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)

• 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)

Francisco Genovar (signed his name Yenobart)

• 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 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.

C is for Coast Guard

This post is part of the A to Z Challenge for genealogy bloggers.

When my husband joined the Coast Guard in 1970, we thought he was the first in his family to do so.  Many years later, when his father died in 2004, we discovered in some family papers he had, that this was not the case.

My husband's father and grandfather had also served in the Coast Guard, as temporaries during World War II.  They were port security personnel, patrolling the port of Jacksonville.  It is rather indicative of my father-in-law's lack of communication with his son that he never mentioned that he had been in the Coast Guard.

So, rather than being the first, my husband was part of a three-generation tradition in the family!

But the story does not end there.

While he was in the Coast Guard, one of his duty stations was in St. Petersburg, Florida.  He did a variety of things, as everyone in the Coast Guard is called upon to do.  He inspected a nuclear plant.  He was in charge of safety and security for sailboat races.  He was the local command's liaison with the Coast Guard Auxiliary, a civilian organization dedicated to providing help and support to the Coast Guard through public instruction in boating safety, courtesy examinations of pleasure craft, search and rescue, patrols, and in other ways.

I saw how much fun he was having, and decided I wanted to be part of it, too.  Due to some misunderstandings, it wasn't until we were back in Jacksonville, after my husband had transferred from active duty to the Coast Guard Reserve, that I managed to enlist in the Coast Guard Reserve.  I took the oath on 3 February 1976, entering as a yeoman third class.  During my years in the CGR, I went from yeoman third class to a commission, as a lieutenant junior grade.  I had to stand down before I made lieutenant, because I had developed osteoarthritis and could no longer carry out my duties. 

And before that, he and I had also joined the Coast Guard Auxiliary!  We had a 17-foot open runabout, a beautiful little boat with a lot of get-up-and-go.  We did search and rescue and patrols in that boat, and had a great deal of fun in doing so.

We definitely are a Coast Guard family.

B is for Beach

This post is part of the A to Z Challenge for Genealogy Bloggers.

I live in Florida, which means there are beaches within driving distance (30 to 50 miles).  I grew up accustomed to going to the beach in the summer, with family or friends.  My sister and brother did, too.  One day, my sister got into some belated trouble for that.

My mother was a widow, and we moved back to Jacksonville from California after my father died, so my mother could be near her mom and sister.  We had a 1951 Packard.  My sister would borrow the car from time to time for excursions with her friends.  When she went to the beach, my mother told her not to drive the car on the beach, because that leads to corrosion.  Salt water is not good for cars, and the sand at the beach was full of salt water.

One day my sister took her friends to the beach.  She had taken some pictures there that day.  A week or so later, she went to the drug store to pick up her pictures, and brought them home.  Without thinking, she showed the pictures to Mom.  There was the Packard, sitting right on the hard-packed wet beach sand.

My sister was grounded.

I learned that lesson.  When my friends and I went to the beach in my Mom's car, by that time a 1965 Plymouth Valiant, I parked in the parking lot and we walked down to the beach!  I got into the habit over a couple summers of taking two friends, Sharon and Sandy, to the beach in Mom's car.  We had a great time, talking all the while, during the ride to the beach, at the beach, and coming home from the beach. 

I was a member of our church's Episcopal Young Churchmen youth group.  One afternoon, we had a beach party.  My best friend Ellen and I were sitting on a towel on the beach, having a great time.  A seagull flew overhead and opened the bomb bay doors.  "Eww!" we screamed, as we scrambled to the water to wash ourselves off.  That was one of the less pleasant beach moments I had.

Another unpleasant beach moment was sunburn.  That was in the days before sunscreen, when the habit was to slather oneself with sun tan oil, which actually exacerbated the burn.  I learned how painful sunburn could be, and peeling was unpleasant, too.

The last time I went to the beach was with my husband.  He was a computer programmer in civil service, working for the Navy Department at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida.  There was a weekend conference he was going to attend at Naval Station Mayport, which is about a 100-mile round trip from where we live.  I suggested that, rather than make that 100-mile round trip both days, he just stay at the Navy Lodge out there.  I also suggested that he take me along.  I could amuse myself during the times he was in the conference, and we could spend the rest of the time together.  He thought that was a fine idea.

It was fun.  I took a book to read while he was in the conference.  However, there was one aspect of the trip that was decidedly unpleasant for me.  I do not like a too-hard mattress.  He loves his mattress to be hard.  The mattress at the Navy Lodge must have been inspired by the soldiers' accommodations at the Castillo de San Marcos, the ancient coquina fortress in St. Augustine, Florida.  That "bed" in the fort is a replica, and it is literally a wooden table.  That's how hard that mattress felt to me.  I slept sitting up in the easy chair in the room.

But the most pleasant part of the trip was an evening walk on the beach.  It was downright romantic.