In the past year of doing research on the family structure of St. Augustine, Florida, during the Second Spanish Period (1783-1821), I have come across a number of interesting details of which I had no hint when I started. The latest of these is something I found in the marriage license applications 1785-1803 in the East Florida Papers. They all mention something called the Real Pragmatica de Casamiento -- the Royal Law of Marriage. It was instituted by Carlos (Charles) III in 1776. I have not delved into it in detail, though I have found some sources on it. What I get from a cursory look at these is that the law was originally intended to be applied to the royal family, to be sure that there were no "unequal" marriages (no royals marrying commoners, that is). This was necesitated by the amorous and dissipated adventures of Crown Prince Luis de Borbón, son of Carlos III (Note 1) The Real Pragmatica found universal application to all subjects of the Spanish Crown, including those in the New World colonies, by 1778. (Note 2)
One provision of this law was that a person under the age of 25 (though I find it applied to older persons, as well, in St. Augustine) had to have the permission of his or her parents or other older relative in order to marry. (Note 3) This was often waived in the case of the colonies. The waiver was based on the fact that many of the people in St. Augustine had come by themselves, leaving family behind in Spain or Menorca or the Canary Islands or Cuba. In these cases, where the intended couple had no older relatives in close range, the governor of the colony would be the one granting the permission. (Note 4)
Usually in these cases also, the groom or bride would bring in witnesses to make sworn statements that they knew the individual had no older relatives in the area. These sworn statements, and the other documents in the file of each application, have revealed further information on these families. I found out that a couple of men who shared the same surname were indeed brothers. I found that a woman living in St. Augustine was the aunt of one applicant, and I have found the names of parents, which I had not known before. These documents are helping me make a little more progress in linking related people together.
The imposition of the Real Pragmatica on all Spanish subjects was a departure from what had been a less stringent attitude on the part of the Catholic Church, which up until the promulgation of the Real Pragmatica had pretty much been in charge of the marriage business. The church was not that concerned about status inequality in marriage, and in fact was in favor of free choice of marriage partner without requiring parental permission. That lax attitude was contravened by the Real Pragmatica. (Note 5)
Next: further provisions of the Real Pragmatica.
Notes:
Note 1: María Luz Alonso, "El consentimiento para matrimonio de los miembros de la Familia Real (Sobre la vigencia de la Pragmatica de Carlos III de 1776)," Cuadernos de la historia del derecho, No. 4, Servicio de Publicaciones, UCM, Madrid, 1997, 64.
Note 2: Christian Buschges, "Don Manuel Valdivieso y Carrión Protests the Marriage of his Daughter to Don Teodoro Jaramillo, a Person of Lesser Social Standing (Quito 1784-85)," in Richard Boyer and Geoffrey Spurling, eds., Colonial Lives: Documents in Latin American History, 1550-1850. (Oxford University Press, 2000), excerpted on the website Women in World History, file:///G:/Personal%20Data/My%20Documents/UNF/HIS%204609%20DIS/Real%20Pragmatica%20de%20Casamiento/Quito%20lawsuit%20re%20Real%20Pragmatica.html (accessed 19 December 2010).
Note 3: "The Real Pragmatica of 1776 - What Does it Say?" on website Unequal Marriages in Spain: the Pragmatica, http://www.heraldica.org/topics/royalty/pragmatica.htm#pragm%E1tica (accessed 19 December 2010).
Note 4: See, for example, East Florida Papers, Matrimonial Licenses 1785-1803, Reel 132, Bundle R298R9.
Note 5: Buschges, "Don Manuel Valdivieso y Carrión Protests the Marriage of His Daughter . . ."
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Tuesday, December 21, 2010
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.
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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.
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Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Election Day 2010 -- Family History and General History
Today's meme was suggested by Thomas MacEntee in his daily "Geneabloggers" e-mail. We are to talk about voting in our family, any traditions, or any ancestors who may have run for office.
The last ancestor I can point to who held public office would be my 8x-great-grandfather Samuel Packard, who emigrated to Hingham, Massachusetts (Plymouth Colony) in 1638 from Suffolk, England. He was, at various times, Collector of Ministers' Rates (tax collector, basically) and Surveyor of Highways. Most of the rest of us have kept a low profile, politically speaking.
I have made a point of voting in each election since I became eligible to vote in 1968 -- primaries, general elections, special elections, whatever. My husband had an unbroken streak until last spring's primary, when he ended up in the hospital on voting day, and had not taken advantage of early voting.
Early voting is what we have here in Florida, and I'm sure other places must have it, too. Polling places are established at various venues, usually the local public library or a school. The polling place is run exactly as the usual Tuesday-election-day polling place, under the direction of the county Supervisor of Elections. The early voting goes on for something like a week (maybe 2, not really sure) before the election. My younger daughter and I even voted on Sunday this week! The library itself was closed, but the meeting room was open, and set up just like the regular polling place. And the best sight of all was that we had to wait for a voting booth. There were at least 10 of them set up, and every one of them was full, with a line waiting. I hope this kept up all week. We need bigger voter turnouts.
So with voting going on even on the weekends, there's no excuse for anyone able to do so not doing so! And for the rest, absentee ballots are good, too. They just require a little planning.
Elections themselves, and the polling places, are quieter than in the past -- at least on election day. The run-up to the election is pretty doggone noisy these days, but the election itself is not. No more do party hacks and other malefactors ply voters with liquor, or attempt to bribe them to vote a certain way. (It's a secret ballot and always has been. How did these crooks know whether or not a voter was just taking their money and voting how they pleased?) Polling places are policed by the pollworkers, and poll-watchers can observe and report any shenanigans. Political signs have to be a certain distance from the polling place (50 feet in Florida; lots of near-sighted oldsters like me who can't see that far!) And no "electioneering" is allowed within that 50-foot perimeter. Nobody can accost you in the polling place and urge -- or threaten -- you to vote a certain way. That is a change from the early days of the Republic, and a good one.
Now if we could just get the screamers and thumpers on the extreme ends of the spectrum to dial it down a bit!
The last ancestor I can point to who held public office would be my 8x-great-grandfather Samuel Packard, who emigrated to Hingham, Massachusetts (Plymouth Colony) in 1638 from Suffolk, England. He was, at various times, Collector of Ministers' Rates (tax collector, basically) and Surveyor of Highways. Most of the rest of us have kept a low profile, politically speaking.
I have made a point of voting in each election since I became eligible to vote in 1968 -- primaries, general elections, special elections, whatever. My husband had an unbroken streak until last spring's primary, when he ended up in the hospital on voting day, and had not taken advantage of early voting.
Early voting is what we have here in Florida, and I'm sure other places must have it, too. Polling places are established at various venues, usually the local public library or a school. The polling place is run exactly as the usual Tuesday-election-day polling place, under the direction of the county Supervisor of Elections. The early voting goes on for something like a week (maybe 2, not really sure) before the election. My younger daughter and I even voted on Sunday this week! The library itself was closed, but the meeting room was open, and set up just like the regular polling place. And the best sight of all was that we had to wait for a voting booth. There were at least 10 of them set up, and every one of them was full, with a line waiting. I hope this kept up all week. We need bigger voter turnouts.
So with voting going on even on the weekends, there's no excuse for anyone able to do so not doing so! And for the rest, absentee ballots are good, too. They just require a little planning.
Elections themselves, and the polling places, are quieter than in the past -- at least on election day. The run-up to the election is pretty doggone noisy these days, but the election itself is not. No more do party hacks and other malefactors ply voters with liquor, or attempt to bribe them to vote a certain way. (It's a secret ballot and always has been. How did these crooks know whether or not a voter was just taking their money and voting how they pleased?) Polling places are policed by the pollworkers, and poll-watchers can observe and report any shenanigans. Political signs have to be a certain distance from the polling place (50 feet in Florida; lots of near-sighted oldsters like me who can't see that far!) And no "electioneering" is allowed within that 50-foot perimeter. Nobody can accost you in the polling place and urge -- or threaten -- you to vote a certain way. That is a change from the early days of the Republic, and a good one.
Now if we could just get the screamers and thumpers on the extreme ends of the spectrum to dial it down a bit!
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Blog Action Day: Water
My connection of the clean water theme of Blog Action Day to genealogy is easy: My husband and I both served in the United States Coast Guard, which -- among its many and varied duties -- is responsible for enforcement of federal clean-water laws in federal waters. I had some connection to this in some small ways. As the officer in charge of a sub-unit of reserves who manned the Jacksonville, Florida, Marine Safety Office during the 1980s, I was in charge on my weekend of pollution response. There were a few small incidents of "a visible sheen on the water," the principal sign of pollution. It mainly came from factories along the St. Johns River or from the ships that called at the port of Jacksonville. We never had any serious pollution problems on my watch.
Currently I'm taking a class on the environmental history of the St. Johns River, for which we in the class will be taking oral history from people involved with the river in one way or another. I am not on a team that is looking into the varied sources of potential pollution to the river, or the history of that aspect of it. My subject is how artists have depicted the river over time, and how that depiction has changed. Or not. I have not yet encountered any visual arts representations of St. Johns River pollution. Though I have as yet found no artistic representations (paintings or art photographs), there are news photographs of such things as the periodic algae blooms the river is unfortunately subject to, and historical photographs of channels of the River or its tributaries choked with water hyacinths, which at one time constituted a hazard to or at least an obstacle to navigation. They are pretty much under control these days, though it is a continuing battle. The explsotive growth of the hyacinths through much of the twentieth century, and the problems they presented, is an object lesson in the hazards posed by invasive species here in Florida.
The algae problem is due to the introduction into the river of hypernutrients, via runoff from agricultural fields and residential properties. The nutrients spur the algae growth, which uses up the oxygen in the water. In consequence, fish and plants die.
These problems are not a direct threat to the population hereabouts, for very few areas get their drinking water from the River. They get it from the Flroidan aquifer, a large system of underground limestone caves. However, with the population growing, especially in the central part of the state, some municipalities south of us (which is actually upriver, not down, as the St. Johns flows north) have their eyes on diverting many hundreds of thousands of gallons of water from the river for their drinking water. This prospect alarms those of us living downriver (i.e., north), because of the real harm it could do to many aspects of life on the river, including commercial fishing and recreation, as well as the problems it would cause with salt-water intrusion into the river itself.
The problem is more severe in other parts of the world, where climate change, war, and other conditions have altered the availability of water in drastic ways, threatening populations with actual extinction. There are ways to conserve water, keep it pure, and provide for these peoples who need it so much. That is what this year's Blog Action Day is all about. Even in my own very small way, on a very local level, I've helped through my service in the Coast Guard. It is a problem we all need to be aware of.
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Currently I'm taking a class on the environmental history of the St. Johns River, for which we in the class will be taking oral history from people involved with the river in one way or another. I am not on a team that is looking into the varied sources of potential pollution to the river, or the history of that aspect of it. My subject is how artists have depicted the river over time, and how that depiction has changed. Or not. I have not yet encountered any visual arts representations of St. Johns River pollution. Though I have as yet found no artistic representations (paintings or art photographs), there are news photographs of such things as the periodic algae blooms the river is unfortunately subject to, and historical photographs of channels of the River or its tributaries choked with water hyacinths, which at one time constituted a hazard to or at least an obstacle to navigation. They are pretty much under control these days, though it is a continuing battle. The explsotive growth of the hyacinths through much of the twentieth century, and the problems they presented, is an object lesson in the hazards posed by invasive species here in Florida.
The algae problem is due to the introduction into the river of hypernutrients, via runoff from agricultural fields and residential properties. The nutrients spur the algae growth, which uses up the oxygen in the water. In consequence, fish and plants die.
These problems are not a direct threat to the population hereabouts, for very few areas get their drinking water from the River. They get it from the Flroidan aquifer, a large system of underground limestone caves. However, with the population growing, especially in the central part of the state, some municipalities south of us (which is actually upriver, not down, as the St. Johns flows north) have their eyes on diverting many hundreds of thousands of gallons of water from the river for their drinking water. This prospect alarms those of us living downriver (i.e., north), because of the real harm it could do to many aspects of life on the river, including commercial fishing and recreation, as well as the problems it would cause with salt-water intrusion into the river itself.
The problem is more severe in other parts of the world, where climate change, war, and other conditions have altered the availability of water in drastic ways, threatening populations with actual extinction. There are ways to conserve water, keep it pure, and provide for these peoples who need it so much. That is what this year's Blog Action Day is all about. Even in my own very small way, on a very local level, I've helped through my service in the Coast Guard. It is a problem we all need to be aware of.
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