In the 20 years I have been doing genealogy, I had yet to find an ancestor from the Canary Islands. Which I found extremely strange given that Canarian ancestors are a dime a dozen in Puerto Rico. It seems however that many of the Canarians came to the island in the initial migration periods; which means that finding an ancestor from the Canary Islands might not be so easy (like it was for me) because they came during a time where documentation and records are either A) not very specific as to where they were from besides “reino de España” (kingdom of Spain) or B) the documentation is scant and hard to find and therefore harder to confirm that ancestry.
The pull from the Canary Islands is strong enough that it appears on my genetic groups in 23andme, only second to Andalucía.
So in this post I want to focus on Josefa Francisca del Rosario, my 8th great-grandmother and my first discovered Canary Islander ancestor!
My connection
Josefa Francisca del Rosario is my 8th great-grandmother via Gertrudis Román Ayala. I have talked about this family before because though they were in Toa Alta, Gertrudis married in Guaynabo and she was actually born in Arecibo where most of her ancestry is from.
Tracing Gertrudis’ family further back up the Díaz branch, we find ourselves at Josefa Francisca del Rosario, wife of Manuel Díaz. Their son Matías, my 7th great-grandfather was born around the late 1600s, likely in Arecibo. Matías Díaz del Rosario married Constanza Rivera Meléndez and apparently they shared 3º and 4º degrees of consanguinity – meaning that they were related at around the 2nd and 3rd great-grandparent generations. So far none of the surnames match up (Díaz, del Rosario, Rivera, and Meléndez) and given the difficulty in finding records from this timeframe, it is likely not possible to discover so easily exactly how they were related. Similarly, in the 1600s, surname patterns were not what they are today adding another complex layer of trying to figure out exactly where on their trees they overlap.
Josefa Francisca
del Rosario
Given that Josefa is from the 17th century, there is not much information on her. I know that she likely died in Arecibo around 1717-1724 based on other available records and that given Matías estimated age, she would have likely been born around the mid-1600s.
Searching around San Juan is how I found her marriage record to Manuel Díaz, which again, was a surprise to me seeing as how they spent most of their lives in Arecibo. It is important though to note that the town borders today are not what they were in Puerto Rico’s early history. Arecibo today can be found in the northern-central part of the island, but back in the days Arecibo would have been much bigger and “closer” to San Juan.
Unfortunately, the marriage record is in pretty bad shape but we were still able to learn some information from it – like where Josefa was born!
The record states that Manuel Díaz was a native of San Juan but living in San Felipe del Arecibo, he was a widower of Estefanía Ruiz del Rosario. Josefa Francisca del Rosario was a native of La Laguna, Canary Islands, widow of Rodrigo Sangavel? who was a soldier in San Juan.
Unfortunately, there are no death records online before the 1700s for San Juan so I can not confirm Rodrigo’s last name or find a marriage that would mention Josefa’s parents’ names.
Similarly, because Manuel Díaz and Josefa Francisca del Rosario were widowed, the names of their parents were not included.
I hope that by digging around more in the records of San Juan I might be able to find more records that can help me learn more about Josefa Francisca and her husband Manuel. Finding her parents’ names would be great because it would hopefully let me one day find out more about her origins in the Canary Islands.
La Laguna,
Islas Canarias
La Laguna is actually San Cristóbal de la Laguna on the island of Tenerife. I have been to the Canary Islands before but not to Tenerife – I will have to add it to my list of places to visit!
La Laguna has many, many churches nowadays; however, only two or three date back to when Josefa would have been living in La Laguna (these churches are: N.S. Remedios = Sto. Domingo, Ntra. Sra. de la Concepción, and San Bartolomé Apóstol). The rest date back to the 1900s but this is not to mean that they were not older churches who lost records during the civil war, for example.
Conclusions
I know that in my tree there are definitely way more Canarian ancestors who I have yet to discover officially on paper. Many say that the surname “Marrero” comes from the Canary Islands, but I have yet to make that connection on my tree yet. I definitely have a few Marrero branches on my tree!
Here’s to finding more Canarian ancestors!