Sunday, January 27, 2013

Vasquez Family History


I have noticed that there are some searches for Vasquez family history on the blog.  So I will try to address this briefly now.

I have tried to find information in Malfa about the Vasquez family.  My grandmother's sister Jennie Cincotta, married Onofrio Vasquez, and my Great Great Grandmother, Giovanna was a Vasquez, married to Gaetano Cafarella, both living in Capofaro in the first half of the 19th century.  I think that this is the family member that my grandmother had to kneel to and kiss her ring, but that is not a sure thing.  The interesting thing is that her husband was a shoemaker, that the family seemed to have owned a store of some kind and I was told by an elderly shop keeper in Santa Marina, that they were famous for wine and honey at one time.  This seems like a strange juxtaposition of people, aristocracy and shoemaker.  Of course people had to be multi-talented to survive in such a remote spot and such a tiny economy. (They had their real boom economy about this time, but it was not really in full swing for some time.)
I have recently discovered that the church at Capofaro where they lived was referred to as the Vasquez church, indicating the intimate relationship with this area.
Uncle Jake had some training as a shoemaker when he was there as a youth around the turn of the century. 
Vasquez is not an extremely common name in the islands.  There are a few in Malfa.  I spoke to two Vasquez brothers and they looked over the family tree to see if they recognized anything.
We had no luck however.
The problem is, that only a few people ever really get the genealogy bug, and those who have lived for generations in a place like Malfa, often-times do not ever think about it.  They have all the tools to trace these people, but never do it.
These brothers were interested in finding relatives that moved to Boston, and had a flower shop of some kind.  I could find nothing, but I still hope I will find them in old directories sometime.
I am still hoping I will find a lead sometime and will report it when I do, so keep checking.  Meanwhile, if anyone out there has any more information than I have, please let me know.  Also, If you would like to do a little research of your own, I can tell you how to find phone numbers and addresses in the islands if you drop me a line.
One of the big issues is that there are so many Spanish and Latino Vasquez families in the US, that searches are very difficult to perform without millions of results on line.

No comments: