In honor of Black History Month and my 4th great-grandmother’s birthday in February, I wanted to dedicate this post to the ongoing research of Julienne Malvina Lautin, my enslaved Martinican ancestor who moved to Puerto Rico.
There are many times in genealogy when you think you know well enough the life of an ancestor. Given the information you have found, you can start to build a story about what they would have lived through, experienced, and maybe even the kind of life they would have had. But what happens when new information is found that slightly turns on its head the story you have been developing in your head?
Thanks to the research of two helpful French genealogists I was able to learn more about Julienne Malvina Lautin (my 4th great-grandmother), both about her life on Martinique but also in Puerto Rico. In this post I want to talk about three new children I recently learned about – two before her marriage and one during. Finding out that Julienne had three other children separate from what I knew of puts a new spin to the life I thought I knew she had.
a quick resumé
Over the years, I learned about Julienne’s life via various documents found both in Puerto Rico and in Martinique. Here is the resumé of her life!
Julienne Malvina Lautin
Birth: 16 February 1844 (Rivière Salée, Martinique)
Marriage: 7 September 1869 (Vieques, Puerto Rico)
Death: 7 April 1897 (Salinas, Puerto Rico)
Other documents such as a notary record found in France taught me that Julienne was sold the 7th of February 1846 along with her mother from the Forget family to the Lapierre family; Julienne was only two years old. Shortly after on the 21st of December 1848, Eglantine (Julienne’s mother), Julienne, and her younger sister would receive freedom and given the surname “Lautin”.
She later moved to Puerto Rico likely around the mid-1860s and married Gustave Jean Charles on the island of Vieques. The family would shortly move onto the mainland and live in Fajardo before making their way down to Salinas where Julienne would ultimately die. Before realizing she had other children, I knew that their marriage had produced eight children.
new children
(1) Nicholas Gustave Lautin
The first two children that were discovered were children born to Julienne before she left to Puerto Rico. What was interesting about these children is that they were born in Saint-Pierre, Martinique. This would mean that sometime between freedom in 1848 and the rest of her children’s birth in Puerto Rico (beginning in 1867), she had decided to move from Rivière Salée to Saint-Pierre – which is a town fairly far from her hometown. What brought her here is still a mystery to me.
The first child born was on the 10th of December 1862, when Julienne was 18 years old. His name was Nicolas Gustave Lautin and he was born out of wedlock to Julienne Malvina Lautin. The birth record states that she was a blanchisseuse meaning that she was a laundrywoman in this town. She was listed as living on Rue d’Enfer in Saint-Pierre. No father is listed for Nicholas Gustave. Unfortunately, Nicholas Gustave Lautin died at the age of one on the 23rd of April 1864, they were still living in Saint-Pierre, however this time the address was listed as “Rue du Petit Versailles” (Mouillage) – a seven minute walk from Rue D’Enfer.
Having a job title for Julienne Malvina and a street gives me a bit more information as to the life she was living before leaving to Puerto Rico. For example, as a laundrywoman I imagine she would have either worked for higher class families or in the area to wash clothes. A picture below (from Saint Pierre, Martinique!) shows that the profession was still popular in the 1890s, it seems.
(2) Marius Alexandre Lautin
The next child born was Marius Alexandre, born the 10th of December 1865. This time Julienne Malvina Lautin was listed as living on Rue Long Champ (Centre) – this street intersects with Rue du Petit Versailles so I wonder if she even moved and was just located at the cross streets. By this time, Julienne Malvina is 21 years old and had already lost one son. Interestingly, both Nicholas Gustave and Marius Alexandre were born the same day (or at least registered) except three years apart.
Something that I find interesting and I question is how Julienne was able to take care of her child/children while working. I imagine given their young ages they would have gone with Julienne wherever she went when she needed to work.
Unfortunately, Marius Alexandre would also pass away quite young at just one month dying on the 18th of January 1866. Julienne is again listed on Rue du Petit Versailles which likely confirms my hypothesis above.
At this point it’s interesting to compare the chronology of this last child and the birth of my third great-grandmother.
Marius Alexandre Lautin died in Saint-Pierre, Martinique in January 1866 while my third great-grandmother María Paulina Charles was born in Vieques, Puerto Rico in January 1867.
This would give us a window of about a year that Julienne Malvina would have left Martinique for Puerto Rico. Did she leave alone devastated by the lost of her two sons to find new opportunities in Puerto Rico? Or did she meet Gustave Jean-Charles, fall head over heels in love, and then leave with him to Puerto Rico leaving everything behind?
…And this idea of “leaving everything behind” is where I was wrong!
(3) Marie Alexandrine Jean Charles
This recent child actually surprised me the most, mainly because it meant that Gustave Jean-Charles and Julienne Malvina Lautin would have traveled (likely with their two children in tow – María Paulina and Tomás Octavio) BACK to Martinique!
Interestingly, there is quite a big gap between Tomás Octavio (born in Vieques in 1869) and their next daughter Marie Alexandrine in 1878. Possibly there are other children in the middle that we have no idea about that could have died young. I will have to check the registers of Vieques, Fajardo and Saint Esprit (where the family would end up) to confirm/negate this idea.
Right away you can see that Marie Alexandrine is born with the surname “Jean-Charles” since by this point her parents would have been married. She was born the 4th of March 1878 in the section of Petit Paradis.
What’s most fascinating about this to me is that this would mean my 3rd great grandmother (aged about 10-11 years old) would have met her grandmother (Eglantine) – a slave born in Africa and brought to Martinique. Eglantine passed away in Petit Paradis, Saint Esprit, Martinique in 1889. It is hard to explain this feeling, but it’s amazing that she was able to share the same space with her, even if it was for a short time. I know the special place my grandmothers hold in my heart, and I hope that for María Paulina she would have felt the same.
In Marie Alexandrine’s birth certificate you can see that her father was listed as “Gustave Jean-Charles, 60 years old, maître au cabotage (cabotage master)” while the mother was listed as “Julien [sic] Malvina Lotin, twenty-five years old, laundrywoman.” I wonder if Julienne came with a passport or some sort of documentation from Puerto Rico that would have listed her name as “Lotin” (the warped version we see in Puerto Rico) versus “Lautin” the French version she was given in 1848 after liberation.
A return to Puerto Rico
At some point Gustave and Julienne would decide to return to Puerto Rico. In the family tree there are two daughter listed after Marie Alexandrine – “Areopajita” and Valentina. Areopajita was said to be born about 1878 (the same year as Marie Alexandrine) and she later died in Ponce, Puerto Rico on the 11th of June 1900. Areopajita’s death does not mention her origin, but a son’s birth in Ponce mentions her being originally from Fajardo. The question becomes, is Marie Alexandrine and Areopajita the same daughter?
And the answer to that question is likely yes! Another son, José, was born in 1895 but registered in 1913, in that registration his maternal uncle Tomás lists the mother as “Marie Alexandrine”.
After Marie Alexandrine/Areopajita is another daughter Valentina. According to Valentina’s son’s birth record in 1898, it mentions that she too was born in Martinique. However, a search in Saint Esprit, Rivière Salée, Saint-Pierre (Martinique) and Terre-de-Bas (Guadeloupe) have yielded no results. It could be possible that Valentina was born in another big city in Martinique as the family made its way back to Puerto Rico.
Finally, a son named Dionisio was born in Fajardo in the year 1880 who was later baptized in March 1881. This would mean that the family likely traveled back between the years 1878 and 1880. Finding a baptism or birth record for Valentina will help to close to gap a bit more.
Bread crumbs and next steps
There is still quite a bit to still discover. For example, did Julienne Malvina have another other children between Tomás Octavio (1869) and Marie Alexandrine (1878)? Are there records or passports held, for example, in the Archivo General de Puerto Rico that might contain more information into their lives? I know that when I went to visit some years back there were passports in one of the cajas but I can’t remember exactly for which town or what years. This would require some in person research in order to see if I could find anything else on them. Nonetheless, it is exciting to find new information that both sheds some more light into the lives of my French Caribbean ancestors and also helps to shorten time gaps of missing information that could hopefully give a better time frame to things such as trips taken/immigration by the family. Most importantly, it shows that immigration was not just one way and that the Jean-Charles/Lautin family traveled back (at least once) to Martinique before finally settling in Puerto Rico.