When I first began researching my ancestors from Guadeloupe and Martinique, one of the most interesting things that I kept coming across various records was that they were actually from St. Thomas; however, I never understood why this story existed. Even when I met a cousin that grew up knowing the Charles family, she mentioned that she had always heard they were from St. Thomas.
So for a long time, I had questioned this story. But it was not until very recently that I understood where this came from. When I solved my family’s mystery of the Charles surname, I completely ignored the St. Thomas aspect of research but today I can finally put this side of the family story to rest through research in the Danish West Indies.
Myth, Legend, or Fact?
Looking at earlier posts about my line from the French Caribbean, it was interesting to see how little I know about this line in my family which at the time made sense. I had not grown up with my maternal grandfather’s side of the family since my grandfather had not been raised by his father and my great-grandfather had lost his own parents at a fairly young age. So when I discovered my connection to lines outside of Puerto Rico, I had no idea whether Saint Thomas was an actually possibility.
It took a lot of digging and help from other French genealogists to learn that my ancestors from were Martinique and Guadeloupe and to trace their origins there. But I was always left wondering why records (and even stories) from Puerto Rico pointed to the island of Saint Thomas when are family did not have ancestral ties to this island, especially being a Danish one!
Recently, I decided to finally take a look at passenger records from the Danish West Indies, especially since now I had more concrete dates of when my ancestors lived in Puerto Rico and taking a look at this documents wouldn’t be so overwhelming. This is when finally the pieces started to come together.
Saint Thomas
Passenger Records
On the Caribbean Genealogy Library website, there are various lists of Danish West Indies Passenger Records covering a range of years. These include registries of arrivals and departures from St. Thomas throughout the 19th century. My goal was to find Gustave Jean Charles and Julienne Malvina Lautin around the 1860s and 1870s which is when they were known to have lived in Puerto Rico. I know that they likely arrived before 1867 since my 3rd great-grandmother was born in Vieques that year and that they traveled back to Martinique before 1878 when her daughter Marie Alexandrine Charles was born in Saint Esprit, Martinique. This was enough to limit my searches to a smaller timeframe versus just searching 10 years at a time, especially since these records are not indexed.
Departures
On this list of departures, we see Malvina Lotee Juilen leaving on 9 April 1866 for Crab Island. It was only just now through this research that I learned that Vieques was referred to as Crab Island by the British.
Though the name was written a bit out of order, I am very confident that this was my 4th great-grandmother. My 3rd great-grandmother was later born in January 1867 in Vieques so the timeline definitely matches up.
I have yet to find when Julienne arrived in St. Thomas, I searched between 1865-1866; however, no entry was found. We know that Julienne had given birth in Martinique to a son in 1865 who later passed in January 1866 so the timeframe is very narrow. I would imagine that her arrival would have been registered even if she was in Saint Thomas just in transit; however, since I am new to this record set I am not sure what the guidelines were for registering foreign arrivals in Saint Thomas at the time.
Arrivals
In search of Gustave and Julienne around 1878, I found an arrival list that listed John Charles Gustav arriving from Vieques on 29 May 1878 on the ship Johanna.
Gustave would later depart on 6 June 1878 and head to Martinique. What’s interesting about these two travel documents is that I had imagined Gustave was in Martinique when his daughter Marie Alexandrine was born; however, these documents show quite the opposite. Likely, Gustave had stayed in Puerto Rico while his wife traveled to Martinique before giving birth to Marie Alexandrine.
Likely he had received word that his daughter was born and headed to Martinique to see the family. It possible that he traveled back with Julienne and his daughter; however, I have not found evidence of this yet.
It also brings into question – where were all their children? Had they traveled to Martinique with Julienne or did they all stay behind in Puerto Rico? Gustave and Julienne did not have family in Puerto Rico (that we know of) and the children would have been too young to stay alone, so I am not sure what happened to María Paulina (11 years old) and Tomás Octavio (9 years old) during this time. As always in genealogy, a solution usually brings up more questions!
Conclusions
It was exciting to find these documents and add more information to my ancestors’ life. Even if they’re just short entries on a departure and arrival list, these small detail help to better understand when Julienne and Gustave traveled to Puerto Rico and who knows! There are probably more documents out there that are yet to be discovered!