In the summer of 2018, I clocked in a lot of hours looking into my Yabucoa side of the family. Discovering the church death record of my
4th great-grandfather Manuel de Santiago fortunately unlocked for me new names of ancestors to search. These searches ultimately took me from Yabucoa to the towns of Humacao and Las Piedras, and what was once a dry well of information became a well filled with new surnames, dates, and ancestors. In this maternal line, I discovered a 7th great-grandfather with the surname “Lamboy” and this is who I want to focus on today. Below you can see how I descend from Feliciano Lamboy via my mother’s side of the family.
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| Feliciano Lamboy – 7th great-grandfather [Personal Photo] |
As you can see above, my 6th great-grandmother was the last member of my line to hold Lamboy as a paternal side where afterwards it gets daughtered out, meaning that the descendants of this line changed names based on the fathers, men who were not Lamboy. Here you can see it jumps to Ramos, Santiago (2 generations), Orozco, Dávila, and finally down to me as a Rivera – this is because if most of my ancestors in this line were women.
My 6th great-grandmother Lucrecia Lamboy Rabelo/Rivera was one of many children from her parents Feliciano Lamboy and María Rabelo/Rivera (she jumps from one or the other depending on record and year). In total, Lucrecia was a part of 13 children in total from this couple (so far) and interestingly enough, her mother’s death record in 1803 states that Lucrecia along with Bernarda were born before her marriage with Feliciano. Which means two things: 1) Feliciano and María married and recognized their two first daughters thus giving them the surname “Lamboy” or 2) Lucrecia and Bernarda are from another relationship and Feliciano gave them his surname to protect the girls and the family from being social outcasts. Nonetheless, here we are, searching into this line my family – only DNA will tell if we are genetically “Lamboy”, and even then being 7 generations far from me dilutes the amount of DNA I would inherit from this branch of my family.
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| 3 generations of Lamboy [Personal Family Tree] |
Why are am I so interested in my Lamboy family you may ask?
Lamboy – ¿Español?… ¡No!
Every time I come across a new surname in my family that I haven’t heard of before, I jump on
INE to find out its potential roots. For example, finding the surname “Magraner” in my family and seeing that the surname wasn’t too common or popular in Puerto Rico lead me to search the INE and find out the surname is mainly concentrated on the east of Spain and mainly on the islands of Mallorca.
And so I eagerly typed in the surname, only to discover…
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| Lamboy Results… Or lack thereof [INE] |
There were ZERO hits! No one (currently) in Spain uses the surname Lamboy (or less than 5 in total), which means that this surname probably isn’t Spanish! I’m not too surprised though, the surname doesn’t really have a Spanish ring to it and the -mb- combination feels a bit weird. The surname however has another variation on the island – Laboy.
What about Laboy?!
I decided to type in this surname variation and see what hits I would get… and again, NOTHING! With this one it’s also not too surprising since it seems that Laboy probably stems from Lamboy, whether as an orthographic mistake or an intentional doing… I’m not sure. Another branch of my family has the surname “Laboy” also from the southern area of the island but I haven’t been able to search that line further yet.
So this begs the question, who were the Lamboy? Where they one contacted branch of various arrivals? Where were they from? And how did they arrive in Puerto Rico?
Breadcrumbs
Searching for the Lamboy in Humacao, I was able to start putting some information together to see how many branches there might be and if/how they interacted with one another. If there were a ton, then this name was more common than what I thought. If there were a few, then there was likely a familial relationship between them. It seems that my family was in Humacao since the town’s inception and so they were some of the first settlers to arrive. Where from? Well let’s see what we know!
Working our way backwards up the tree, Marcelina Ramos Lamboy (my 5th great-grandmother) was baptized in 1799 in Humacao and her godparents were Feliciano Lamboy and his daughter María Magdalena. We can assume that this Feliciano Lamboy is her maternal grandfather and María Magdalena her aunt (my 7th great-aunt). Later in 1801, María Magdalena Lamboy appears again at the godmother of Juana Ramos Lamboy, my 6th great-aunt. Lastly, she serves as madrina (godmother) of José Ramón Ramos Lamboy in 1805.
María Magdalena Lamboy would go on to marry Toribio Solís Rodríguez in May 1806, mentioning that her parents were Feliciano Lamboy deceased and María Rivera. That record confirms that María Magdalena was the aunt of all of these children in their baptism.
In Las Piedras we find that the family was here before settling into Humacao’s records, finding a baptism in 1788 for Florencio and his padrinos were Juan Lamboy and Isabel de los Reyes.
Since Humacao has an index for most of their baptism records I was able to document all of the Lamboy children born within 1793-1825, similarly I was able to document deaths in the town as well. See below for the excel I created with green marking baptism records and red-orange marking death records.
Lamboy Baptisms in Humacao, Puerto Rico
Lamboy Deaths in Humacao, Puerto Rico
Many of the records point to Feliciano Lamboy and María Rabelo/Rivera though there are other couples as well and one specifically caught my eye: Vicente Lamboy and his wife Bernarda Rabelo. As you can see both have the surname combo of “Lamboy Rabelo” which makes me think that Vicente and Feliciano would be brothers while Bernarda and María were sisters, respectively. Though I have no evidence to tie them together yet I decided to explore this couple and see if they had crossed paths with my 7th great-grandparents.
Vicente Lamboy & Bernarda Rabelo
To begin, I was able to find their marriage record in Humacao, Puerto Rico – they were married in July 1796. Notice the information about Bernarda that struck me as interesting!
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| Vicente Lamboy & Bernarda de Rivera – Matrimonio 1796 [FamilySearch] |
In the record above you can see that Vicente Lambo[i] (first time I saw Lamboy as “Lamboi”, a typo I imagine) was a native of Guayama and the son of Marcos Lamboy and Baltazara Rodríguez while Bernarda was the daughter of María de Rivera. Did you catch what I caught?!
Here you can see that Bernarda appears as “Bernarda de Rivera” while in her children’s baptism indexes above she appears as “Bernarda de Rabelo”… where have we seen this before? With my own 7th great-grandmother who sometimes as “María de Rivera” and “María de Rabelo”… leading me to think they are sisters! Equally, in various records Feliciano Lamboy and his daughter Lucrecia for example appear as natives of Guayama and here we see the same thing with Vicente Lamboy.
From there marriage I have been able to identify four children born in Humacao:
- Lorenza (1797)
- Juan Evangelista (1800)
- María del Carmen (1802)
- Nicolasa (1804)
If we take a look at their godparents we get to learn a bit more about who the family was surrounded by:
- Padrinos de Lorenza: Feliciano Lamboy & María de Rivera
- Padrinos de Juan Evangelista: Severino Maldonado & María Magdalena Lamboy
- Padrinos de María del Carmen: Miguel Berríos & Estefanía Cordovés/Córdoba
- Padrinos de Nicolasa: Juan Antonio Lamboy & Paulina Rodríguez
From the four children listed above, three have “Lamboy” surnamed godparents and two right away we can identify – the first being Feliciano Lamboy (my 7th great-grandfather) and María Magdalena Lamboy (my 7th great-aunt).
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| Lorenza Lamboy Rivera – Bautismo [FamilySearch] |
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| Juan Evangelista Lamboy Ravelo – Bautismo [FamilySearch] |
The third record points to a Juan Antonio Lamboy married to a Paulina Rodríguez as the godparents of Nicolasa. I have two Antonio Lamboy brothers for María Magdalena: the first an actual “Juan Antonio” born about 1783 and the second an “Antonio Lamboy” born in 1790. The former option makes the most sense as the latter would have only been 14 years old when Nicolasa was born in 1804.
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| Nicolasa Lamboy Rivera – Bautismo [FamilySearch] |
This Juan Antonio Lamboy (my 7th great-uncle) was born in 1783 was married in 1808 to a “Victoria” mulata libre, though no surname is mentioned their children would go to carry “Lamboy Nazario” or “Lamboy de Matos”. Could he have been previously married before 1804 to Paulina Rodríguez? His marriage record doesn’t mention him as a widower but we know records often make mistakes. I would have to find a marriage record prior to 1804 to prove him as the same man.
If this is the case, this would potentially mean that Feliciano Lamboy was a brother to Vicente Lamboy and María Magdalena and Juan Antonio would have been nieces and nephews appearing as godparents for their uncle Vicente. Not further evidence is discovered I can only speculate their relationship.
Final Clues
A few months ago a kind Puerto Rican genealogist uploaded a list of foreigners in Puerto Rico in the year 1816, though not an all encompassing list, it mentions various towns and people from other countries along with their profession. Below, we see a Vicente Lamboy listed as French and he seems to be a carpenter. Now, could this be the same Vicente Lamboy that appears in Humacao? Possible.
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| Extranjeros en Puerto Rico, 1816 [Shared by Puerto Rican Genealogist] |
Some records point to Vicente Lamboy as being from Ponce or Guayama, both towns in the south and though not directly neighboring towns to one another, it’s important to note that town borders have changed over the years and “Ponce” and “Guayama” as we know them now are much smaller than in the past. This historic map shows us how much bigger the borders of these towns were.
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| Map of Puerto Rico [Google Images] |
Though Humacao’s territory lies on the east, it’s possible that Vicente Lamboy moved around a bit and/or was officially registered as a foreigner in Ponce. A Google search in the “Books” section provides us another clue of a “Vicente Lamboy” present in Ponce again.
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| Actos de Cabildo de Ponce [Google Books] |
What’s interesting is that the 1816 Register mentions “French” as the origin, which is interesting to consider because in no other records does Vicente Lamboy mention French. Of course, it is possible that these aren’t the same men but considering late 1700s-early 1800s in the Ponce/Guayama area… how many Vicente Lamboys could there actually be? One truly doesn’t know until you’ve exhausted all possible theories.
Conclusions
My current research now lies in Guayama, trying to find any clues or evidence of Vicente Lamboy or Feliciano Lamboy. Could they have been brothers or even cousins themselves? Though Ponce is still on the table, the church’s records online aren’t as far back as Guayama and the evidence, for now, overwhelming points more to Guayama versus Ponce. I have been able to find some Lamboy in Guayama but so far none that have matched what I have in my tree, nonetheless, it’s good to see that the name is present in the town.
For now, French seems to be the only possible indication of a place of origin and though “specific” it’s quite the opposite. I have seen French refer to Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Corsica, and finally France itself. So there really isn’t a clear indication to where exactly he would have been from. Maybe another more detailed registration for Vicente would hold that information. The current 1815-1845 Registry of Foreign Residents of Puerto Rico online on FamilySearch has no entries for “Lamboy” or “Laboy”. Hoping to discover more in the Guayama records!
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| “L” Registrations for Foreign Residents, 1815-1845 [FamilySearch] |
Do you have Lamboy ancestors from Guayama/Ponce?
