While visiting Mallorca this past year, I decided to learn more about Damián Magraner’s children from his one and only marriage. According to my research, Damián Magraner is my 3rd-great grandfather on my dad’s side of the family. It has been a long road learning about him and every chance I get I try and to continue learning more about his life in Puerto Rico and Mallorca.
A marriage
Damián Magraner was the son of Cristóbal (Cristòfol) Magraner Trias and Margarita (Margalida) Ana Morell Muntaner, he was born on 7 August 1846 in Sóller, Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain.
There, he married Antonia (Antonina) Morell Pons on 12 September 1873. Antonia was the daughter of Nicolás (Nicolau) Morell and Antonia (Antonina) Pons. Both Damián and Antonia share the surname “Morell”, which makes you wonder if they could be cousins. Effectively so, Damián and Antonia were dispensed in the second degree of consanguinity, meaning that they shared recent ancestors and thus needed permission from the church in order to marry. The second degree of consanguinity means that they would share a relationship in the grandparent level, two steps or “degrees” backwards into their trees.
Since their relationship was at the second degree it was fairly easy to track down which side of the family they were related through. Damián’s mother was a Morell and so was Antonia’s father. Damián has no Pons family and Antonia has no Magraner family, so it was easy to rule out those lines. “Mother Morell” and “Father Morell” would have been first cousins while their parents “Grandfather Morell” would have been siblings. We would just need to figure out who they were. Luckily, many Spanish records include the names of the parents and grandparents so with baptism records we can very easily jump back two generations from the baptized child.
We can quickly see how Damián and Antonia’s tree begins to become smaller as there is less diversity in their ancestral lines. Their parents share the same ancestors since they are related to one another; we even notice that their grandfather was Morell Morell, while their maternal great-grandparents share the maternal surname “Bernat”. This will be important to keep in mind in case their tree overlaps again in those lines further back in history. So far, I have not been able to find that they do!
The children
Magraner Morell
Damián and Antonia had five children in their marriage from what I was able to learn in the Mallorca archives. What is interesting to note that their first daughter was actually born before they were married. Margarita Magraner Morell was born on 3 September 1873 while the couple married nine days later on the 12th.
Typically in Mallorca, the children were named after their paternal and maternal grandparents; this tradition also can be found in Italy. Therefore, the first daughter would receive the name of the paternal grandmother – in this case Margarita. The next child was a son and so he received his paternal grandfather’s name Cristóbal. The third child was a boy so he was named after his maternal grandfather Nicolás, while the fifth child was a daughter and received the name of her maternal grandmother Antonia. However, the fourth child was a son and he was named Damián… where did he get his name from? I am not entirely sure what the naming tradition would suggest, it is possible he was named after his own father seeing as how the paternal great-grandfather was named Gabriel. I would need to do a bit more research to better understand the child that fall outside of the naming norms.
Below, we can see the names of all the children and their birthdays.
Interestingly enough, a manifest from 1911 shows a Nicolás and Cristóbal. Magraner listed as brothers traveling from Spain to Puerto Rico; however, the age for Nicolas (32 years old) and Cristóbal (18 years old) would suggest that they are not my ancestor’s children or that only one was (likely Nicolás). It is possible that the manifest either listed their relationship wrong or their age.
The children's lives
This was another point of research for me – finding out what happened to each of the children in Mallorca. From the five, I know that at least three supposedly died before 1910, when Damián himself died. These would be Cristóbal Magraner Morell, Damián Magraner Morell, and Antonia Magraner Morell. This would mean that they each died fairly young. His other children Margarita Magraner Morell and Nicolás Magraner Morell lived past 1910. A tombstone I discovered in the Sóller cemetery suggests that Nicolás might have died in 1922.
A death notice and an obituary in the newspaper from 7 January 1922 confirms that with high likelihood, this is the tomb of Damián’s son Nicolás.
The article states that Nicolás died suddenly on Tuesday (3 January) in Palma (the island’s capital) after having been in Sóller just previously the week before. Tuesday night his body was brought over to Sóller from Palma, having arrived to the station, his body was welcomed by a clergyman and a raised cross. It states that his mother was alive, Doña Antonia Morell, his sisters, Doña Margarita and Doña Antonia, as well as his brother Don Cristóbal Magraner. Similarly it mentions a brother-in-law named Juan Marqués Frontera. By mentioning Magrarita, Antonia, and Cristóbal this would mean that these siblings were still alive, this is conflicting information for Antonia and Cristóbal so I would to review where I got that initial information from. Another newspaper article shows that Margarita Magraner was the sister who married Juan Marqués Frontera, making him her husband.
A trip in October 1892 shows that Damián returned on the boat Buenos Aires to Puerto Rico from Barcelona with one of his sons and another young man, son of Andrés Pastor. We aren’t sure if this would have been Cristóbal, Nicolás, or Damián but it’s very interesting to note this because my 2nd great-grandfather would have been only about a year old and so one of his half brothers would have likely met in Puerto Rico. Was the child made aware of this fact?
This death notice for an Antonia Magraner Morell who died on 5 February 1940 in Palma, Mallorca is likely Damián’s daughter. It mentions her siblings Margarita and Cristóbal as well as a niece named Bárbara Marqués Magraner (who would be the daughter of Juan Marqués and her sister Margarita Magraner). A nephew named Carlos Simarro Medina who was not a nephew by blood, if not, he was Bárbara’s husband.
With the information found in the newspapers online for Mallorca I was able to update the family tree with the following dates. Likely Margarita and Cristóbal died after 1940, while Damián likely died before 1910.
I do wonder if Margarita’s daughter Bárbara Marqués Margraner left behind any descendants because so far that is the only line that I have found another child on. I was able to discover that Bárbara and her husband Carlos Simarro Medina had a daughter named Margarita María Magdalena Simarro Marqués on 22 July 1920.
This is exciting because I have never gotten to find other descendants for the Magraner family and finding a child from 1920 brings the family that much closer to younger generations that might still be alive. Hopefully someday in the future I am able to connect with descendants of the Magraner family!