Last month, I had the privilege of going to Mallorca to continue some of my family research. Given that I had two weeks off for winter break, I wanted to use that time researching on the island since it was a long stretch of time and I knew there would be no holidays in Spain interrupting my research. Previous to this trip, I had gone to Mallorca twice before, first back in 2015 (when I lived in Spain as a student) and then again in 2017 when unfortunately my phone was stolen and I lost a lot of the research completed that summer. Nonetheless, I was excited to head back to the beautiful island to re-do my research and to also travel the island in between research days. So I will run through my process of research for anyone that might need to one day do research there as well – this is all as of March 2023 and the process is bound to change as it did from the last time I was there.
Before Arriving
The first thing of course was buying my ticket and picking a place to stay. I stayed at a youth hostel not too far from the center for the two weeks I was there. I am very used to hostels and so it was an easy choice for me and I was able to walk to the Arxiu Diocesà in about 6-7 minutes flat!
The other important step, which I actually did before booking my flights, was calling to confirm that I could actually research! There is a website for the Arxiu Diocesà but for many places in Spain it is still best practice to call. I called over to the archive in Palma, Mallorca and confirmed that I could come in mid-February for research. Luckily, I was given the okay to come in to research and since I had been before I already had a ficha (file) with the archive. The phone number I called was +34 971 714 063. Because I was calling from abroad it was important to add the “+34” to denote a Spanish phone number. I asked to reserve a computer for each possible day of research which was Monday, Wednesday, and Friday – meaning I could research 3.5 hours x 6 days for a total of 21 hours of research! Currently, Tuesdays and Thursdays are being used to continue digitizing the records they have.
Equally, I prepared a separate family tree on Ancestry of my Mallorcan ancestor (Damián Magraner Morell) with what I already knew, the questionable dates or names from my previous research, and what other information I needed to gather. I also created a Google Doc and Google Sheet where I could track the various ancestors and generations I would be researching – where I could write in some notes, document the book and page numbers for the discovered records, and any other important details I came across while I was there. I personally decided to create a separate tree because that way I could confirm lines and create new ones without messing up my own tree. I could later in my own time go into my tree to add what I found easily at home and not rush to do it on the spot.
Research in February 2023 was from 9:30AM to 1:00PM (as long as you wanted). Just make sure to be there at 9:30AM on the dot when they open the main doors to let you in. This was something that had changed and so I was not aware the first time to be there shortly before 9:30AM!
Boots on the ground
Armed with my laptop, some scrap paper and a pen, I arrived Monday morning and every day ready to do research. You are allowed to bring in a bag, a laptop, paper/pens, etc. and use them/keep them with you while you are researching. This may be different from other archival places (for example, different from L’Arxiu del Regne also in Palma) and was a nice commodity. The only time you are not allowed a pen is if you’re consulting an actual book, which for me I never had to do.
Something that was wildly different this time than from when I last went in 2017 was that most of the documentation I needed was also digitized. The last time I went they only had an index for the marriages on computers which you then had to still go back and read on microfilm. The microfiche were hard to use because the images were inverted, which means that the page appeared in black and the text in white. This time I was able to use the computer, see the image in its original form, and even zoom in even which was great because I was able to confirm some doubts I had on names and surnames I did not know back in 2017.
The records in the 19th century are mainly in Spanish but as you went back in time they were mostly in Catalan. However, since I know French and Spanish I was able to decipher most of the words but occasionally needed some help with shorthand names and/or Catalan words that did not appear on Google Translate.
One example of this is the word, “burot”. It was an alias or nickname for my 11th great-grandfather, Jaume Vallespir. An alias could have been given to an ancestor to distinguish them from someone else in the family or from another line that shared the same name and surname. When I saw “burot” and tried to find it online (I couldn’t) so I decided to ask the staff to see if they could help. They first laughed a bit when they saw the alias and said it actually was not a very nice nickname. He recommended I use Diccionari català-valencià-balear whenever I had a word in doubt that I could not find online. Here is where I learned what the word “burot” meant.
According to the researcher, it seems definition 5 and 6 are the most common descriptions for a person. Definition #5 being: “an indiscret person, who talks too much or works hastily” and definition #6 being: “a very defective/faulty figure or ridiculous”. Number 6 also seemed how he knew the word, which makes me think my ancestor had a physical handicap or something that made he standout from others.
I also placed in a red box the pronunciation for the word written in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). This was also interesting to note because the Mallorcan version of Catalan has a different pronunciation sometimes than mainland Catalan from say Barcelona. I will probably talk about this a bit more in another post.
Record look up
Starting with Damián Magraner Morell, my 3rd great-grandfather, I used baptism, marriage, and death records to continue extending his tree as far back as I could go. Starting with marriages was the easiest since there was a digital index you could type in names to find out marriage dates. For example, Damián’s parents were Cristóbal Magraner Trías and Margarita Morell Muntaner. We also know his paternal grandparents were Gabriel Magraner and María Trías and his maternal grandparents were Damián Morell and Antonia Muntaner. With this information, I could look for three different couples (Cristóbal Magraner, Gabriel Magraner, and Damián Morell) in the database marrying in Sóller where they were said to be from.
The database is in Catalan, which means you need to convert the names into their Mallorquin/Catalan form in order to find the couple. So…
Cristóbal becomes Cristòfol
Damián becomes Damià
Margarita becomes Margalida
Antonia becomes Antonina
Gabriel stays as Gabriel
María stays as María
So I was able to find a couple in Sóller marrying on 24 February 1838 named Cristòfol Magraner and Margalida Morell that matched what I had. Though no grandparents are mentioned in marriage records, the record can provide sometimes more details about the couple, such as age, professions, or living status of the parents that can help us deduce and learn more about the people in question.
Using the records, I was able to quickly climb up my tree and find ancestors going back to the late, mid, and even early 1600s.
Finding baptisms could be a bit harder since not all the books were indexed in Sóller, which meant that I had to old school look page by page and entry by entry to find the ancestor I was looking for. I was lucky that this time the books were online and not on microfilm. Also, with Mallorcan research there is a bit of a trick that works to help limit the search.
So, let’s take Margalida Morell Muntaner for example (we’ll use Catalan version names to simplify things) – she was the daughter of Damià Morell and Antonina Muntaner. Margalida married her husband in 1838, if she was say around 18 in her marriage that would put her birth around 1820.
Her father Damià Morell married Antonina Muntaner on 18 July 1818 in Sóller. He was the son of Nicolau Morell and Margalida Morell while Antonina was the daughter of Miquel Muntaner and Francina Oliver. So this means that Margalida could not have been born before 1818 if she was a legitimate daughter, which she was. Now we had a range of about 1818-1820.
But one more thing to notice with Mallorcan children and families is naming patterns. Margalida had a paternal grandmother with the same name, which means that Margalida Morell Muntaner (born about 1818-1820) was likely the first daughter born because the naming pattern was as follows:
First son = paternal grandfather
First daughter = paternal grandmother
Second son = maternal grandfather
Second daughter = maternal grandfather
So limiting my research into these specific years I was able to find Margalida Morell Muntaner’s baptism record on 24 November 1820 in Sóller, Mallorca.
Requesting Records
Though the records are “online” (not available to the public though), you are not allowed to photograph them. If you want a copy of the records you can get a sheet provided by the archive in which you write down the record page to request the image. The process costs about 14€ and each image is a 1€. I am a bit torn about this, on of the one hand you can easily view the records, write down the information, and continue doing research for free (of course, you have to pay to get on the island, etc.) but if you want to keep a record of an entry you need to pay. Which honestly I have to understand to some degree especially since I pay a membership to Ancestry to access other records. In the future, it would be nice to have access to the records online from anywhere in the world. Whether that involves paying a fee to view/download the records, paying a membership for their site, or making it entirely free would depend on them. Personally, I would pay to have some sort of access online to the records given that it is expensive to fly and stay on the island if you’re coming from the United States. The image quality is really good as well in the digital copy I was provided.
I paid in person for my copies and provided them a USB where they could put the images for me. I provided my request on Wednesday and by Friday they had found and transferred about 20 odd images. If you want to request more definitely give them time to get started.
I requested only certain documents for certain lines, for example a family with the surname “Martínez” in Sóller, which is not a super common surname in the Catalan part of Spain especially in the Balearic Islands I’m told, so I wanted to have actual documentation on them.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I am very fortunate to be able to do this kind of research in person and not just once. For sure it is a privilege to be able to travel and find records for my ancestors on the actual island they were from. If I had more time I would have loved to continue researching, of course!
Definitely take time to process your research when you’re there (or wherever you are researching) and not when come back. Everyday after my research, I dedicated time to processing what I had found, what I wanted to search, and what yielded no results. Having my Google Doc and Google Sheet really helped me to see what I needed to research and what specific parrochial books could provide more information. In the screenshot below, you can see how I organized my Google Doc by books, dates, names of the person, parents, etc. and even where the image was located.
Listing whether or not they had a grandparent with their name (if known) was super helpful in getting as close as possible to a specific year. As you can see below I did not have time to find Antoni Magraner’s baptism as well as Gabriel Magraner. Those baptisms will have to wait for another day.
I am hoping to post one or two more times about my research in Mallorca… stay tuned!
I was fairly excited that I got to do all of this research and every time I get to do something like this it reminds me of why I love genealogy – the ability to travel, to do research, to learn more about your roots, and to physically connect with a place is so invigorating to me both on a personal and genealogical level. It makes me excited to learn more about my ancestry and explore the places they were from.