A Grand Search

The one thing I told Leo I wanted to do when in Colombia (besides buy a really cool instrument--I've decided that's what I'm going to collect during my travels around the world--one day I will have a singing bowl from Tibet) was spend a day doing family history work. Ever since I can remember, or at least since I was 10 or 11, I was determined that I was going to be "that aunt," the one that is crazy about family history. And I was actually grateful when I married Leo because then I was able to start from scratch. Yes, I know there's still more I could do on my own family lines, but basically it's just checking for mistakes, and several of my families hire professional genealogists to research more. So with Leo's family it just gives me so many opportunities, it's sweet. Leo's parents were very obliging. More than I could possibly ever thank them for. They took us first to Subachoque. It's a fun name to say and a BEAUTIFUL place. Really, I think it was one of my favorite places we visited in Colombia. First of all, it's where they grow all the flowers (70% of the United States imported flowers are from Colombia). There were acres and acres of greenhouses, and the countryside around them, well think Southern California but more green and only an occasional hacienda. These were some of the nicest houses I've seen in Colombia too. I mean the picturesque walled haciendas that look like they came straight from colonial Spain. Martha's (my mother-in-law) father is from that area. Subachoque itself was lovely. It had the Spanish plaza and the church you can see below which was built in 1774. The plaza had been turned into a garden and all the houses were sooo old but so nicely kept up. Such a contrast from Bogota where everything is grimy and graffiti covered. I felt like I should be on a movie set. Well, Martha took me to the little office beside the church where the parish records are kept and within minutes we had copies of her father's baptismal record. All in all, I think we added back 3 generations (not with all the dates, but at least the names give us a place to start from) and we were able to obtain one whole family with all their children. Martha gave me some place names of where I can look for more information too that she had never mentioned before. Unfortunately, one of those, Pacho, is completely unsafe right now, and while it probably has a great deal of family records, there's no way a gringa like me could go there. It wouldn't even be safe for Leo or his parents. Ruff. Stupid guerillas, way to get in the way of family history. This is the house Martha's father, Benito, lived in. Yes, it is a house too, just with shops connected on all sides. I was happy too because Martha seemed really happy to visit there as well. Then we had a long drive to Utica, the very pretty town you see above. I didn't like it quite as much as Subachoque, but in Subachoque it had been in the pleasant 70 degree range and we were dressed appropriately for that. In Utica it was a searing 100 degrees and high humidity and we were NOT dressed appropriately. Plus, it was a LONG, LONG car drive. Think a small 1980's Mazda with room for five, but instead packed with 7 people, no air conditioning, and gravel/dirt roads quite a bit of the way. We passed a lot of people on burros and leading pack horses on that road--ok, we passed even more on motorbikes, but still. Needless to say, we were all a bit tired and grumpy that afternoon. Oh, and did I mention Isabel had been sick and was running a fever the whole time? Once there, Leo took the kids to buy them something to cool down. Oh, that was the other reason I think I liked Utica less, in Subachoque we weren't quite as gawked at. In Utica, it is such a small town and so remote, we were stared at the entire time and not friendly stares. Anyway, Martha and I walked up to the parish record office only to discover it was closed that day. Ouch. However, we knocked and the lady was kind enough to be understanding and helped us find the information anyway. The priest came in too, wearing gym shorts and high-necked white t-shirt. It was all a bit surreal. We were able to get Martha's mother's baptismal record, or at least I scribbled down the info from it--there were no copy machines and an ancient computer. I took the above picture too. In Subachoque, they had the original books too, but they also had it all computerized and they just printed us out a copy of all the records we asked for, plus they could search easily for other related family members. Not so in Utica. She wanted the exact names and dates, and so the only thing else we were able to obtain was Martha's parents' marriage record. But that did give us several generations back of names (without dates) that we hadn't had before. The clerk found for us the record of Martha's grandfather's baptismal record, or at least she found where it should have been. Yeah, that's the book, in the picture above. It had been eaten through by something, and some pages were so completely faded the text was indiscernible. She went through page by page, but never found his actual record. Ruff. And then, like I said, she wanted exact names and dates, and since we didn't have anything else (why oh why didn't I take the list of siblings???!?!?) that was all we could get. But again, at least it gave us more to go on. Here are some more pictures from around Utica. One day I need to go back there without kids for a week and just search through each and every book they have. It made me almost want to cry to see that one book in such decrepit condition--I guess the librarian/historian in me is fairly pronounced. Really, I just wanted to offer to recopy or microfiche or something their records for them. How would that be, me begging, "Please! Let me save your records before it's too late!!!!" Hee. Hee. The priest said they only had the records till 1800 though, before that they were all sent to a center in Bogota. Which led me to look online on LDS.org, and sure enough, there are several census records and what not from the departmentos (states/provinces/whatever you want to compare it too) that Martha's family is from. So maybe I'll just be searching through those page by page instead. It will still leave a gap, but it's at least another lead to explore. (You know, this is kind of like archaeology in a way--I love it!) So all in all, not a bad day.Then surprise, surprise, I asked Leo's dad to ask his mom for some information. She is not a very forthcoming lady from all I've been told. Her parents had never been married and an aunt had raised her, and she never ever spoke about her parents to anyone. I had been told that, so I had just wrote down some general questions about her for more of a "history" of her (likes/dislikes, favorite games as a child, that sort of thing) rather than to obtain info on her parents or anything else. Well, guess who turned out to be quite the storyteller. Yep. It was great! She is quite a funny lady. For instance, she described herself as spoiled rotten and consequently quite stuck up and mean to all the other girls in town. Hee. Hee. And once she ate 18 soft-boiled eggs (her favorite food) all in one sitting. AND for the first time that Orlando (Leo's dad) had ever heard in his life, she gave us the name of her father, and told us all about him, and the names of his brothers and sisters. Also I found out that she had a brother, which I didn't know before either. Apparently her mother died when she was really young, and then having the two kids was too much for her father and while he stayed involved, he left them to his sister to raise. Her parents had simply never married because they were too poor. That's her (Leo's grandmother) in the picture above, at 18 yrs. old. You can definitely see where Leo and Isabel get their curly hair. Unfortunately, it's just a picture of a photocopied picture, so it's not that clear. But better than nothing, right? This is my last mystery. This is Leo's paternal grandfather. He left the family when Leo's dad was quite young, and while he's been back since then, it was never a good experience. Nobody is willing to even try to get information from him, if they even know where he is anymore. Plus, I don't know if he has any brothers or sisters we could contact instead of him. Crazy. So that line is pretty much at a halt right now. Ruff. Anyway, Leo's Uncle Henry had quite a few photos and I tried to photograph this one with my camera, but as you can see, the results aren't that great. He was nice enough to walk Leo and I to a photocopy place around the corner and photocopy the rest of the pictures too, but this picture that I took is probably better quality. It wasn't the nicest place to go, that's for sure. I also tried to convince Uncle Henry that he should just give the pictures to me, but he just laughed really hard, and commented that my Spanish was really good to Leo. Sigh.

So that was my Grand Search for Family History in Colombia and I couldn't be happier with the results!! Now, I just have so many more questions.....