for harvest in northeastern Florida waters. And there is game in his food-roll: deer, squirrel, and other animals.
St. Augustine had all that, but it was not all abundance and feasting. There were times when St. Augustine faced some very real shortages, though there was not the general, every hardscrabble day starvation some authors in the past have portrayed. When St. Augustine was subject to siege during invasions such as the "Patriot War" of 1812, the citizens of the town and some from the outlying areas took refuge in the Castillo de San Marcos. There might be upwards of 1500-2000 civilians packed into the fortress, with food rationing the order of the day. There was a well in the fort, so the water supply was generally not affected by siege. During the 1812 siege, the black militia would sortie to forage for supplies, and were generally successful. Protecting one's family and town was a fine motivator, but for these individuals there was the added incentive of defending the fort to keep from being taken prisoner by the invaders from Georgia and South Carolina and taken back into U.S. territory and a life of slavery.
The critical shortages in St. Augustine at the time were cold hard cash, wheat, and salt meat. St. Augustine was not an area of vibrant economic growth, though again,the picture was not as dismal as some have painted it. But the town existed largely on credit, because cash was slow to come in. There were some wealthy individuals in and around the town, but mostly the town, and especially the garrison at the Castillo, existed on the situado, basically a government subsidy. There were times when the situado did not arrive. Governors had to get creative in order to keep the town's soldiers and government workers if not happy, at least pacified. Credit was one of the strategies the government and private citizens used a great deal. This is evident in the many I.O.U.s found in wills and administrations.
Spain had a mercantilist economic philosophy; that is, goods bought by the colonies had to be bought from Spain or Spanish ports and carried in Spanish ships. When the situation became urgent in St. Augustine, governors found ways around this policy, which was eventually relaxed to be in tune with the realities of the world. Part of this mercantilism, however, required that St. Augustine obtain its wheat from Mexico , via Cuba. It soon became apparent that this wheat was of inferior quality, often spoiled, and when the governor compared prices in Philadelphia and later New York, he found wheat much cheaper, and of superior quality, than what they were getting from Havana.
Many people supplemented their diets with kitchen gardens. Among the Menorcan population of the town, refugees from Andrew Turnbull's New Smyrna plantation, there were fishermen. The largest occupation group enumerated in the 1784 census is farmers. There were some large farming and ranching operations, as well, which grew produce and raised cattle. In sum, just as with any other frontier colony in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, St. Augustine had much the same relationship with food as many areas of the world today -- enough to get by, most of the time, with periods of definite lack which required emergency action.
The inexcusable thing is that today, in the 21st century, there are areas of the world which are several times worse off, on a day-to-day basis, than St. Augustine ever was at any time in its history.
Further reading:
Bartram, William. Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida. London: Reprinted for J. Johnson 1792.
Cusick, James G. The Other War of 1812: The Patriot War and the American Invasion of Spanish East Florida. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2003.
Griffin, Patricia C. Mullet on the Beach: the Minorcans of Florida, 1768-1788. Jacksonville: University of North Florida Press, 1991.
Landers, Jane. Black Society in Spanish Florida. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Landers, Jane, ed. Colonial Plantations and Economy in Florida. Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 2000.
Tanner, Helen Hornbeck. Zéspedes in East Florida, 1784-1790. Jacksonville: University of North Florida Press, 1989.
.
One of the sources we have that describes the native foods available to residents of East Florida in the late 17th and early 18th centuries is William Bartram's Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, generally referred to simply as Bartram's Travels. He describes the crops the Indians -- mainly the Seminoles, by that time -- grew, such as corn and pumpkins and beans. There were fruits such as melons and oranges (which the First Period Spanish had brought with them). He also describes the fresh- and salt-water fishes and shellfish available for harvest in northeastern Florida waters. And there is game in his food-roll: deer, squirrel, and other animals.
St. Augustine had all that, but it was not all abundance and feasting. There were times when St. Augustine faced some very real shortages, though there was not the general, every hardscrabble day starvation some authors in the past have portrayed. When St. Augustine was subject to siege during invasions such as the "Patriot War" of 1812, the citizens of the town and some from the outlying areas took refuge in the Castillo de San Marcos. There might be upwards of 1500-2000 civilians packed into the fortress, with food rationing the order of the day. There was a well in the fort, so the water supply was generally not affected by siege. During the 1812 siege, the black militia would sortie to forage for supplies, and were generally successful. Protecting one's family and town was a fine motivator, but for these individuals there was the added incentive of defending the fort to keep from being taken prisoner by the invaders from Georgia and South Carolina and taken back into U.S. territory and a life of slavery.
The critical shortages in St. Augustine at the time were cold hard cash, wheat, and salt meat. St. Augustine was not an area of vibrant economic growth, though again,the picture was not as dismal as some have painted it. But the town existed largely on credit, because cash was slow to come in. There were some wealthy individuals in and around the town, but mostly the town, and especially the garrison at the Castillo, existed on the situado, basically a government subsidy. There were times when the situado did not arrive. Governors had to get creative in order to keep the town's soldiers and government workers if not happy, at least pacified. Credit was one of the strategies the government and private citizens used a great deal. This is evident in the many I.O.U.s found in wills and administrations.
Spain had a mercantilist economic philosophy; that is, goods bought by the colonies had to be bought from Spain or Spanish ports and carried in Spanish ships. When the situation became urgent in St. Augustine, governors found ways around this policy, which was eventually relaxed to be in tune with the realities of the world. Part of this mercantilism, however, required that St. Augustine obtain its wheat from Mexico , via Cuba. It soon became apparent that this wheat was of inferior quality, often spoiled, and when the governor compared prices in Philadelphia and later New York, he found wheat much cheaper, and of superior quality, than what they were getting from Havana.
Many people supplemented their diets with kitchen gardens. Among the Menorcan population of the town, refugees from Andrew Turnbull's New Smyrna plantation, there were fishermen. The largest occupation group enumerated in the 1784 census is farmers. There were some large farming and ranching operations, as well, which grew produce and raised cattle. In sum, just as with any other frontier colony in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, St. Augustine had much the same relationship with food as many areas of the world today -- enough to get by, most of the time, with periods of definite lack which required emergency action.
The inexcusable thing is that today, in the 21st century, there are areas of the world which are several times worse off, on a day-to-day basis, than St. Augustine ever was at any time in its history.
Further reading:
Bartram, William. Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida. London: Reprinted for J. Johnson 1792.
Cusick, James G. The Other War of 1812: The Patriot War and the American Invasion of Spanish East Florida. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2003.
Griffin, Patricia C. Mullet on the Beach: the Minorcans of Florida, 1768-1788. Jacksonville: University of North Florida Press, 1991.
Landers, Jane. Black Society in Spanish Florida. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Landers, Jane, ed. Colonial Plantations and Economy in Florida. Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 2000.
Tanner, Helen Hornbeck. Zéspedes in East Florida, 1784-1790. Jacksonville: University of North Florida Press, 1989.
.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Careers in Genealogy: My Own Humble Path
I just read Amy Coffin's "We Tree" entry about careers in genealogy, and her take on the subject. Here's mine:
I have chosen to speak and write. I do not make much money at it because, due to my health, I cannot work at it full time. I do as much as I can, while getting the rest I need and while dealing with the occasional difficulties my health status tosses me. So I'm a part-timer.
I chose speaking and writing because I enjoy talking about the subject, yet I am also very much a loner. I enjoy solitude. I just love sitting in a library or archive, tracking down genealogical or historical facts. I also enjoy the process of writing -- taking all those facts and weaving them into a coherent whole. I very much enjoyed putting together my last book, Non-Federal Censuses of Florida, 1784-1945: A Guide to Sources. And now that the grant period is over, and all I need to do now is get an article written for the university's scholarly journal, the "project" concerning St. Augustine during the Second Spanish Period is no longer the "project." It is the "book."
I write in a field that is not exactly known for blockbuster best-sellers, and I write about "niche" subjects within that small sphere. That is all right with me. I have made enough to further my education, picking up skills and knowledge which will make me more effective working on this particular book about St. Augustine, as well as further researches I plan on the colonial Spanish lineages and history of Florida. And I hope that by presenting this examination of the families of St. Augustine, using a genealogical as well as historical approach, under the auspices of a university grant, I will have made my little tiny contribution toward bringing genealogy to its rightful place in the academy as one of the social sciences. I agree with Amy, that great days are in store for genealogy. I think recognition as an academic discipline will be one of those great things.
I am fortunate in that my husband has a retirement which, while not allowing us to be in any way extravagant, allows us to be comfortable. I do not have to work to live. I speak and write on genealogical/historical subjects because I enjoy it and because I do want to make some contribution to the field. Each of us, doing our little bit and putting our one little brick into the walls, will help construct a fine edifice of genealogical knowledge.
I have chosen to speak and write. I do not make much money at it because, due to my health, I cannot work at it full time. I do as much as I can, while getting the rest I need and while dealing with the occasional difficulties my health status tosses me. So I'm a part-timer.
I chose speaking and writing because I enjoy talking about the subject, yet I am also very much a loner. I enjoy solitude. I just love sitting in a library or archive, tracking down genealogical or historical facts. I also enjoy the process of writing -- taking all those facts and weaving them into a coherent whole. I very much enjoyed putting together my last book, Non-Federal Censuses of Florida, 1784-1945: A Guide to Sources. And now that the grant period is over, and all I need to do now is get an article written for the university's scholarly journal, the "project" concerning St. Augustine during the Second Spanish Period is no longer the "project." It is the "book."
I write in a field that is not exactly known for blockbuster best-sellers, and I write about "niche" subjects within that small sphere. That is all right with me. I have made enough to further my education, picking up skills and knowledge which will make me more effective working on this particular book about St. Augustine, as well as further researches I plan on the colonial Spanish lineages and history of Florida. And I hope that by presenting this examination of the families of St. Augustine, using a genealogical as well as historical approach, under the auspices of a university grant, I will have made my little tiny contribution toward bringing genealogy to its rightful place in the academy as one of the social sciences. I agree with Amy, that great days are in store for genealogy. I think recognition as an academic discipline will be one of those great things.
I am fortunate in that my husband has a retirement which, while not allowing us to be in any way extravagant, allows us to be comfortable. I do not have to work to live. I speak and write on genealogical/historical subjects because I enjoy it and because I do want to make some contribution to the field. Each of us, doing our little bit and putting our one little brick into the walls, will help construct a fine edifice of genealogical knowledge.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
A Little Cautionary Note
We are coming to the end of a year, and barring the sun exploding, the beginning of another one. So it will once again be time when we will be writing the wrong year for a brief while. We all do it. It was more frequent back in the old days when we used to write checks to pay for stuff. But we still do it on calendars, homework, papers, memos, etc.
We genealogists need to be aware that it is not just us modern folk who do that.
I am transcribing yet more documents for my St. Augustine research project. This time I'm into marriage license applications in St. Augustine from 1785 to 1803. For one thing, I'm getting a real sense of just how much rigmarole people had to go through to get married in that place and time! They really must have been in love to put up with all that bureaucratic nonsense! I'll talk about that in another post.
Another thing I have found is that those who lived two hundred or more years ago were not immune from writing the wrong year. And they had to really be off the beam to do it, too, because they wrote so many documents, every day. The government scribe, Domingo Rodriguez de León, did nothing but that, day in and day out.
And on the cover sheet for the papers involved in the marriage license application for Antonio Palma, of Spain, and Margarita McFail, of Scotland, there is, big as life (in letters of a size comparable to about a 42 typeface today) the month and year that Domingo Rodriguez de León entered -- January 1785. (1)
Well, Domingo -- it was 1786. The first document in the package, wherein Antonio Palma pleads his case to be allowed to marry his dear Margarita, is dated January of 1785. Every other document in the package is dated January 1786. The latter is probably correct, just from the preponderance of appearances of 1786 as the year. The strange thing is that they did not get married until 4 December 1786. The reason: is that in 1784, 1785, and 1786, marriages were only performed in December. The parish had been reorganized, along with everything else in that time period of transition between English and Spanish rule, and the two new priests, Thomas Hassett and Michael O'Reilly, both Irish, were overwhelmed with organizaitonal matters. As baptisms and burials were performed when necessary, they decided to put marriages on the back burner. After 1786, marriages were conducted all year round, as requested. (2)
So be aware in looking at old documents that a date written in January may have the wrong year attached to it, and further verification would be a really good idea.
Notes--
1. Marriage license application, Antonio Palma and Margarita Macfail [sic], East Florida Papers, Matrimonial Licenses, Reel 142, Bundle 298R9, folio 12r.
2. Patricia Griffin, Mullet on the Beach: the Minorcans of Florida 1768-1788 (Jacksonville, University of North Florida Press, 1991). 171.
.
We genealogists need to be aware that it is not just us modern folk who do that.
I am transcribing yet more documents for my St. Augustine research project. This time I'm into marriage license applications in St. Augustine from 1785 to 1803. For one thing, I'm getting a real sense of just how much rigmarole people had to go through to get married in that place and time! They really must have been in love to put up with all that bureaucratic nonsense! I'll talk about that in another post.
Another thing I have found is that those who lived two hundred or more years ago were not immune from writing the wrong year. And they had to really be off the beam to do it, too, because they wrote so many documents, every day. The government scribe, Domingo Rodriguez de León, did nothing but that, day in and day out.
And on the cover sheet for the papers involved in the marriage license application for Antonio Palma, of Spain, and Margarita McFail, of Scotland, there is, big as life (in letters of a size comparable to about a 42 typeface today) the month and year that Domingo Rodriguez de León entered -- January 1785. (1)
Well, Domingo -- it was 1786. The first document in the package, wherein Antonio Palma pleads his case to be allowed to marry his dear Margarita, is dated January of 1785. Every other document in the package is dated January 1786. The latter is probably correct, just from the preponderance of appearances of 1786 as the year. The strange thing is that they did not get married until 4 December 1786. The reason: is that in 1784, 1785, and 1786, marriages were only performed in December. The parish had been reorganized, along with everything else in that time period of transition between English and Spanish rule, and the two new priests, Thomas Hassett and Michael O'Reilly, both Irish, were overwhelmed with organizaitonal matters. As baptisms and burials were performed when necessary, they decided to put marriages on the back burner. After 1786, marriages were conducted all year round, as requested. (2)
So be aware in looking at old documents that a date written in January may have the wrong year attached to it, and further verification would be a really good idea.
Notes--
1. Marriage license application, Antonio Palma and Margarita Macfail [sic], East Florida Papers, Matrimonial Licenses, Reel 142, Bundle 298R9, folio 12r.
2. Patricia Griffin, Mullet on the Beach: the Minorcans of Florida 1768-1788 (Jacksonville, University of North Florida Press, 1991). 171.
.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The picture becomes clearer
I've been working in the baptismal records of St. Augustine during the early part of the second Spanish period (Volume I, 1784-1792) in the transcriptions available at the St. Augustine Historical Society research library. It is much easier to use these transcriptions, at least from 1784 into the fall of 1788, because the entries during that period were made in Latin, and I do not read Latin. It was in 1788 that Bishop Cirilo de Barcelona made his visita (inspection tour) of St. Augustine and he decreed that henceforth entries should be made in Spanish. He cites errors and other unacceptable conditions in the records, and prescribes a form which is preserved in the baptismal record.
I have also just finished transcribing from the original the 1786 census of St. Augustine taken by Father Thomas Hassett, the priest at St. Augustine. It is not a complete census, as Hassett himself points out in his introductory comment. He purposefully left out the government officials and the troops stationed at the Castillo de San Marcos. Spanish censuses frequently left out military personnel. For one thing, they were probably considered transient, even though other records I have examined show many of them participating in the daily life of the town.
These documents, along with marriage records, form the basis for reconstructing the family structure of the town, and I am beginning to see patterns of relationship. Another aspect found in the baptismal records is the godparent relationship, which I've mentioned previously.
It is necessary to bear in mind that with these Spanish censuses, however, the one consistent aspect of them is their inconsistency. There were no prescribed formats and no preprinted forms. Not all entries have all the information. For example, it is traditional in Spanish records (as it is in French records) for a woman, married or not, to be recorded by her maiden name. This is a boon to family historians researching their female lines. Most of the entries in the census and baptism records have the women by their maiden names, but not all of them. Then, too, it is careless to assume that because the woman's surname is the same as her husband's, that it is not her maiden name. Non-first cousins could marry, and sometimes did. It is also possible that, even in a town as small as St. Augustine, you could have two unrelated individuals with the same surname.
More information is necessary in these events, and the marriage records are the best source for that.
They're next.
.
I have also just finished transcribing from the original the 1786 census of St. Augustine taken by Father Thomas Hassett, the priest at St. Augustine. It is not a complete census, as Hassett himself points out in his introductory comment. He purposefully left out the government officials and the troops stationed at the Castillo de San Marcos. Spanish censuses frequently left out military personnel. For one thing, they were probably considered transient, even though other records I have examined show many of them participating in the daily life of the town.
These documents, along with marriage records, form the basis for reconstructing the family structure of the town, and I am beginning to see patterns of relationship. Another aspect found in the baptismal records is the godparent relationship, which I've mentioned previously.
It is necessary to bear in mind that with these Spanish censuses, however, the one consistent aspect of them is their inconsistency. There were no prescribed formats and no preprinted forms. Not all entries have all the information. For example, it is traditional in Spanish records (as it is in French records) for a woman, married or not, to be recorded by her maiden name. This is a boon to family historians researching their female lines. Most of the entries in the census and baptism records have the women by their maiden names, but not all of them. Then, too, it is careless to assume that because the woman's surname is the same as her husband's, that it is not her maiden name. Non-first cousins could marry, and sometimes did. It is also possible that, even in a town as small as St. Augustine, you could have two unrelated individuals with the same surname.
More information is necessary in these events, and the marriage records are the best source for that.
They're next.
.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
What's in a Name? Or: Clues are where you find them
One problem genealogists run into, of course, is names. Spellings, variants, two people with the same name -- these occur across cultures and across the decades and centuries. It is no different in St. Augustine from 1783 to 1821.
One potential problem is one I was unaware might even exist until, in connection with my research on the project, I read Patricia Griffin's Mullet on the Beach: The Minorcans in Florida, 1768-1788 which is the story of the in-migration of several hundred residents of the Balearic island of Minorca, in the Mediterranean just off the coast of the Spanish autonomous region of Cataluña, to work the indigo plantation of Dr. Andrew Turnbull during the British Period (1763-1783). Griffin mentions one woman who married a fellow named Matias Pons. Next page she renders the husband's name as Marcial Pons. I have come across both names in my research, but did not have any idea that there might be a problem. Were these two different people that the woman was married to (serially, we hope!)? Or was this one person known by two different names? I will have to do further research to resolve that one. Either possibility could be the case; it was not unusual in colonial times, either in the Spanish colony of St. Augustine or in my own ancestral Massachusetts colonies, for a bachelor-man to marry the widow of his deceased brother, nor is it that unusual for a man to be known by two different names. My own great-great grandfather Matthew Hale Packard was known by his first name in some areas, and by his middle name in others. In the case of Matias/Marcial Pons, I found a valuable clue in one of my derivative sources.
Another problem is the perennial one of two people, usually men, with the same name. I have my two fellows named Diego Hernandez and my two others named Bernardo Segui, among others. These do happen to be father and son, in both cases, but that is not always so. In the English colonies, Sr. and Jr. often did not carry any indication of family relationship at all, but were just a way to distinguish between an older man and a younger man of the same name in the same town. The case is (to over use a word) the same in Spanish St. Augustine, where we find "el mayor" (the older) and "el joven" (the younger) used whether or not there was any familial relationship. There are instances when I do not know whether it was "el mayor" or "el joven" unless there is some clue somewhere in the sources.
Some of the clues are overt, as in the case of tax collector Fernando de la Maza Arredondo and his son of the same name. The elder had to be away on city business, and his son took over doing the quarterly town accounts, which he was courteous enough to sign "Fernando de la Maze Arredondo, el joven," and sometimes added a phrase indicating that he was temporarily doing the job in his father's absence. Other clues are not so overt, and I have learned the value of not skipping over the most mundane parts of the documents I am using from the East Florida Papers. In one testamentary proceeding, that concerning the legal consequences of the passing of one Juan Lauren (or Jean Laurent, in his native French language)., there is the problem of which man of the same name is the one mentioned in the document. Lauren died intestate, and his effects were sold at public auction. One of the purchasers at the auction was Bernardo Segui -- but which one is not indicated in the recording of the sale. It is only in the mundane attestations made by the scribe that he duly notified Señor Segui to come pay for the stuff he bought and haul it away that the answer appears. These are the boring little notations that the scribe dutifully made, one after the other after the other, to indicate that he crossed all his t's and dotted all his i's, where I end up with my eyes crossed. The notification in this case is attested to have been sent to Bernardo Segui el joven. This time, reading all the "doy fes," as I call them because they all end with the phrase "doy fe" (I give faith, or I attest), paid off.
Finally, there is the problem of the multi-cultural nature of the St. Augustine colony and some of the quirks of naming that show up from other languages and cultures. A case in point is the Irishman John McIntosh, grandfather of the troublemaker John Houston McIntosh of the "Patriot War" of 1812-1813 in Spanish East Florida in which Americans tried to invade Florida and take it over with the intent to hand it over to the United States. John McIntosh the elder was known as John McIntosh, Mor or John Mor McIntosh, "mor" being a Gaelic naming convention meaning "the great" or "the elder." One writer rendered the name as John Mohr McIntosh, as if it were a middle name. It likely was not, but rather this Gaelic naming convention. I would not have known about that had I not also added to my reading list Charles E. Bennett's Florida's "French" Revolution, about an earlier coup attempt to grab Florida for the U.S.
We all know about the problems that can crop up with names. We also need to be aware that clues about these name problems may turn up in the darnedest places!
.
One potential problem is one I was unaware might even exist until, in connection with my research on the project, I read Patricia Griffin's Mullet on the Beach: The Minorcans in Florida, 1768-1788 which is the story of the in-migration of several hundred residents of the Balearic island of Minorca, in the Mediterranean just off the coast of the Spanish autonomous region of Cataluña, to work the indigo plantation of Dr. Andrew Turnbull during the British Period (1763-1783). Griffin mentions one woman who married a fellow named Matias Pons. Next page she renders the husband's name as Marcial Pons. I have come across both names in my research, but did not have any idea that there might be a problem. Were these two different people that the woman was married to (serially, we hope!)? Or was this one person known by two different names? I will have to do further research to resolve that one. Either possibility could be the case; it was not unusual in colonial times, either in the Spanish colony of St. Augustine or in my own ancestral Massachusetts colonies, for a bachelor-man to marry the widow of his deceased brother, nor is it that unusual for a man to be known by two different names. My own great-great grandfather Matthew Hale Packard was known by his first name in some areas, and by his middle name in others. In the case of Matias/Marcial Pons, I found a valuable clue in one of my derivative sources.
Another problem is the perennial one of two people, usually men, with the same name. I have my two fellows named Diego Hernandez and my two others named Bernardo Segui, among others. These do happen to be father and son, in both cases, but that is not always so. In the English colonies, Sr. and Jr. often did not carry any indication of family relationship at all, but were just a way to distinguish between an older man and a younger man of the same name in the same town. The case is (to over use a word) the same in Spanish St. Augustine, where we find "el mayor" (the older) and "el joven" (the younger) used whether or not there was any familial relationship. There are instances when I do not know whether it was "el mayor" or "el joven" unless there is some clue somewhere in the sources.
Some of the clues are overt, as in the case of tax collector Fernando de la Maza Arredondo and his son of the same name. The elder had to be away on city business, and his son took over doing the quarterly town accounts, which he was courteous enough to sign "Fernando de la Maze Arredondo, el joven," and sometimes added a phrase indicating that he was temporarily doing the job in his father's absence. Other clues are not so overt, and I have learned the value of not skipping over the most mundane parts of the documents I am using from the East Florida Papers. In one testamentary proceeding, that concerning the legal consequences of the passing of one Juan Lauren (or Jean Laurent, in his native French language)., there is the problem of which man of the same name is the one mentioned in the document. Lauren died intestate, and his effects were sold at public auction. One of the purchasers at the auction was Bernardo Segui -- but which one is not indicated in the recording of the sale. It is only in the mundane attestations made by the scribe that he duly notified Señor Segui to come pay for the stuff he bought and haul it away that the answer appears. These are the boring little notations that the scribe dutifully made, one after the other after the other, to indicate that he crossed all his t's and dotted all his i's, where I end up with my eyes crossed. The notification in this case is attested to have been sent to Bernardo Segui el joven. This time, reading all the "doy fes," as I call them because they all end with the phrase "doy fe" (I give faith, or I attest), paid off.
Finally, there is the problem of the multi-cultural nature of the St. Augustine colony and some of the quirks of naming that show up from other languages and cultures. A case in point is the Irishman John McIntosh, grandfather of the troublemaker John Houston McIntosh of the "Patriot War" of 1812-1813 in Spanish East Florida in which Americans tried to invade Florida and take it over with the intent to hand it over to the United States. John McIntosh the elder was known as John McIntosh, Mor or John Mor McIntosh, "mor" being a Gaelic naming convention meaning "the great" or "the elder." One writer rendered the name as John Mohr McIntosh, as if it were a middle name. It likely was not, but rather this Gaelic naming convention. I would not have known about that had I not also added to my reading list Charles E. Bennett's Florida's "French" Revolution, about an earlier coup attempt to grab Florida for the U.S.
We all know about the problems that can crop up with names. We also need to be aware that clues about these name problems may turn up in the darnedest places!
.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
52 Weeks to Better Genealogy: Google Books
From Amy Coffin, this week's 52 Weeks to Better Genealogy challenge is:
Take a stroll through Google Books. Most of us have probably used Google Books in our genealogy research, but have you really taken the time to explore what’s there? Look at the magazines and featured books. Check out the subjects offered. By taking the focus off research for a bit, your mind is open to see other ways this tool can be used. Bloggers can discuss any interesting items they found on Google Books during this exercise.
The chief benefit in my mind of Google Books is providing the text of classic works in all fields, those which are now in the public domain. I will not go into the recent lawsuit concerning the posting by Google of excerpts from books which are not in the public domain (one of which is mine, and I'm of two minds about that). But the contribution Google Books has made to history, genealogy, and a host of other research fields in posting these old -- some of them VERY old -- books is nearly unparalleled.
I hope you have read my entries on the documents in the East Florida Papers concerning the death by suicide of a doctor in St. Augustine in 1810. There is an inventory in the file of his clothing, personal effects, and the small bit of furniture he owned. There is also a separate inventory of his books. There are books on diseases of the tropics, books on surgery, and books called "materia medica," descriptions of disease symptoms and treatments of the day (there are modern materia medica works, as well).
Among the materia medica works is one by Boerhave and one by Cullen, both published in the mid to late 1700s. These books are on Google books. The Boerhave is in Latin, so is a bit of a rough go. The Cullen is in English. Seeing the actual texts has an immediacy that just cannot be beat. Here they are, two of the titles the doctor had in his collection in St. Augustine. Others that were in his collection may have copies in Google Books, as well, but I don't have time right now to go look extensively.
Just seeing those two books for myself is a pleasure.
.
Take a stroll through Google Books. Most of us have probably used Google Books in our genealogy research, but have you really taken the time to explore what’s there? Look at the magazines and featured books. Check out the subjects offered. By taking the focus off research for a bit, your mind is open to see other ways this tool can be used. Bloggers can discuss any interesting items they found on Google Books during this exercise.
The chief benefit in my mind of Google Books is providing the text of classic works in all fields, those which are now in the public domain. I will not go into the recent lawsuit concerning the posting by Google of excerpts from books which are not in the public domain (one of which is mine, and I'm of two minds about that). But the contribution Google Books has made to history, genealogy, and a host of other research fields in posting these old -- some of them VERY old -- books is nearly unparalleled.
I hope you have read my entries on the documents in the East Florida Papers concerning the death by suicide of a doctor in St. Augustine in 1810. There is an inventory in the file of his clothing, personal effects, and the small bit of furniture he owned. There is also a separate inventory of his books. There are books on diseases of the tropics, books on surgery, and books called "materia medica," descriptions of disease symptoms and treatments of the day (there are modern materia medica works, as well).
Among the materia medica works is one by Boerhave and one by Cullen, both published in the mid to late 1700s. These books are on Google books. The Boerhave is in Latin, so is a bit of a rough go. The Cullen is in English. Seeing the actual texts has an immediacy that just cannot be beat. Here they are, two of the titles the doctor had in his collection in St. Augustine. Others that were in his collection may have copies in Google Books, as well, but I don't have time right now to go look extensively.
Just seeing those two books for myself is a pleasure.
.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
More on the Case of the Doctor's Suicide
I am continuing to transcribe the investigatory documents concerning the case of the doctor who committed suicide in St. Augustine in 1810. The file contains 82 pages, consisting in testimony of witnesses to the event, evidentiary submissions, and an inventory and sale of the decedent's personal effects, as well as papers concerning the disposition of the proceeds of the estate (the doctor seems to have died intestate; I'll determine that, of course, as I go through the documents). It is going to take several days to transcribe this one.
Further developments, however, do paint a sad picture indeed. The doctor's wife had died fourteen years previously, and apparently he was devoted to her, for he had told his friends that he was miserable without her. Their two daughters were in Ireland, by that time probably grown young ladies, and according to the documents in the case, were well taken care of. These are the heirs in Ireland mentioned in the first few pages of the file, which I referred to in yesterday's post. They were residing in Dublin.
In one document, a witness to the event, another doctor, is asked by the investigator if there were not any signs that the doctor was suicidal, with an eye to the question of could it have been prevented? I wish that investigator were around here in the early years of the 21st Century, for he would find that we do not have much more in the way of an answer to that question than he did in 1810. Yes, there are signs, as there were in the case of this unfortunate doctor, and the witness says as much. But as we see these days, those signs are not always given proper priority, not acted upon. Is it that we are not any better at it than they were in 1810 or that it is just difficult to know? And how much of a role did denial play then, as it plays now? And the idea that one just "toughs it out" when life gets rough with us. Certainly men in St. Augustine in 1810 were expected to soldier on in the face of all difficulties and despairs. It is a legacy that bears on the earlier question of why we do not always pick up on the signs given by one who may be contemplating suicide.
The implications of suicide in our genealogy are stark indeed. It is still a subject people do not like to discuss, though in today's atmosphere of letting it all hang out, and quite frequently on national television, there is more talk of it than previously. It is painful for those who remain, bringing self-blame, despair, and fear. One can only wonder how this doctor's daughters reacted and felt, and how the news was treated in their families, back in Dublin. It is no less a difficulty and a tragedy today than it was then, when a very lonely man just wanted to be reunited with the dear wife who had left him too early.
.
Further developments, however, do paint a sad picture indeed. The doctor's wife had died fourteen years previously, and apparently he was devoted to her, for he had told his friends that he was miserable without her. Their two daughters were in Ireland, by that time probably grown young ladies, and according to the documents in the case, were well taken care of. These are the heirs in Ireland mentioned in the first few pages of the file, which I referred to in yesterday's post. They were residing in Dublin.
In one document, a witness to the event, another doctor, is asked by the investigator if there were not any signs that the doctor was suicidal, with an eye to the question of could it have been prevented? I wish that investigator were around here in the early years of the 21st Century, for he would find that we do not have much more in the way of an answer to that question than he did in 1810. Yes, there are signs, as there were in the case of this unfortunate doctor, and the witness says as much. But as we see these days, those signs are not always given proper priority, not acted upon. Is it that we are not any better at it than they were in 1810 or that it is just difficult to know? And how much of a role did denial play then, as it plays now? And the idea that one just "toughs it out" when life gets rough with us. Certainly men in St. Augustine in 1810 were expected to soldier on in the face of all difficulties and despairs. It is a legacy that bears on the earlier question of why we do not always pick up on the signs given by one who may be contemplating suicide.
The implications of suicide in our genealogy are stark indeed. It is still a subject people do not like to discuss, though in today's atmosphere of letting it all hang out, and quite frequently on national television, there is more talk of it than previously. It is painful for those who remain, bringing self-blame, despair, and fear. One can only wonder how this doctor's daughters reacted and felt, and how the news was treated in their families, back in Dublin. It is no less a difficulty and a tragedy today than it was then, when a very lonely man just wanted to be reunited with the dear wife who had left him too early.
.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Of overdoses, laudanum, and history
In my transcriptions of wills from St. Augustine, Florida, between 1783 and 1821, I have encountered one that is quite sad. The individual in question was an Irishman living in Spanish St. Augustine (of which there were quite a few) in 1810, who had apparently been depressed or, as the investigatory documents state, "disaffected with life," having indicated as much to several of his friends the day before he took an overdose of two ounces of laudanum -- four times the amount needed for a fatal dose.
Was this suicide or an accidental overdose? Indications are that it was suicide. The above-mentioned disaffection with life is one factor. Another factor is that the individual was a doctor, familiar with the properties of laudanum, a tincture of opium. Certainly he would have known that two ounces was more than enough to kill him. Four times over.
Apparently his relatives were not with him in St. Augustine, for the documents refer to heirs being "absent in their native country" of Ireland. Was loneliness a factor? Had he suffered reverses of some sort? Was he terminally ill? I have only transcribed part of the file, so I do not know yet if there is further information.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, laudanum was available over the counter, and was taken for a variety of ills. Narcotics generally were freely available, even as an ingredient in soft drinks. Coca-Cola is so named because it originally contained cocaine. As the dangers of addiction, accidental and deliberate overdose, inability to function fully, and other dangers (including use as instruments of murder) became known, these substances were brought under control.
In our investigations of family history -- our own or someone else's -- we need to be aware of so many bits of history. Medical history is only one of these. Online sources for medical information include Wikipedia (for a general overview and possibly some sources to check), The Merck Manuals, and Antiquus Morbus. The Merck Manuals provide modern information on such aspects as dosage and side effects of medications, and signs, symptoms, and treatment of diseases. Antiquus Morbus is useful for finding what an archaic term for a particular disease refers to in modern terms.
We genealogists are special historians. Not only do we see the large trends of history which influenced the lives of our ancestors, we see the human factor as well, including one unfortunate doctor in St. Augustine in 1810, who so sadly felt that life was no longer worth living.
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Was this suicide or an accidental overdose? Indications are that it was suicide. The above-mentioned disaffection with life is one factor. Another factor is that the individual was a doctor, familiar with the properties of laudanum, a tincture of opium. Certainly he would have known that two ounces was more than enough to kill him. Four times over.
Apparently his relatives were not with him in St. Augustine, for the documents refer to heirs being "absent in their native country" of Ireland. Was loneliness a factor? Had he suffered reverses of some sort? Was he terminally ill? I have only transcribed part of the file, so I do not know yet if there is further information.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, laudanum was available over the counter, and was taken for a variety of ills. Narcotics generally were freely available, even as an ingredient in soft drinks. Coca-Cola is so named because it originally contained cocaine. As the dangers of addiction, accidental and deliberate overdose, inability to function fully, and other dangers (including use as instruments of murder) became known, these substances were brought under control.
In our investigations of family history -- our own or someone else's -- we need to be aware of so many bits of history. Medical history is only one of these. Online sources for medical information include Wikipedia (for a general overview and possibly some sources to check), The Merck Manuals, and Antiquus Morbus. The Merck Manuals provide modern information on such aspects as dosage and side effects of medications, and signs, symptoms, and treatment of diseases. Antiquus Morbus is useful for finding what an archaic term for a particular disease refers to in modern terms.
We genealogists are special historians. Not only do we see the large trends of history which influenced the lives of our ancestors, we see the human factor as well, including one unfortunate doctor in St. Augustine in 1810, who so sadly felt that life was no longer worth living.
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Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Sometimes the Source Comes to You
I enjoy serendipity when it strikes, and it seems to strike more often for those who are primed for it. Case in point:
Today I received in the mail my copy of El Escribano, the annual journal of the St. Augustine (Florida) Historical Society. In it is an article taking a different look at the manumission of Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, an African woman who married the white planter Zephaniah Kingsley. Kingsley was one of the "nuevos pobladores" (new settlers) whose arrival was recorded in a pair of ledger books contained in legajo (bundle) 743 of the Papeles de Cuba at the General Archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain, which I transcribed during my research there in May, 2008. Kingsley is one of the more prominent figures in my study of the family structure of St. Augustine and the possible influence family relationships had on the history of St. Augustine (or that the history may have had on family relationships). Anna has long been considered by historians to have been Kingsley's slave.
In this case. the author of the article makes the argument that Kingsley never considered Anna a slave, but that the manumission papers which exist were a sham forced upon the couple by the increasingly unpleasant tenor of race relations in Spanish East Florida as the acquisition of the province by the United States loomed. The author maintains that Kingsley executed the paper in order to protect Anna and their three mulatto children. It is an effective case.
What has this article given me? Family information on Kingsley, his wife, and their children, for one thing, with enough data to allow me to search more specifically for records to back up the information in the article, at least to some extent. References, for another, which I can examine for the information they contain, and to mine their bibliographies and source notes for other sources.
And it all just fell into my lap -- or was placed in my mailbox. Be open to all things in your research, and grab the serendipitious bit when it comes your way.
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Today I received in the mail my copy of El Escribano, the annual journal of the St. Augustine (Florida) Historical Society. In it is an article taking a different look at the manumission of Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, an African woman who married the white planter Zephaniah Kingsley. Kingsley was one of the "nuevos pobladores" (new settlers) whose arrival was recorded in a pair of ledger books contained in legajo (bundle) 743 of the Papeles de Cuba at the General Archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain, which I transcribed during my research there in May, 2008. Kingsley is one of the more prominent figures in my study of the family structure of St. Augustine and the possible influence family relationships had on the history of St. Augustine (or that the history may have had on family relationships). Anna has long been considered by historians to have been Kingsley's slave.
In this case. the author of the article makes the argument that Kingsley never considered Anna a slave, but that the manumission papers which exist were a sham forced upon the couple by the increasingly unpleasant tenor of race relations in Spanish East Florida as the acquisition of the province by the United States loomed. The author maintains that Kingsley executed the paper in order to protect Anna and their three mulatto children. It is an effective case.
What has this article given me? Family information on Kingsley, his wife, and their children, for one thing, with enough data to allow me to search more specifically for records to back up the information in the article, at least to some extent. References, for another, which I can examine for the information they contain, and to mine their bibliographies and source notes for other sources.
And it all just fell into my lap -- or was placed in my mailbox. Be open to all things in your research, and grab the serendipitious bit when it comes your way.
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Friday, May 21, 2010
The Gold Mine
Working on my St. Augustine community family history project, I have just finished transcribing some documents from a probate file for a couple who were quite advanced in age for their time (circa 1809; the gentleman was some 90 years old) in which there appear the sort of documents we genealogists consider gold.
Because the couple apparently died intestate and there was a wrangle among heirs, the file contains copies of birth and baptism documents, marriage documents, and death records from the parish church. It is a gold mine, as now I know the names of the children (from more than one marriage; apparently the last wife was number three), the names of the parents of the husband and the wife, the wife's date of birth, their date and place of marriage, along with the name of the officiating priest and the witnesses, and their dates and places of death.
In those days, "copies" meant handwritten transcriptions, attested by sworn statements to have been true and faithful copies of the original, along with the location of the original in the records (page number and other information).
And I'm not finished yet. It is possible that I should be glad this couple died intestate, for if there had been a will, there probably would not have been a need for all these other documents to establish relationships.
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