A Death Record To Confuse Them All

Recently, while searching the Adjuntas church records where I was able to distinguish and clarify the relationship between a set of couples (siblings marrying siblings) I also bumped coincidentally into another death record for a 6th great grandfather of mine. This death record belonged to Francisco Pérez de la Cruz, my ancestor along my father’s side of the family.

The reason I title this blog post “A death record to confuse them all” is because somehow on all the online public trees I’ve seen on Ancestry, the parents for Francisco Pérez are completely different. Hesitant to add his parents, having learned from previous experiences, I held off until I could find information to either disprove or prove the relationship of these “parents” to Francisco Pérez de la Cruz. So I’ll jump a little into this record and what I was able to find out.

Who was Francisco Pérez de la Cruz

My 6th great grandfather was said to be from the town of “El Pepino” which is currently today known as San Sebastián, Puerto Rico. This town lies toward the northwestern part of Puerto Rico and near towns such as Quebradillas, Lares, and Utuado were I have other ancestors from other ancestors of in tree. My father’s family, specifically through my grandmother, can be found in this part of the island.

San Sebastián, Puerto Rico [Google Maps]

Before finding his death record I had no clear idea when Francisco was born, but based off his childrens’ baptism years I knew that he would have been born in the mid to early 1700s. If Francisco was originally from San Sebastián as most records state, he would have been born around the founding of the town which was found in 1752 by townsmen of areas such as Aguada. This would mean that Francisco’s parents could have been from another town in the area having moved into San Sebastián once the town was officially founded.

Francisco Pérez de la Cruz around the late 1700s would have married Ana Narcisa Sánchez, my 6th great-grandmother and with her would have various children, so far I have:

María Manuela Pérez de la Cruz Sánchez
María de la Paz Pérez de la Cruz Sánchez
María de los Reyes Pérez de la Cruz Sánchez
Bernardino Pérez de la Cruz Sánchez
Narcisa Pérez de la Cruz Sánchez
José Valerio Pérez de la Cruz Sánchez
Toribio de Jesús Pérez de la Cruz Sánchez

From this relationship, I descend from María de los Reyes Pérez and her husband Gerónimo Vélez Rodríguez. From Francisco’s children, various of them, my 5th great grandmother included moved into Adjuntas a town more into the mountains and found just two towns over from San Sebastián. Adjuntas was founded in 1815 so my family has practically been in this town since its founding.

Migration to Adjuntas, Puerto Rico [Google Maps]

Little did I know that not only did Francisco’s children move into Adjuntas but Francisco did himself.

Note: I don’t know where else to post this but I’ll just drop this here. Notice that Francisco’s surname is “Pérez de la Cruz”, this is a compound name being that he inherited this surname solely from his father. The children used Pérez de la Cruz/Pérez off and on and ultimately the name was just dropped to Pérez like most compound surnames.

Documentation

While searching in Adjuntas, I came across Francisco’s death and was pleasantly surprised! This whole time I had believed he had passed in San Sebastián, and due to their lack of church records on FamilySearch I settled with not finding any more information on him for the time being. But glancing through the pages I saw “Francisco Pérez de la Cruz” written on the top corner of the page and I was glad I stopped to read what it said.

Francisco Pérez de la Cruz, Año 1828, Nº 182, Folio 48vt [FamilySearch]

The main information from this death record is that on the 28th of June 1828 was buried, Don Francisco Pérez de la Cruz of 65 years of age, first married to Ana Narciso Sánchez and now married to Asención de Castro was the son of Don Simón Pérez de la Cruz and Doña María de Santiago, both deceased, he a native of El Pepino (San Sebastián) and a resident of this one (Adjuntas). He did not leave a testament.

Establishing New Information

As you can see from the record above a lot of the information matches what I had, he was a native of San Sebastián, born around the 1750-1760s. But I also learned some new information as well, he was married for a second time to a “Asención de Castro” and was the son of Simón Pérez de la Cruz and María de Santiago. Having this new information, I realized that many of the trees on Ancestry had completely different parents and none of them even had the combination of “Pérez de la Cruz Santiago” for Francisco. It could be that the death record is wrong (which does happen) but until further notice these to me are the parents for Francisco Pérez de la Cruz. If there is another document out there to refute this information, please let me know so I can update my tree!

Funny enough by changing the information on Francisco, I’m not getting the old trees that used to pop up with his name. By searching his name on the public trees on Ancestry I was able to find various examples of what used to pop up on my tree.

[Ancestry Public Trees]

Here are two examples of Francisco listed with different parents of what I found on the death record in Adjuntas. The spouse and the children are the same of Ana Narcisa Sánchez and children I listed above, but I have yet to find a public tree with a Simón Pérez de la Cruz and María de Santiago as the parents of Francisco. I’m not sure where this original information came from and if whether there is depth to the connection, but so far they are not matching up.

Whether or not Simón, like his son Francisco, was one of the first to settle in Adjuntas, I’ll have to continue my research to see if he stayed in San Sebastián or made his way into Adjuntas as well. Given that he was born in the early 1700s and Adjuntas wasn’t founded in 1815, I would imagine that he passed away in San Sebastián or another town nearby that was around founded (you can never be too sure!).

Nonetheless, I’m happy to be able to add another generation to another ancestor and almost pushing into the 1600s on this line! Hoping to discover more along the way!