Tag Archive for France

Black Catholic History Month: Black Catholics in the South

November 30, 2009 Craig Family History, Genealogy

The notion of black Catholics in the South is not often the subject of much discussion by anyone, anywhere.  The southern United States is frequently thought of as having been settled largely by Scots-Irish and English people, not exactly fans of the Church of Rome.   The South is caricatured as a bastion of Baptists and, if one wants “high church,” Presbyterians.  Beyond that, outsiders think of marginal cult-like Christianity in the South with practices regarded as odd, if not outright ridiculous.   Blacks in the South are stereotyped as Baptists, but rarely thought of as being anything like Catholic.

Of course, these preconceptions fail to serve anyone or respect anybody’s beliefs.   Southern Protestants, black and white, are quite a complex and diverse group.   And southern black Catholics were among the first Catholics in North America.

We have previously discussed St Augustine, Florida, where a black child was baptized by a Catholic priest in 1606.  This was more than a quarter-century before the arrival of the first Catholic settlers in Maryland.

One might reasonably say that the South was the birthplace of black Catholicism.  The geopolitical history of the region beginning in the sixteenth century explains this point.

Near the end of the fifteenth century, the crowns of Aragon and Castile were united by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella.  The unified kingdom had its internal problems to be sure, but the old adage “two crowned heads are better than one” proved true as Aragon-Castile embarked on  a number of imperial expeditions and conquests.  Among these, of course, were successful forays into North America.   At one point, “Spain” [as the merged kingdoms became known popularly] controlled what is now Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and parts of Georgia and Louisiana.

The Spanish brought black slaves with them to Florida in the sixteenth century.   The Spanish viewpoint on slavery was vastly different from that  of their enemies, them British.  The Spanish had white, as well as black slaves, so for the Spanish, slavery was not completely tied up with race.  Furthermore, Spanish law, heavily influenced by the Church, regarded slaves as human beings and not as property.  As a result, Spanish slaves were frequently baptized, permitted to marry, and encouraged to  have families.

Such attitudes were reinforced when the Bourbons took the Spanish Crown in 1700.   The French, too, controlled large areas of southern North America and held similar views  about slavery.  The South was an incubator for Catholicism among blacks.

There are several significant black Catholic locales in the South, other than St Augustine.   The Diocese of Biloxi, Mississippi, though a late 20th century creation, owes its black Cathodic roots to the era of  Spanish rule. The same could be said of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, with respect to the French.

But in the nineteenth century, both Spain and France, otherwise and elsewhere engaged,  lost their  North American territories to Britain and the United States.   As the plantation system spread across the South, the demand for more black labor grew.  French and Spanish laws were replaced by harsh slave codes.  The number of black Catholics dwindled in number and proportion.

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Halloween Census Whacking

October 31, 2009 Craig Family History, Genealogy, Oklahoma, United Kingdom

With the crisis of my father’s recent illness and the minor drama of my own, I feel like I’ve been way out of touch the last two weeks.  It’s time get back into the flow of things.   I thought  little census whacking for Halloween would ease my way back into writing.  So I went hunting for Vampires, Zombies, Ghosts, Ghouls, Goblins, Witches and Pumpkins.

Vampires

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the incidence of Vampires is extremely low in the United States.  In 1880,  four Vampires: Otto; Jean; Julianne; and Mary, all in their twenties, were living in Cheyenne,  Wyoming.  They claimed to be actors. In 1870,  there was just one Vampire in the United States, 26 year-old machinist George Vampire.  Of course he lived in New York City.   What happened to these five Vampires  in the 20th century?  Were they forced to leave or did they on their own just pull out up stakes and leave?

According to the World Names Profiler (WNP), Germany and the United States have the greatest incidence of Vampires in the world.  Germany’s statistic is 0.04 per million, while in the U.S., the figure is 0.01 Vampires per million people.  Regionally, the American Vampires are located in Oklahoma, according to the WNP.  The Sooner state has a Vampire index of 1.04 per million.  With a 2008 estimated population of 3,640,000 or so,  there would be about four Vampires in Oklahoma.   I found in public records three listings in Lawton, Oklahoma, for Madonna Vampire.  Unfortunately for her, there are at least thirty people named Buffy in Oklahoma presently.

Zombies

Nearly all the Zombies in the census records turned out to be mis-transcriptions of other names.  The WNP reports no Zombies in the United States.  Public records reviews show about 14 Zombies in various places around the country.

Ghosts

Kraft Ghost of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and Leonard Ghost of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, both listed on the 1790 federal census appear to be the first two Ghosts in America.  But in the 1900 census, the number of Ghosts expands exponentially.  Most of these “new” Ghosts are Native Americans in the upper Midwest.  The WNP indicates a Ghost index of 18.29 per million in South Dakota and 3.37 per million in Nebraska.  South Dakota’s estimated 2008 population was 804,000, which would yield about 15 Ghosts. Public records reveal about 17 Ghosts in South Dakota (when obvious duplicates are eliminated).

Nebraska’s estimated population is about 1.8 million, suggesting something a bit more than six Ghosts.  I was able to find only one Ghost in Nebraska in public records. The rest seem to have vanished.

And how about Pennsylvania where it seems to have begun for Ghosts in America?   WNP’s Pennsylvania Ghost index is 2.58 per million.   That would mean about 32 Ghosts presently among Pennsylvania’s estimated 12.45 million folks.  I was able to identify 25 Ghosts in Pennsylvania public records after eliminating duplicates and two entries which appeared to refer to religious organizations.

Ghouls

Apparently, the first Ghoul in America was 66 year-old Christian Ghoul of Maryland, a German immigrant.  He appears on the 1870 census.  Few other Ghouls seem to have been counted until the 1900 census, where like the Ghosts, the Ghouls grew rapidly in number.  And like the Ghosts, most of the “new” Ghouls were Indians, living primarily in Tehama County, California.

When it comes to Ghouls, the United States doesn’t even register in the WNP top ten. (Number one is France, with a Ghoul incidence of 4.59 per million; Switzerland is a distant second at 1.92 per million, supporting evidence that the Gauls may be the most Ghoulish people on Earth). (Hey, I just report the facts!)

Within in the U.S., however, Ghouls seem to be concentrated around Las Vegas and Chicago, at least according to the WNP.  Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, and Will County, Illinois, adjacent to Chicago, were the only two counties in which the WNP found any Ghouls at all. Curiously, public records show no Ghouls in Nevada and six in the Chicago area.  Overall, public records indicate something more than 100 Ghouls in America presently, with perhaps as many as 10% of those in California.   This is the biggest disparity I’ve ever seen between WNP data and public records. [The WNP's FAQs state: "All our names and location data are derived from publicly available telephone directories or national electoral registers, sourced for the period 2000-2005."]

Goblins

A man named Goblin was first in recorded in New York City in the 1850 census.  In 1860 there was still just one Goblin on the census and that was 14-year-old Lucinda Goblin who lived with the Davenport household in Columbia, Missouri.  But just 10 years later, the 1870 census showed that three fourths of the (four) Goblins in the USA lived in North Carolina.  By 1900 however, the number of Goblins in America had increased nearly eight-fold to a total of 33, to be found in every region of the country.

Globally, the number of Goblins in the U.S. doesn’t make the slightest statistical ripple, using WNP data.  Number one is France, again, with  0.2 Goblins per million.  The United Kingdom is far, far, behind with 0.02 per million.

Witches

We all know the history of Witch hunts in America. Surprisingly enough however only one Witch appears on the 1790 census and that would be Peter Witch of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (just what is it with Pennsylvania and Lancaster in particular?).  There was also a Witch in Rutledge County, Alabama, in 1790.  By 1900, Witches were routinely enumerated in the census all over the country.  Sadly, two of them were little boys: Jacob Witch, 10 years old, and his brother, Henry Witch five years old, who were apparently in an orphanage in Las Galinas, Marin County, California.

Turns out that there are far more Witches in the U.K. and Canada than in the USA (the only countries reporting any Witches at all).  The British Witch population (0.5 per million) is concentrated in Newport (Casnewydd), Wales, and the southwest jurisdictions of North Somerset, Bath and Northeast Somerset, as well as the City of Bristol.  There are also a few Witches in Surrey.

According to WNP, Manitoba’s  Witch frequency of 2.93 per million accounts for the whole of Canada’s 0.23 per million Witch index. Manitoba has an estimated population of 1.2 million; all of Canada consists of 31.6 million people. Mathematically, that does not work out.  Unfortunately the WNP provincial map of Manitoba gives no further details.

The U.S. Witch frequency is a comparatively minuscule 0.04 per million.  WNP finds Witches concentrated in Dickinson County, Kansas, and Howard County, Maryland.  A public records search reveals about twelve Witches in  the USA (eliminating commercial enterprises like plumbing and construction ["Ditch Witch"] and fast food restaurants [Fish Witch"]).  None of the Witches were found in Kansas and of the two in Maryland, neither was in Howard County.

Pumpkins

John Pumpkin appears as the only one of his surname on the 1820 census.  He lived in Fayette Count, Kentucky.  Virtually no other Pumpkins are found in the census until 1880.  In that year, Pumpkins were concentrated in two areas of the country: Fresno County, California, and Greene County, Georgia.  The latter jurisdiction included a young lady, 15 years old, named  Etta Pumpkin.  Following a pattern that we’ve seen before, the 1900 census showed a huge increase in the number of Pumpkins in America. Again this had to do with the number of Native Americans enumerated on the census in that year.  The Indian Pumpkins were primarily on reservations in the upper Midwest.  By 1910, however, they were concentrated in Madera County, California, and Cherokee County, Oklahoma.  The Oklahoma Pumpkins included one Mary Pumpkin Gritts.

The WNP data shows the expected distribution of Pumpkins in the USA based on historical data.  South Dakota, Montana, and Oklahoma are leading Pumpkin states, based presumably on the frequency of the name among Indians.

Other “Important” News

While I was whacking away on Halloween themes, I started wondering about some other things. Not only did I find unexpected discrepancies with the usually reliable World Names Profiler, but I also now have reason to question the competence of the Census Bureau, whose data report not a single Fool, Clown, or Jackass has ever been enumerated in Washington, D.C.

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Breaking Down A Brick Wall–The Problem with Surnames, Part II

August 12, 2009 Craig Family History, Genealogy

Fifth in a multi-part series

I  had hypothesized that my Gines people were associated with English-speaking people named Gines who came from the West Midlands area.  They came to Virginia and North Carolina and from there moved on to South Carolina and other states of the Deep South, eventually winding up in Louisiana and Texas.   That hypothesis was based on several key facts and assumptions:

  • That Gines was more an English name than anything else;
  • That the “variations” were “mistakes” of spelling or transcription;
  • That there was in fact a migration pattern such as I thought which has been documented;
  • That my Gines people in Louisiana had seemed to have a close relationship with families we know to have come from the Carolinas, such as the Brayboys and LeJays.

All of this made logical sense.  As it turns out, the reality may be much more complex.

I coupled my hypothesized migration pattern with an analysis of surnames for “legitimacy.”  Assuming there’s some validity to the notion, I recognized that the World Names Profiler is not necessarily the state pf the art tool for performing such analysis.  But it works well enough for present purposes here.  In any event, I note that neither “Gines” nor any other of the presumed variants appears in the New Dictionary of American Family Names, an authoritative source.

Without going through all of the analysis again (like all decent science, it’s replicable–try it yourself), here are some conclusions that I drew from the surname analysis:

  • The surname spelled “Gines” is probably overwhelming Spanish, occurring in Spain at a rate five times that of any other country.  (And here is one of the potential issues with the Profiler–it does not give us historical data.  But for established European names not displaced very much, we can probably draw some rough but valid inferences).
  • The name Gines is more likely French than it is English, occurring in France at an average rate more than five times that of the United Kingdom.
  • In the United States, the frequency of the name Gines is 95% of it frequency in France.  The U.S. statistics may be skewed by the large family sizes of LDS members with the name Gines.
  • The rough distribution of Gines-surnamed people seems to follow the five-family group model I have described previously.

So what about the “variations”?  Of course, to use the term “variation,” in some sense suggests that the names are isonyms. The whole issue is whether Gines is a creolization of , let’ say, Guion; or whether Guion is the pidginization of Gines.   The other possibility is that they are completely different names as Green is to Gray.

This is a complicated issue and there are few accessible  rigorous studies on the matter. I will tell what I know from my research. Understand that many of these are broad conclusions with a high degree of ambiguity.

I think that it is clear that “Gines” and “Gynes” as they appear from 1870 on in the United States are the same name–that “Gynes” is a phonetic attempt at “Gines.”  There is no evidence that “Gynes’ occurs anywhere in the U.S. except where “Gines” does or historically has, appeared.

The matter of “Guynes” is rather interesting.  Just looking at it and supposing the English pronunciation, it would appear also to be a phonetic rendering of “Gines.”   Curiously, the name “Guynes” occurs most frequently in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. historically almost always among white people.  In counties where there are whites named Guynes, there are likely to be blacks named “Gines.”  The other curiosity is that as I looked at census records for the states I’ve mentio0ned, I found among the white people named Guynes a high occurence of first names like Edward, Henry, Lewis, and Oscar–all of which occur frequently in the black Gines family! One source says that “Guynes” is not pronounced like “Gines,” but is a variant of the Gowen name.

Now to the name Guion, which is the name  under which we found our subject, the father of Richard Gines.  Guion is clearly a French name.  It is probably not a variation of “Gines.”  I’ve come to the conclusion that the original name of this branch of the family tree was likely “Guion”  (“Guyon” a likely variation).  That of course leaves a couple of big questions.  What makes me conclude that? How did George Guion get his name? And why did his son think the name was “Gines”?  The answers to these questions are all tied up in thee geography and history of Louisiana and Mississippi.  It will take some time to completely unravel that, but I will lay it out as I can over time.  It is fascinating.

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French Genealogy: The Blog

July 10, 2009 Craig Genealogy

I have several reasons to engage in research in France.  Of course, I’ve written a fair amount about “The French Negroes of Illinois.”  And one of the Louisiana lines I work on is the LEJAY (or LEGER/LEGIRE) family, who may be tied to descendants of French Huguenots who landed in South Carolina in the late 17th Century.  These folks in turn may be related to the LeJays of Sancerre, Cher, France.  Finally, there is some little evidence that my GINES line may be connected to a Frenchman, William Guines, who was born in France in about 1813.

In any event, I undertook to teach myself “genealogical French” in order to look at records in French, most especially the church records of Prairie du Rocher, Illinois.

Now I have come across just the right source for those with French genealogy to study.   Anne Morddel is an American living in Paris who publishes a blog called “The French Genealogy Blog.”   A native Californian, Anne has been doing genealogical research for thirty years.  Her blog is full of tips and resources for studying French lineages.

If you have reason to research French records, you’ll want to go visit Anne at The French Genealogical Blog. And note that one of her most recent posts is entitled “Learning Enough French for Genealogy.”

You can also find her here.

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Globalizing the GeneaBlogosphere, Part 2

April 17, 2007 Craig Uncategorized

Christina’s blog, Shaking the Tree, documents her experience with her German heritage. She keeps track of new offerings on Ancestry.de, among other things. Reading her blog could help those with German ancestry in their research. I’ve not got any German ancestors that I know of, but I have occasionally done a bit of German research for others.

I do have French ancestors and I have done some research in a few French resources. I’ve taught myself a bit of “genea-French” [terms one would commonly encounter in French genealogical research] and I’ve studied the geography of present-day and historical France.

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