Matches 151 to 200 of 229
| # | Notes | Linked to |
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| 151 | James never married. Is buried in Holy Name Cementery Jersey City New Jersey. | Fergus, James Edward (P547)
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| 152 | John emigrated from Ireland in 1879, during the "little famine." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Famine_(1879) | Fergus, John Joseph (P541)
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| 153 | José Vidal, or Pepe, as he was known too, was the son of María Asunción Lacomba of Hatillo and Isidro Vidal y Aviñó of Vilanova y la Geltrú. According to his son Rafael he was of medium height, white ivory like skin, dark eyes and black hair. In his youth he was considered a handsome man. His wife was María Emma Vélez y de Vialis. He had three children by her: María, Rafael and Isidro. María and Rafael grew to adulthuood. Isidro died in infancy, probaby as a result of his mother's tuberculosis. There are three things that are remembered of him, none are flattering. First, in spite of the great efforts his parents placed in his education with tutors, José was unable to learn to write legibly or do simple mathematics. Yet, he was an articulate speaker and a good reader. Secondly he had a very short temper, breaking easily into temper tantrums. Third, he contracted tuberculosis and when he realized that his wife also had the disease he abandoned her and his children and went to live as a border at the house of a family by the name Prida. His wife died first, alone and with two small children. He died shortly thereafter, leaving his three children orphaned. It is also said that his inability to deal with writing and numbers bankrupt the firm Vidal & Cia. who was situated where the old First Federal Bank was located, in the Marina region of Mayagüez. | Vidal Y Lacomba, José (P167)
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| 154 | Lists of Passengers who emigrated from Europe, Africa, and Asia between 1946 and 1971 | Source (S1546236900)
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| 155 | Little if nothing is known of Jean de Vialis. The family came from Toulon, but we are not sure whether he was born there or in Paris. His wife was Marie Alexandrine de la Chiose. The fact that they were Jean Denis de Vialis parents can be verified by the fact that in the 1920's his descendent Rafael Vidal had copy of the marriage certificate of his son made by Fray Cipriano de Utrera, a distinguished Dominican historian, Tradition says that he was decapitated during the Terror (1793-94) along with his wife and that his son escaped to the new world. | de Vialis, Jean (P194)
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| 156 | Liver problems | Vallecillo, Enrique (P1)
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| 157 | Luis Lassies was left an orphan at the age of 14. He supported himself, an elderly aunt (Amelie) and his younger brother Alfredo by giving French lessons. Eventually, he opened a store with a member of the Filippi family, who absconded with the funds and returned to Germany, Later on he opened another store. It was located in front of the main square in Mayagüez. The warehouse of this store was in the street right behind, that later became Gonzalez Padín. He owned both buildings and there were still there the last time I went to the central part of the town in 1993. It was in the building that housed his ware house that the family spent the night when the coming of the American troops was imminent. He was pro-American and was one of the founders in Mayagüez of the Republican Party. He served as a member of one of the earliest school boards of the town. Luis Lassise was the secretary and his youngest daughter Maria Antonieta used to serve as his scribe and copy over, in a very neat and readable hand writing the copies of the minutes. An interesting thing about Luis was the fact that he knew a variety of languages that allowed him to shop for his goods in Europe himself, thus avoiding the middle man. He used to make regular trips to France and Spain (I believe England too) to supply his store. He died in 1911 as a result of a fall from a horse. He had send his regular horse to be shoed and borrowed a horse from the blacksmith to do some errands in the section of Mayagüez, known as "La Playa." He fell and hit his head against the trolley rails in that used to go up and down Calle Mendez Vigo. The exact location was in front of the house of the Falbe family, in whose house he died. | Lassise, Luis (P171)
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| 158 | Luis Nicolás Lassise was the eldest child of Luis Lassise Lizana and Inés María de la Sierra y Estrada. He studied medicine at the University of Maryland and did his internship (which at the time was 1 year) at the muncipal hospital of Guayama where my grandfather Enrique Vallecillo Mandri was the attending physitian in charge of interns. After becoming a doctor he practiced medicine in Mayagüez, where for a time he was associated with the Clinica Perea. He was also associated with the Clínica Unión Española. Luis Nicolás never married. According to my grandmother he fell in love with his cousin Carmen Frau de la Sierra and she turned him down to marry Guillermo Mulet. This does not mean that he led a total chaste life. For many years he had a intimate relationship with María Forestier, a local lady in town. He died of a stroke at the age of 55 in her house. | Lassese de la Síerra, Luis Nicolas (P233)
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| 159 | Manuel Manzano or Maceiro was born in Santiago de Compostela, in the province of Galicia in Spain. According to family tradition he was a Capitán de Navío, which is the equivalent in American naval terminology to admiral. For some obscure reason, which has been commonly referred to as a duel, he came to Venezuela to the city of Vela del Coro (Present day Coro. A note of interest: the Fugger family founded Coro, the bankers for the Hapsburg emperor Charles V or Carlos V. Carlos V had given them the region of Venezuela, in return in payment for a loan. The condition was that the family would establish a flourishing Spanish out post. They failed) As far as we know he was unmarried at his arrival and there married (we believe) a criolla. In looking at history there are two interesting point that tend to lend credibility to his departure and to the place where he went. First during the last half of the X VIII century duels were banned by law. And secondly, Vela del Coro had important naval facilities. It was here that Francisco Miranda began the insurrections in Latin America in 1795. He attacked naval facilities in the hope of disturbing the traffic between South America and the Virreinato de Nueva España (Mexico). So, there were important naval facilities in the city. As to his marriage, we do not know the name of his wife. We know he had three daughters, of which the youngest (probably the prettiest) was María del Carmen. This one he married to a cousin, Nicolas Estrada, which he brought from Spain. A man also connected with the Spanish navy. During his time in Coro he accumulated a fortune in land. He owned land (according to my grandmother) in Maracaibo. I do not know the place exactly because his great-grand daughter Inés María de la Sierra burned the property titles in the 1920's. He moved to Caracas, again the date is unknown. There he also acquired land and entered the cattle trade. He was a "ganadero" in Caracas. His herd most have been enormous, because during the wars of independence in Venezuela, he fed a whole regiment of the king's troops every day. He also purchased bonds from the crown to support the royalists. These were also burned by Inés María de la Sierra. (To my children, blame her for our poverty). In 1822 Simón Bolivar dealt a mayor blow to the royalist troops in the battle of Carabobo. At this moment he declared the independence of Venezuela, abolished slavery and gave the royalist 24 hours to either pledge allegiance to the young republic, flee or die. This is the famous / nefarious Edict of Carabobo. Manuel left, with his three daughters, the jewels of his family and a young slave, that chose to go with them, rolled inside a carpet. He promised the Virgin Mary that if he survived he would make a monstrance with them in her honor. He must have had a great deal of fear, since the troops left by Bolivar were the regiments led by Paez. His troops were notoriously bloody and they proved to be so during those harrowing 24 hours, Caracas had no port and the only way out was through land to La Guaira. It is said that the waters of the sea became red after the 24 hours expired, because Paez's troops killed every man woman and child that could not catch a boat. Fortunately for our family they were able to go. (I read this in a diary own by Janet Brau de Aguiló, whose g-g-g grandmother, mother of Salvador Brau described) At this moment the Spanish crown, in order to attract settlers loyal to her, granted money to those willing to settle in Puerto Rico. Don Manuel accepted this deal, and became the court scribe of the town of Mayagüez. As promised, he melted the gold and made a monstrance. (It was taken to Spain in 1898. There is no evidence of such thing ever existing, but the vicar of the town told me in the 1950's that the Spanish clergy took every ecclesiastical vessels of value, leaving to the new American clergy insignificant or worthless objects. Maybe this was a kind lie told to an excited eighteen-year-old, but it could be true.) He sold the jewels and built a house (I believe that the house was still sanding in the 1960's when I left. It was the old house of the Heliger family on the way to El Cerro de las Mesas). He died in Mayagüez. There is still another interesting thing about this man: his name. His daughters bore the name of Manzano. He claimed to be Maceiro, or at least he had this name in his family. During his tenure as scribe for the court, someone tried to bribe him. They wanted him to change the testimony of a witness. At this point his granddaughter (mother of Inés) heard him say that he would not besmirched the name of Maceiro, who was in the "Libro de Oro de Santiago" (Golden book of Santiago). There is in Santiago a "Libro de Oro," which in the past bore the names of the city's dignitaries and who at present is a record of the great visitors to the city (i.e. the Pope). Why was he so vehement about this? Why did his daughters used the name Manzano? Manzano, in Spain, has a stigma: it is a name commonly used by "conversos," people of Jewish origin. Was he of "converso" origin? Was that the reason why he left Spain? Did he marry his criolla wife? Maybe one day I will try to solve this conundrum, because I think it is not hard. One just have to look at the death records of the church in Mayagüez to find his real name and that of his parents or look at the record of people who held the post of court scribes between 1822-1834.. This I leave as food for thought. | Maceiro, Manuel Manzano- (P318)
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| 160 | Manuel María de la Sierra was born in Santander, Spain. One has to realize that the Santander he knew no longer exists, even its medieval cathedral. In 1942 a sea storm (maremoto) erased it from the map, leaving behind scant relics of it nautical past. If any one wihshes to find out what it was like one has to read such novels As "Sotileza" and "Peñas Arriba" by Pereda. The imagination will have to do then. Family history tells us that Manuel María married María Vicenta Pereira y Zatarain(it is very possible that her family came from Asturias or Galicia [Pereira] and the Basque Provinces [Zatarain- the name of a small Basque town]) about 1820. In 1822 there is the famous Golpe de Riego (whose songs I remember) and the re-invasion of Spain by 100,000 French (Bourbon) soldiers who came to the resuce of Fernando VII and allowed him to aborgate the Constitution of Cádiz and become once again an absolute monarch. Either because the French destroyed the fishing ships of the family or because they had had it with war, Manuel María took his wife and young son, Maunel Fermín to Puerto Rico. We really do not know what he did. According to my grand mother (his g-great grandaughter), he is listed as an "hombre bueno y notario." At one point he must have taken exams to be a notary. His first wife María Vicenta died in 1824 and he married Julia Toste, of a very prominent family from San Juan. He had two daughters : Tersa and Mercedes. This progeny was to become quite important because Teresa married one of the great Puerto Rican journalist José Ramón Freyre y Rivas. Freyre not only was a good journalist but keen observer of the working classes and he worte a series of articles on the "jornaleros" (day workers) of the 1850-60 that are a the best observations of the Puerto Rican working class at that moment and stay as a source of of unbelievable sociological and historical work. I do not know if they have ever been published in book form. Mercedes' grandaughter Altagracia Gayá y Ballesteros married Pedro Adolfo de Castro, Puerto Rico's preeminent architec of the 1930's. Julia died and shortly there after he married his wife's cousin Carmelita Toste. By her hae had Ramón and another Mercedes. Ramón was the only revolutionary of the family. During the governorship of Laureano Sanz (Atila, el Godo, etc.) he was going to be imprisioned, but his brother found out and he was exiled to the Dominican Republic. There he had two illegitimate children Ramón and Mercedes (again!). Ramon became a bseball player. He was one of the first player of "Los Indios de Mayagüez." He dropped the "de la" from de la Sierra and we have no idea if he had children, His sister never married. Manuel María de la Sierra died in Mayagüez. We do not know if he is buried in the old cemetery in the crypt that now belongs to the Mulets or in San Juan with his wives. | la Sierra, Manuel María de (P260)
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| 161 | Margaret was killed by her husband Austin, who committed suicide, and is buried in Madona Cementery in Fort Lee, NJ | Sullivan, Margargaret (Peggy) (P555)
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| 162 | Margarete was the godmother of Irene Fitzgerald Turnier. She had no children. She is buried in Old Tennent Cemetery Englishtown, NJ. | Fergus, Margaret (P546)
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| 163 | Maria del Carmen Manzano was the youngest daughter of Manuel Manzano Maceiro. She was married at the age thirteen to her cousin Nicolás Estrada. I have no idea of the degree of their relationship. At first, she absolutely refused the marriage imposed on her by her father, but it seems that he was a rather nice man and eventually they had three children. These were the years of the wars of Spanish American Independence and Nicolás was a captain in the Spanish navy. During most of this time he was at at sea. The revolution finally succeed and after the battle of Carabobo (1822) bolivar issued and edict that forced every citizen to swear allegiance to the new republic. At the news of Carabobo and at a new insurrection in what is now Argentina Nicolás left, never to return. He was lost at sea. (His story will be told later) Her father Manuel refused to swear allegiance to Bolivar and was given 24 hours to leave with his family, which at the time included, not only his two unmarried daughter, but María del Carmen, her two daughters and one other on the way. She gave birth to her last child, Carmen María Estrada, in the territorial waters of Maracaibo, hence her daughter was born a Dutch subject. She was baptized in Maracaibo at the Catholic church, as a now lost document confirmed. (This one was lost by my mother Emma Vidal. I saw it more than a thousand times: it contained the date of birth, the parents and godparents of the child). When she arrived in Mayagüez the family was penniless. The family supplemented their income by making sweets, which were sold in the market place by the slave who came from Venezuela with them. She never remarried and died in Mayagüez after marrying her daughters well. | Manzano, Carmen María (P267)
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| 164 | María Vicenta Pereira y Zatarain came with her husband and young son to Mayagüez in 1822. She died two years later and was buried in Mayaguez, probably in the cementery behind the church That disapeared in the 1840 or 50. | Zatarain, María Vicenta Pereira y (P261)
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| 165 | Marriage Records | Source (S1513931031)
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| 166 | Mendel Presser was a survivor of the Holocost This was discovered by his DP card 10.1941 ZAL. Kamjonka 12.1942 Lemberg 12 1942 Plaschow 1.44-5.45 Mauthausen befr. *. ZAL denotes he was in a slave labor camp **. befr denotes he was freeded from Mauthausen | Presser, Mendel (P1357)
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| 167 | Mendel Presser was a survivor of the Holocost This was discovered by his DP card 10.1941 ZAL. Kamjonka 12.1942 Lemberg 12 1942 Plaschow 1.44-5.45 Mauthausen befr. *. ZAL denotes he was in a slave labor camp **. befr denotes he was freeded from Mauthausen | Fisherman, Minnie "Mindel" (P1359)
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| 168 | National Archives and Records Administration. | Source (S1506752012)
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| 169 | Nationwide Gravesite Locator | Source (S-919289704)
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| 170 | Nationwide Gravesite Locator | Source (S1508494424)
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| 171 | Nationwide Gravesite Locator | Source (S1508666821)
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| 172 | Nationwide Gravesite Locator | Source (S1538176337)
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| 173 | New York City Birth Certificates | Source (S1545904510)
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| 174 | New York City Death Certificates | Source (S1545904487)
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| 175 | Nicolás Estrada was a nephew of Manuel María Manzano-Maceiro. He was born in Santiago de Compostela and at an early age joined the Spanish navy. At the time of the battle of Carabobo he was in Venezuela visiting his wife and children. Due to unrest in the area of Argentina he was sent to defend the Spanish interests there. His ship wrecked in what is now Brazil. His cousin, Adolfo Polidura, was the lone survivor. The story that I will be telling is what Adolfo told his wife and daughters when he finally came back. He says that when the ship wrecked a large number of the survivors fell to a tribe that practiced cannibalism. He was a young boy and was captured by a non cannibalistic tribe. He was held as a slave until one day a Spanish ship entered the bay to get fresh water. While the sailors collected water they noticed a European looking man. The sailors approached him and found out he was a Spaniards and what happened to him. The Indians exchanged him for a barrel of rum. He went back to Venezuela looking for the family of his cousin. There they were told that the family had gone to Puerto Rico. He followed them there and told them the story of Nicolás and his unlikely end. | Estrada, Nicolás (P266)
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| 176 | old age, sirrosis of the liver | Vidal, Ramón Segundo Rafael (P93)
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| 177 | Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s | Source (S-920936210)
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| 178 | Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s | Source (S-919289851)
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| 179 | Possible Address: Lambert Turnier 1302 Eastbridge Ct, Louisville, KY 40223-3926 (502) 244-9609 First mentioned in father nyt obit | Turnier, Lambert J (P1482)
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| 180 | Rafael Vidal y Vélez was born on May 19, 1887 -"el año terrible del 87" (the terrible year of 87] in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. He was the son of José Vidal Lacomba and Emma Vélez y de Vialis. The name his parents had chosen for him was Ramón Segundo, but on the babtismal fountain his god-mother, Carmen Cámara, refused to christen him with such name. She chose as his third name Rafael. He was known as Rafael all his life. Rafael had unusual opportunities in education. When Eugenio María de Hostos came to Puerto Rico in 1898 he began the first kindergarten along with his brother Bayoán de Hostos. My grandfather was one of the lucky children to attend such an institution. De Hostos was imbued with the ideas of Gregor Friederich Kraus, a German Philosopher, whose basic philosophy of communion with nature greatly influenced the education of Spain, firs to Francisco Giner de los Rios and the with the Instituto de Libre Enseñanza. Hostos had been a disciple of Giner and he believed that learning had to be closely associated with the observation of nature and rigorous hiking and exercise. The small kindergarten in Mayagüez could offer only calisthenics and hikes, but the last was one of the things that my grandfather kept throughout his life. Hiking, camping and observing nature were pivotal in the way my grandfather looked at life. For prep-school he attended one of the second tier New England prep-schools, Willberham Academy, and spent three years studying chemical engeneering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He never finished the degree, but the most likely reason was that the family finally lost everything. This story requires some explanation. Rafael and his siter María became the sole heirs of the considerable fortune of Juan de Vialis. He had disinherited Rafael's grandmother Julia, but eventually, due to the fact that Don Juan's heirs died childless, the money and many of the things, came to the grandchildren of Julia. So, my grandfather at age ten went from poverty to incredible wealth. His guardians were doña Barbarita Vélez and her husband Pepe Martínez. Pepe was also a friend of the Vidal family because he came from Hatillo. They proceeded to invest the money of their nephew and niece and their own in all sort of get rich schemes, while they dotted on the children: sending them away to fancy prepshools and ordering for María clothing from Paris. In less than ten years the money was gone along with La Palmira and Las Termopilas, two large sugar cane plantations. | Vidal, Ramón Segundo Rafael (P93)
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| 181 | Revised history of Harlem (city of New York) : prefaced by home scenes in the fatherlands, or, notices of its founders before emigration : also, sketches of numerous families and the recovered history of the land-titles | Source (S1531303326)
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| 182 | See Jean de Vialis. | la Chiose, Marie Alexandrine de (P195)
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| 183 | She traveled to Cananda with her three sons: Rubin, Sam, and Saul. Her husband Moszek went first. They were going to meet in NYC. They sailed on the SS Minnedosa. Immigration (December 29, 1922): She came with her husband, two sons, and her mother. four were deported. Her Mother Rywka Antosiewicz was accepted into the country. | Antosiewicz, Gitta (P1289)
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| 184 | Social Security Administration. Social Security Death Index, Master File. Social Security Administration. | Source (S1506752013)
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| 185 | Social Security Death Index, Master File | Source (S-919289616)
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| 186 | Social Security Death Index, Master File | Source (S1519518569)
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| 187 | Social Security Death Index, Master File | Source (S1519645077)
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| 188 | Social Security Death Index, Master File | Source (S1537638083)
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| 189 | Social Security Death Index, Master File | Source (S1546236873)
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| 190 | South Carolina death records | Source (S1534004271)
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| 191 | SS# 388-05-6982 | Mieding, Raymond (P778)
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| 192 | SS# 391-38-9572 | Kessel, Lillian Henrietta (P760)
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| 193 | State population census schedules, 1925 | Source (S-919496341)
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| 194 | Stroke | Lassese de la Síerra, Luis Nicolas (P233)
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| 195 | Supplement, v. 2, issued in 1908, Defiance, Ohio. | Source (S-2059570563)
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| 196 | The de Vialis came from Toulon and belonged to the nobility of the sword: the Second Estate. It seems that they spent most of their time in Paris and were probably absentee landlords. We shall begin with them, because their lofty beginnings, their myths, have been kept alive and embellished more than the rest. They were aristocrats, members of the Second Estate, and in a world where the bourgeois with 'delusions de grandeur rules, aristocratic connections are always a plus. Their coat of arms is very old. First it breaks with several of the rules of heraldry. It places gold on a color. The main emblem is a gold eagle on a field of red, which points to a Frankish connection. The band across is blue and it contains three stars of David. Stars of David indicate, in heraldry, a connection with the Crusades. It is believed that St. Louis of France granted the knights that accompanied him on the last Crusade the right to carry on their coat of arms three stars of David as the symbol of the Trinity. If this is true, not only do we descend from crusaders, but very probably from one of those that accompanied St. Louis in the last attempt to rescue the Holy Sepulcher from the hands of the Saracens. There exists, some where in the National Library of the Dominican Republic, the history of this family written by the first member to come to the New World, Jean Denis de Vialis. It is probably to be found among the papers of Fray Cipriano de Utrera, a noted Dominican historian. Unfortunately for us here in this English speaking world, it is lost because not only does it rests in the bowels of a small bureaucratic little republic, but it is totally written in French. Also, due to neglect his marriage certificate, the last shred of evidence we had with this romantic past, is lost. It was either eaten by termites or destroyed by my sister. Its valuable information is now gone forever. If my memory does not fail me don Juan and doña Bárbara de Mota y Álvarez y Fuentes were married in the cathedral of Santo Domingo by the Bishop (who traditionally is given the title of Primate of America, because his see is the oldest in the New World). The date was December 1816. I do not remember the exact day of the month. There were two witnesses, but I do not remember their names. The place of birth for the bride and groom were give as Paris, France for don Juan and San Carlos de Bauí for doña Bárbara There was a short note from Fray Cipriano to my grandfather. I do not remember its contents. At this point it is useful to look at France in the years of the Bourbon grandeur. I have stated before that the family came from Toulon and that they were aristocrats . Why were they then in Paris? History can easily answer this riddle. The reign of Louis XIV was very turbulent. He had a long minority and the nobility of the provinces was in constant turmoil. When he uttered at the age of fifteen his famous phrase "L'etat ce moi" he brought from the provinces the troublesome noblemen and their families, giving them useless positions in his court and making them his personal servants. One has to remember that he seldom relied on them for judgement. Colberg, his great minister, was a member of the bourgeois. Unfortunately for France the kings that followed the Sun King began again to relay on the old nobility. The only exception to this was Necker, and he did not last very long. We can say that this old aristocracy precipitated their fall by their desire to concentrate the power of a powerful land in the hands of individuals who were neither well educated nor very progressive. A noble man at the time of Louis XIV "'derogated or fell into the common mass if he followed a business or profession." It is easy to understand why a complex government in the hands of fools would soon fall. I know that by the late XVIII my ancestors from Toulon were in Paris. We know that they were members of that provincial nobility that the Sun King had brought to Paris. They were not Parisians, but Provencal. The portrait of Joseph Michel de Fontbelle, dressed in his XVIII regalia - wig, knee high blue breeches and silk lace, existed until the beginning of the XX century. It was a court portrait, for a group that relied on the power of an absolute monarch for its needs. He was the grandfather of Marie Alexandrine de la Chiose who married Jean de Vialis.10 They were the parents of Jean Denis de Vialis, Count de Vialis, Marquis de Fontbelle and Baron de Chateaurouge. 11 We already know that he was born in Paris, his marriage certificate to Barbara de Mota states the fact, and tradition tells us that Jean Dennis was a doctor in medicine. He probably studied at the University of Paris. This is interesting, because as has been stated before, a profession would have virtually abolished his right to be a member of the Second Estate. But, according to Lefevre, by the late XVIII century, both in England and France the nobility had slowly began to attend universities and to enter the profession and business, if not themselves through surrogates.12 At the time of the French Revolution he was probably a member of the medical staff of Louis XVI in Versailles. Perhaps he held a more useful position than that of Master of the Royal Chamber Pot.13 I am inclined to believe, due to the fact that he was a university-educated man, an unusual thing for a member of his class, that he was rather liberal. According to tradition he left in 1793, but tradition also tells us that his parents had been decapitated shortly after the death of Louis XVI. He either went into hiding, or had political convictions different from his parents. 1793 is the beginning of the Terror and it is then that the more liberal members of the Second Estate, like Philippe Egalité, were done away with. This date of departure leads me to believe that he was not a reactionary and that he left France because he feared for his life. Other actions in his life tend to reaffirm this. He did not come to Puerto Rico, but to Santo Domingo. At that time the Island was not a prosperous place and it lacked all the amenities that the more cultivated city of Santo Domingo offered. Santo Domingo had a university, an inquisition, was close to French speaking Haiti and had land. The Spanish Bourbons had been trying to populate their Caribbean possessions to prevent them from falling prey to the more vigorous English, French and Dutch. Soon after his arrival he began acquiring land in the area of San Carlos de Bauí and Santiago de los Caballeros. In 1816 he married Barbara de Mota y Alvarez y Fuentes, daughter of Francisco de Mota, a Canarian or "isleño," and Margarita Alvarez y Fuentes, a "criolla" of Canarian extraction. The de Mota and Alvarez y Fuentes were quite wealthy. Carlos III to cultivate mahogany had granted them large tracts of land and doña Margarita was a descendant from one of the first Capitanes Generales of the Canary Island, named by the Catholic Kings in the XV century. For her dowry doña Bárbara received 3 farms of 150 "caballerías" each. That, added to the domain that Jean Denis de Vialis had accumulated, made the couple a rather wealthy and important one in the area. It is interesting to note that he probably never practice medicine in America, in spite of his degree. From this marriage five children were born: Julia, Barbara, Virginia, Elisa and Carlos. All but Carlos and Julia were childless and Carlos had only one daughter who also died childless. Carlos wife was Emma Quinn (or Cuin). She was the daughter of the chief of police in Mayagüez in the 1830-40. They had one child, also named Emma. It is known that Virginia was born blind, this probably alludes to the fact that syphilis was a rather common disease and Don Juan, probably had it. Children whose parents had the disease were born blind. She was also probably the youngest. All the children of Don Juan were born in Santo Domingo. For me it is a mystery why they left the island of Santo Domingo. They were wealthy, well connected and had what seemed at the time a happy life. It is very probable that Don Juan, as he came to be known in the Spanish speaking world, began acquiring land in Puerto Rico. When, I don't know. I believe this, because one of his wedding presents, now broken in pieces in the basement of our house, was given by the de Loris, a family of French emitters that lived in Mayagüez. This would not be hard to determine when he began acquiring land in Puerto Rico, because the legal transactions must be in the Register of Deeds in the town of Mayagüez. Another possible reason would be the natural unrest of Santo Domingo. The Haitians had conquered the Spanish part of the island and the Dominicans hated the rule of the ex slaves of Haiti. Throughout the 1820's revolutionary movements had been gathering strength and in the early part of the 1830, under the leadership of Duarte, Santo Domingo became the República Dominicana. It is during this period that the de Vialis family establishes itself permanently in Mayagüez. All of this is speculations, and by no means they are meant to be taken as true history. I am sure that a careful research in Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico would yield more accurate information, but lacking the source, extrapolating from history is not a bad substitute. The only date we know of Don Juan de Vialis is the year of his marriage: 1816. If the portrait that exists of him was done in Puerto Rico by Elijhab Metcalf, he was in Puerto Rico in the year 1827. In Puerto Rico he was the owner of two sugar cane plantations: Las Termopilas y la Palmyra. We also know that he owned a large piece of real estate in what is today downtown Mayagüez. He also owned extensive property in Santo Domingo. Physically he was a handsome man with dark hair and blue eyes. His portrait shows us a man burned by the sun of the tropics. There is a definite telltale mark on his forehead that shows a definite sun line where his hat rested. His eyes are hard and serene. He looks like a man secure of himself and confident of his future. In his right hand he holds a book and is seated on a chair of red damask. It was also said that he was very tall. The aspects of his personality that we know are not the most pleasant. He was proud and aloof, uncompromising, demanding and probably stubborn. The disinherited of his daughter, due to her marriage to a "criollo," was stupid. It shows a man completely out of touch with the reality of the world that he lived. We all know that in early XIX century Puerto Rico there were very few, probably no members of a nobility, or of a class that could have compared to the family of his wife. Perhaps for us it is easy to judge him, but history was not kind to the judgement he made: his only descendants come from Julia. But also, one has to look at him with certain respect. He was after all an immigrant, landless and probably poor. He came to a culture different from his own in a moment of enormous social and political unrest. There is no doubt that his aristocratic lineage helped him, but he never made this his crutch, but a tool to advance himself. He was also a hard working man. The sun line on his forehead tells us that he was probably on the field with his workers, supervising them and seeing those things were done right. One of the stories that have come down to us attests to this fact. It was said that when he lived in Mayagüez he would get up at 5:00 AM and accompanied by a young black slave holding a light, would go to his different plantations and personally supervised their progress. He made a fortune, well earned and, as far as we know, legally acquired. He never dabbled in politics in the New World, probably with good reason. He lived in an age of turmoil, change, unrest and fear and made the best of it. He failed and he won. He adapted and refused to adapt. If anything can be said of him is that he could not see the future, but who can? | de Mota, Barbara (P192)
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| 197 | The Obituary Daily Times | Source (S1508299445)
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| 198 | This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. | Source (S-2041842354)
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| 199 | Thomas was a young boy when the apparitions of Knock took place (1870-1880). He was born in Knock and he used to drive a small pony cart to the railroad station at Ballyhaunis to pick up pilgrims that visited the site of the apparitions. He met his future wife, Annie Fergus, at this time. We calculate that he was born about 1868, because he always claimed to be older than his wife and she was 90 probably years old at her death in 1957. | Fitzgerald, Thomas (P213)
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| 200 | tuberculosis | Vidal Y Lacomba, José (P167)
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