José Severo Vélez Sepúlveda was born on 6th of November 1837 in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico according to his baptismal record which occurred on the 19th of November 1837. José Severo was the legitimate son of José María Vélez Pérez and his wife Bernardina Sepúlveda Román (who I’ve mentioned in this challenge!). His godparents were Valerio Pérez and Jacinta González, I’m not if Valerio was an uncle to José María via his mother but it could be possible.
I’m not sure how long José Severo would live in Adjuntas but it seems that the family spent time between both Adjuntas and Utuado, located in the central part of Puerto Rico. This family did some moving around seeing as José María was from San Sebastián, Bernardina from Mayagüez, both passed away in Adjuntas but José Severo himself would pass away in Utuado. All of these towns though are fairly close to one another so traveling around wouldn’t be as bad as saying going from Mayagüez to Fajardo.
José Severo would marry sometime around the early 1860s to his wife Ana Ríos González, she was said to have been born in Lares but her own parents were born in San Sebastián (so possibly she was born in San Sebastián herself). Together they would have an astonishing number of children: 17!! This is the number I have been able to trace through records, but who knows if there are a few missing. It seems that José Severo and Ana both came from pretty big families themselves so probably for them it wasn’t out of the ordinary. It seems that José Severo was one of 10 children and Ana one of 12, those are pretty big numbers!
José Severo like most of my other ancestors was most likely a farmer, but I was surprised to see that he could sign his name! José Severo was born in the early 1800s and I imagine the importance of education wasn’t forced onto children, especially when they themselves grew up to be farmers. José Severo’s death certificate in 1894 doesn’t mention his profession but I would imagine it was that of an agricultural farmer. None the less, here is his signature:
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| Signature- José Severo Vélez Sepúlveda [FamilySearch] |
It does make me wonder however about the kind of wealth his family had, seeing as his mother had slaves in 1872. This probably means that they owned some land and got enough profits off of it to own slaves and have their children educated. Could this be wealth that they inherited from old Spanish immigrant ancestors? Did they work their way up and earn money through hard work and dedication to farming? I’m actually not too sure. The Sepúlveda side of the family does have a line long of ancestors living in Puerto Rico tracing back to the early 1500s and some of the wealth could have come from that side of the family. Only digging further into more records could expose more information on this matter. José Severo died four short years before Puerto Rico became an American territory, but I do wonder about his political standing during the time. His wife on the other hand did live during the Spanish-American war and but died one year short of seeing Puerto Ricans become recognized American citizenships. It’s always interesting to look at genealogy through a historical lens seeing as it does add to the story of the ancestor and your family in general.