A Family’s Move Through Paper Trail

Recently, I’ve been taking a dive into the Puerto Rican Church Records again on FamilySearch. By chance and funny enough, by looking to one branch of my family I bumped into a completely different one. Finding children being born in towns nearby (and not so nearby) and parents appearing as godparents has allowed me to track my family’s movement across the island. This is pretty important in genealogy since movement from town to town means that there might be other branches to your tree that stayed behind and distant cousins are probably there. This could also mean that your ancestors might have been married before arriving to the town you knew they were from and if there is no death record in the town they resided most of their lives, they might have moved back or moved over to a neighboring town where another of their children lived.

This post will be about one specific couple who I have been able to trace through documents moving across the island. The couple’s names is: Bartolomé Dávila & María Cándida Rodríguez. They are my 5th great-grandparents on my maternal side of the family.

Bartolomé Dávila & Cándida Rodríguez

From the information I have so far I know that Bartolomé Dávila (sometimes written as Dávila Cantos) and his wife María Cándida Rodríguez were born in the mid 1700s based of the baptism dates of their children. Originally when I discovered this pair, I knew that they had lived in Maunabo where part of my maternal ancestors had lived. My 2nd great-grandfather Pedro Dávila Ruiz was either born in Yabucoa or Maunabo but for sure his parents and grandparents lived their lives in Maunabo.

It wasn’t until recently that I was searching the town of Coamo for my Correa families that I surprisingly bumped into Bartolomé and Cándida. At first I was confused because I knew they lived in Maunabo, but seeing the surname Dávila Cantos and seeing as how they weren’t having children in Maunabo at that time, I am pretty sure that these are my ancestors living in Coamo before moving into Maunabo. Now, there is always the possibility that this is just a coincidence. That there was another pair with the same names living in Coamo but given the time frame (early 1800s) and the set of names, I’m fairly certain there’s are my ancestors. The lack of births in the those years in Maunabo also help to build the case that they are one and the same instead of two separate pairs.

Here are the children and the towns they were born in that I have so far for Bartolomé Dávila and Cándida Rodríguez:

Luciana Dávila Rodríguez (1808) – Coamo
Juan Estanislao Dávila Rodríguez (1809) – Coamo
Rafael Dávila Rodríguez (1810) – Coamo
José Laureano Dávila Rodríguez (1814) – Maunabo
Juliana Dávila Rodríguez (1816) – Maunabo
José Manuel Dávila Rodríguez (1818) – Maunabo
María Feliciana Dávila Rodríguez (1820) – Maunabo
Francisca Dávila Rodríguez (1821) – Maunbo
Manuel Dávila Rodríguez (1826) – Maunabo

I wonder if the gap between 1821-1826 means that the family temporarily moved somewhere else and then returned to Maunabo seeing as how they were having children every 1-2 years.

Tracking Movement
Here’s a map showing the years they were living in the respective towns. Notice that Coamo isn’t “right next door” like how the other two towns are. I wonder what made the family move from Coamo into Maunabo and where their origins are, hopefully by digging a bit more into the Coamo church records I will able to trace the Dávila Cantos surname and learn more about their origins.

Moving around the island – Coamo, Maunabo, and Patillas [Google Maps]

As you can see, they were in Coamo around 1808-1810 living there by proof of their children’s baptism records which I’ll paste some of them down below. The family then moves into Maunabo around the 1811-1813 because by 1814 they are baptizing children there. Notice also that in 1819 the couple appears in Patillas, here they are appearing as godparents. Since Patillas and Maunabo are neighoring towns it is very possible that they just jumped over into Patillas to serve as godparents for a family they knew but continued their residence in Maunabo. Their last child I have is born in 1826 in Maunabo, from there I don’t know what happened to them. Since Maunabo’s death records aren’t uploaded to FamilySearch I’m not sure if they died there or in another town. My guess is that they stayed in Maunabo, but at this rate as you can see it isn’t a given that they died where they lived.

Documentation

As you can see below the first baptism was in 1808 of their daughter Luciana Dávila Rodríguez, interestingly enough the father’s surnames are listed as “Cantos Dávila” and the godparents are Bernardino Ramos & Marcelina Cantos Dávila. I imagine that Marcelina is a potential sister to Bartolomé and I have to continue my searches in Coamo for this family to see what else I can find. Potentially, there are other branches here left that did not move into Maunabo.

Luciana Dávila Rodríguez, Año 1808, Folio 190 [FamilySearch]

Here you can see (barely) that Bartolomé Dávila and María Cándida Rodríguez are serving as godparents in Patillas to Juana Feliciana Rodríguez, the natural daughter of María Rodríguez. Could María and Cándida be sisters?

Juana Feliciana Rodríguez, Año 1819, Folio 155 [FamilySearch]

Lastily, the record below is of a final baptism from Manuel Dávila Rodríguez born in Maunabo in 1826. The godparents are Don José Ortiz and Lorenza Rivera, no known relationship yet to my ancestors but possibly a family they were very close with in Maunabo.

Manuel Dávila Rodríguez, Año 1826, Nº 568, Folio 80 [FamilySearch]

By the time Manuel was born the parents were probably in their early 40s which I would imagine that Manuel would have been one of their last children. If I remember correctly, I could not find any other children being born in Maunabo passed 1826 for the couple.

Conclusion

As you can see, the family made a big jump from Coamo to Maunabo. Nowadays, this probably isn’t much but I can imagine in those times that move across various towns wasn’t easy. The gap of 1811-1813 is probably when they moved and I wonder if any children were born along the way in one of the towns along the route, the only way to know is to check any available church records for those towns. I also have to check the Coamo records for any possible siblings or ties to the Dávila Cantos and Rodríguez family. I haven’t come across “Cantos” really in my searches so I’m interested in seeing where they were from.

So lesson learned! Check neighboring towns and having an idea of the town’s founding and history which will hopefully give you a better understanding to your family’s past and history there! If you can’t find records for your family, check towns in the surrounding area and always keep your eyes open for your ancestors as they might pop up anywhere (within reason)!