Caribbean genealogy became a personal interest during the summer months of the pandemic. An illness, plus the general lack of things to do because of the pandemic, left me with little to do for much of late July and August. Although I have never been someone obsessed with family histories, genealogy, or "tracing my roots" (I find attempts to bring DNA analysis into the picture somewhat absurd, so I ignore programs like that of Henry Louis Gates), I realized how interesting it can be when combined with a keen historical interest in the lives of our predecessors, not to mention literary works. Indeed, Rosario Ferre sparked my interest in the topic with her novels using the Puerto Rican family as a metaphor for the nation. I believe it was in the well-known The House on the Lagoon where she mentions the baptismal books of the Catholic Church and their utility as a source for tracing families and their degree of racial "purity." In addition to her works, the family, the use of genealogy, and the family's struggles as a symbol of the nation is a powerful motif in literatures around the world, from Icelandic sagas to Latin American novels.
As someone with roots in Haiti and the Hispanic Caribbean, I naively assumed finding records of my forebears would be difficult. Most of them were humble people, neither rulers nor wealthy elites. But lo and behold, after going through digitized archival documents, I was able to trace some of my paternal ancestry back to the late 18th century and early 19th century. There are still a few gaps and questions, especially due to missing parish registries and illegible or damaged documents (plus the difficulties of attempting to trace forebears earlier into the 18th century without an adequate range of birth), but the combination of civil state registries and those of the Catholic Church were invaluable. Using both resources were invaluable, especially baptismal records that identify parents and grandparents. Those alone were extremely useful for providing names of earlier generations and disproving some of my assumptions (such as "kissing cousins" to explain why two of my great-great-grandparents shared the same surname).
I even uncovered a few surprises, such as a "mulato" great-grandfather of my white-passing Latino father. Due to the prevalence of racial mestizaje and the fluidity of race in Latin America, this great-great-grandfather and his household are listed as white on census forms, but "mulato" on other civil registration documents. Unfortunately, I could not trace these black ancestors back further than the early 1800s or late 1700s, and it might require searching through baptism registries for slaves and free blacks to locate some of them (although the books for some of these years are lost). Other early forebears included a man who may have lived to be 110 years old (I am skeptical), and was supposedly literate. Since most of my forebears were peasants, jornaleros, domestics, seamstresses, laborers, and farmers, I was also surprised to see some who were literate, even before the spread of literacy later in the 20th century. Interesting to me was finding out that one of my great-great-grandmothers, born ca. 1872, was literate while her husband was not. I expected women to be less likely to know how to read and write in the 19th century, but it could also be a reflection of the fact that this great-great-grandmother's grandfather knew how to read, and may have passed it on to his children. Who knows, he supposedly lived until 1912, and may have taught her how to read himself.
What is more meaningful to me, my Haitian ancestry, which I value because of my childhood influenced by a Haitian grandmother and her myriad stories, is far more difficult to trace. Knowing the names of my great-grandparents and their town, I hoped I could find them in the sparse digitized archives available on Family Search. After perusing several years in which my great-grandparents might have been born (from the 1880s to 1910), I failed to find them. I know the two were cousins, but I remain uncertain if their fathers were siblings. I am also quite sure the mother of my great-grandmother was named Marie, based on the nickname my deceased grandmother used for her. But having such a common name does not aid much. I also figured out where in the province my great-grandparents lived, but it is not officially listed in any of the birth, marriage, or death licenses for the years I searched (it could have been lumped in with the town directly, or one of two nearby sub-districts).
Either way, I did come across a few possible connections to my mother's family because their province was a rather small place. My mother also seems to think I may have identified the parents and grandparents of her grandmother, based on the birth certificate of a man who may have been my great-grandmother's brother. My mother and one of her older cousins also remember some of the names associated with these individuals, but I await confirmation from older relatives before I can comfortably say these people were my great-great-grandparents. I am correct, however, then the documents I found also identify my great-great-great-grandparents, who, in at least one case, was born ca. 1842. The great-great-great-grandmother born in 1842, was married to a man with a "dit name" of English origin (uncommon in the province, but perhaps linked to African American immigration in the 1820s), but I could not locate a death certificate for her husband who was already dead by 1890. I would guess that the great-great-great-grandparents were born in the 1830s and 1840s, but I cannot find birth certificates for them because the remaining archives are woefully incomplete for several decades of the 19th century.
Haitian genealogical "digging" did reveal some insights onto Haitian society and social structure of the past, for what its worth. My great-great-grandparents were illiterate, based on their 1890 marriage license, but that's no surprise for 19th century Haiti. I believe the great-great-grandfather came from the town or nearby, and was listed as an artisan in 1890 (but "cultivateur" in 1905 and 1912). His wife, from the valley, was a seamstress ca. 1890 and carries a surname from her father which has been present in the province since the 1700s. If this woman was indeed my great-great-grandmother, then the sole photograph I have of her reveals her to have been a fair-skinned woman who may very well descend from the 18th century affranchi family of the same name in some form. It is difficult to say, since so many in the province took surnames derived from the old habitations of the colonial era. Moreover, her parents were not legally married, and her father has a rather "peasant" first name. Naming conventions were also interesting, as "natural" children sometimes used the surname of their father or their mother. Sometimes the surname was taken from the father's first name. And, being Haitian, we have names that are based on the surname or sound Greek or Latin. In short, the panorama of provincial Haitian society is visible quite clearly in the civil registries of the 1800s and early 1900s. Some additional surprises, though not shocking in any way, was the discovery of how many people in my mother's generation and grandmother's generation were named after grandparents or great-grandparents in some form. Indeed, I believe my grandmother's sister was named after my great-great-grandmother, and their cousin's middle name comes from my great-great-grandfather.
Of course, Haitian genealogy has been far more difficult than my Latin American family history investigation. For most of Haiti, we lack digitized Catholic Church records. Since many people in Haiti did not always register the births of their children with an officer of the civil state, the Catholic Church would be invaluable for tracing the births of people who, even if not devout Catholics, baptized their progeny. Finding these documents for the province my Haitian family hails from would shed light and help confirm some of the names for my great-grandmother's family. It may also assist with my great-grandfather, whose parents I know nothing about. Indeed, all I know about him is he was dark-skinned and supposedly a cousin of his wife, sharing the same surname. If this is true, and they were first cousins, then his grandfather and her grandfather were the same person. Surprisingly, I came across no siblings of the man I suspect to be my great-grandmother's father, but it does seem likely that his family and that of my great-grandfather were from the same part of the province. At this point, oral testimony from older cousins of my grandmother would be the most helpful.
In conclusion, my little obsession with genealogy was an intriguing personal and historical journey. Can I ever truly imagine or experience the life of my ancestors in the 19th century Caribbean? Would I ever really want to go back to a time of illiterate peasants in provincial Haiti, struggling in an unequal society? Or the Latin American society of my paternal ancestors, where poor "whites," slaves, and free people of color struggled for survival in a colonial space? To what extent does it actually inform my present condition? My Haitian heritage certainly had more of a direct and significant impact on me, despite the generations and vast distances which separate me from it. But it will not bring me to distant African shores. Indeed, I cannot even trace it back to 1804. Despite these limitations and the horrifying conditions from which the peoples of the Caribbean were forged, genealogy retains some utility for putting a personal face on the bitter and sweet moments in the history of the region. Not to mention the responsibility of we descendants to make it a better place today.
