Maternal Roots - Spanish Origins
In which Teófilo explores a bit of his (mostly) documented maternal roots in Spain and 17th-20th century Puerto Rico.
For reasons that should be obvious by now, I have more information and memories from Mom’s side of the family than from Dad’s. I grew up with her. Mom and her parents played key protagonist roles in my life until I left home forever 20 years after my birth. Her last names were Vélez and Pérez and for a while I used those last names myself in school though not on other documents which confused me - the first of many confusions I faced in my life.
My beloved grandfather Don Pedro was surnamed Vélez and Irizarry. Let me start with those lineages.
Deep Spanish Roots
“Vélez” (also spelled or misspelled “Bélez, Beles, Véliz, Veles, Vila, Viles” and many others) is a surname of Visigothic provenance, originally “Walla” which means “war” but may also mean “guard” (as in one who stands guard) or “vigilant.” As you may know, the Visigoths invaded the Iberian Peninsula after the fall of the Roman Empire, but then chose to Romanize, beginning the historical arc of the Romance languages in the older Latin Hispania: Castilian, Leonés, Aragonés, Catalán, Galician, and Portuguese. The suffix “-ez” in Spanish means “son (or daughter) of” in the same way the suffix “-son” is added to many English names to make them surnames, i.e. “Johnson” is “son of John” or “Peterson” is “son of Peter.” Therefore, “Vélez” means “son of Vela (or “Walla”).
Today’s largest concentration of Vélez-surnamed people in Spain are found in the Spanish autonomous communities of Andalusia, Castille, and Catalonia.
A Vélez Manor once stood in Navarra, rebuilt as a hostel today, in the town of Iguzquiza. Navarra is part of the Basque Country the significance of which will become clear later but for now, considering its antiquity and localization, my working hypothesis is that this is “ground zero” for my Vélez lineage in Spain and that from Navarra they dispersed across all of Spain. Complicating matters, surname switching might have taken place, where children assumed their mother’s surname instead of their father’s, as it might have been the case in our line.
A Vélez Family Tree of Biblical Proportions
I have identified Diego Vélez and his wife María de Rivera as the ones who emigrated from Spain to Puerto Rico sometime in the 18th century. Diego and María are mentioned in the marriage records of his son, Pablo Bélez y de Rivera (born in about 1766 either in Spain or in Añasco (a-NYAHS-coh), a town in northwestern Puerto Rico and Olaya Acevedo in Moca (MOH-cah), Puerto Rico in 1787. Pablo will in turn be the father of Pablo Vélez Acevedo, born in Moca in about 1794. A Moca land registry has him and Diego, his father (or a brother?) buying land in Moca in 1824. This Pablo would marry María Ana (or Mariana) Miranda Orta of Añasco, a town that was also a port of entry for ships coming from either Spain, or internally from San Juan, or San Germán. I posit Añasco is where the Vélez people came through in Puerto Rico, one branch going down Puerto Rico’s western coast often employing themselves in trade or business, while another branch - my branch - headed eastward into the fertile mountains to work the land.
Pablo Vélez Acevedo and María Ana Miranda Orta will be the parents of eight children, among them Juan Nepomuceno Vélez Miranda born in San Sebastián del Pepino (SAHN seh-bahs-TIAHN dehl peh-PEEH-noh), a town next to Moca in the Puerto Rican west-central mountain range, in or about 1827 according to his death certificate. He will go on to have 10 children with María Isabel Colón López of Adjuntas (ad-HOON-tahs), another mountain town, his wife of record. He also had three children out of wedlock with Juana Torres Martínez.
Juana Torres’ daughter, Juana Vélez, would migrate to Hawaii in the early 20th century in search of better opportunities. She started a whole new branch of the family in Hawaii. Most of her descendants then moved to the US mainland later in the century, reconnecting with the rest of their Vélez family who were in awe of them. (A branch of my Vega family also did the same thing with very similar results. I have a constellation of Filipino-Rican Vega cousins born in Hawaii).
…and down to my grandfather…
Don Juan Nepomuceno would not live to see the 20th century. He would die in Adjuntas of “chlorotic-anemia” in 1890, an illness characterized by a great reduction in hemoglobin out of proportion to the decreased number of red blood cells (Source). It’s often caused by intestinal parasites and it’s almost unknown today in developed countries including Puerto Rico.
One of the 10 children Don Juan Nepomuceno and María Isabel had, Manuel Florentino Vélez Colón, who later dropped his first name because, for unknown reasons, all his male siblings also had the first name “Manuel,” was born in the town of Lares (LAH-rehs, next to San Sebastián) in 1881, denoting a continued move eastwards through the mountain zone by Don Juan Nepomuceno and his brood.
Florentino became known as “Don Flor” or “Papa Flor.” He would marry Cayetana Irizarry in 1896. They went on to have 6 children, among them my maternal grandfather Don Pedro, born in the San Patricio ward of rural Ponce in 1907.
Every male Vélez ancestor down to my grandfather Don Pedro worked the land. Don Pedro would become a transitional figure, as he would be the last one who worked the land and started working in heavy industry, much later…
The Irizarry Line
I don’t want to finish this section without talking briefly about the Irizarry line. This last name is Basque in origin. Their manor house was also located in Navarra, in the town of Igantzi, not far (relatively speaking) from the Vélez Manor in Iguzquiza. This closeness to each other makes me think that’s the reason so many Vélez and Irizarry people intermarried in Puerto Rico since the 18th century: because they saw each other as kindred people.
“Irizarry” means either “Old Town” or “Stone Town” though there are discussions about other meanings and origins (Source). You may find it spelled many different ways which I’ll spare you. I have been able to trace this line all the way to the Basque Country of Spain and of southern France in the 16th century. To make a long story short, every Irizarry descendant in Puerto Rico comes from the same stock and we’re all related. We’re all cousins.
The Irizarry lineage also blended several other family lines connecting us to the Spanish founding families of Puerto Rico, including the Ponce de León - he of the Florida and “Fountain of Youth” fame and various others. Through Ponce de León we’re connected to Spanish and European nobility, going to prove that money, influence, fame, and bragging rights dilute with each generation.
Today, the Irizarry Manor in Navarra is known as “Irrisarri Land.” It’s an adventure park aimed at family recreation. Once a year, Irizarry descendants from all over the world converge on the park and celebrate “World Irizarry Day.” One day, I will visit.