The Genealogy Gap: August 2017

Busy month… busy life… new birth.

I start out on a personal note… Yes, our long awaited, birth of our second grandchild has arrived. We have a precious, new granddaughter…Abigail. We are so thankful that mother and wee one are healthy and doing well after a few close calls.

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A challenging labor and delivery culminated in an unplanned C-section, as the doctor discovered the problem— a Bandl’s Ring, during the procedure. I have given birth to several children and had never heard of the term. Although, I will not go into details here, but it is apparently rare, and as described to us, it is an obstruction that occurs in the 2nd stage of labor. Here is a quick description through Wikipedia… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandl%27s_ring If you are interested in more information, I am sure there are medical journals or articles for further reading.

I realize that this is not a genealogical theme, but I was taken by the aspects of past childbirths throughout the ages and the sad, high incidences of mother and infant mortality rates we so often read about in our encounters through our genealogical researches. I have personally learned of a few in my own past family history. It certainly, was not, uncommon, back in the day.

So, it is from this perspective that I write.

This personal experience, brought a sobering reality to what so many in the past, have often faced, simply due, to the limited medical knowledge of their time.

In other words, if this condition— Bandl’s Ring, had occurred, in past eras, it is highly probable, mother and infant would have died during childbirth.

I believe it is through the grace of God, and our modern medical technology of today, that our situation, thankfully, resulted with a good outcome.

Despite the fact, that medicine is not always a perfect science, it has certainly come a long way in curing medical conditions, and certainly, preventing death in childbirth.

I am so thankful….

I mentioned in my last post, that in June, I made a list of U.S. records I was missing to document my research, and the places in which to order them. Last month, I ordered a total of four records: A marriage, and birth record from the state of Florida, which I received the last weeks of July, and a marriage and death Record from New York City, which I received the first week of August. I can now add these document copies to my family information in my Legacy Family Tree Genealogy software. Now, I turn to abroad, as my focus.

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As you know, my research focus has been in Cuba, for all four of my family lines— La Habana in the province of Havana, for my Valuja/Baluja and Hernandez families and the city of Cardenas, in the province of Matanzas, for my Matos and Trujillo families.

I only have a few generations that were born in Cuba, and to find what countries our ancestors originally came from, I must first locate any documentation from within Cuba and then work backwards from that point. When I began, my limited knowledge of Cuba, was, one, that it was located about 90 miles south of Key West, Florida, and, two, both of my parents were born there, as well as all their extended family with very few exceptions.

My father’s oldest sibling, his sister, Mercedes, my Aunt Icha, whom I loved, dearly, was born in Ybor City, in Tampa, Florida in 1913. Ironically, she was the only one born in the United Staes, until my birth, many decades later. There were a total of four children born to my paternal grandparents, Juan Valuja and Maria Hernandez.

Juan, was a cigar-maker, from La Habana, who traveled to Tampa from Cuba, in the early 1900’s with his friend, Francisco Hernandez, from Quivican, a small town in the southern part of Habana, he also, was a cigar maker and businessman, who frequently traveled from Cuba to several port cities. Francisco, or Pancho, as he was often called by family and friends, introduced his sister, Maria, to my grandfather. She had also traveled to Tampa at some point, to help care for her brother and sister-in-law’s children. They soon married, and had their first child, my Aunt ‘Icha’.

In a few, short years, in 1915, for some unknown reason, they returned to Cuba to live. My Grandmother, was more than 8 months pregnant with my aunt Margarita (Margot), another dear aunt, I so loved, when they sailed back on a ship, sometime in July or August, and it is said, they encountered turbulent weather due to a Hurricane in the vicinity. The rest of the children, including my dad, were born in La Habana, between 1915 and 1920, however, I am not sure if it was in the town of Marianao, like my grandfather, or Bejucal, as I still need to pinpoint that detail. When I have asked, I have been told, La Habana, but as we all know, that is a large area. :)

In August of 2012, I wrote a blog post in an attempt to begin to piece together the few bits of information I had about my grandfather and the years he spent in Tampa, Florida ‘The Quest for My Grandfather's Footsteps' Part 1 ~ 'Searching Ybor City'.
It is a series that I do hope to continue, although, it has already been, unbelievably, five years.
Part 2 is slightly overdue, but I do have some new information that I will write about in a future post.