Baptism in Paoay during the Feast of the Epiphany

Between today and 2060, the Feast of the Epiphany (or, of the Three Kings), January 6 will again be a Sunday in 2019, 2030, 2036, 2041, 2047, and 2058.  We can go up till the end of the century using the periodic count of 6, 5, 6, 11, which means that there will be spans when that Sunday comes at the 11th year from the last; for example, 2019 and 2030.

Thus, only during those years when the 6th falls on a Sunday that, counting from 25 December, the twelfth night of Christmas occurs on the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany.  When the Church moved the feast to the first Sunday that follows January 1, the days of Christmas have been reduced.

Our generation grew up with twelve days of Christmas, and we knew the holiday was over when the Melchor, Gaspar and Balthazar of barrio Alusiis of our hometown led the barrio fiesta parade around the town astride native horses.

January 6 on a Sunday, just like any other Sunday in the Roman Catholic Church during the Spanish times, was baptismal day.

Gaspar, Balthazar & Melchor baptized on 06 January, 1799 at the Paoay Church.

The baptismal records of Paoay, Ilocos Norte that date back to 1787 reveal a very interesting practice of the Augustinian cura parroco during the Hispanic years. We surmise that it was he, not the parents, who gave the names of the children during their baptismal day. On each particular christening day, boys would have the same name; likewise, the girls, whether they were a day or less than a week old.  Boys baptized on Christmas Day or New Year would be named Manuel, and the girls Manuela.   

For niños on whose heads the cura would apply the holy oil on January 6, he christened them Melchor, Gaspar and Balthazar; and for the niñas, the feminine derivative of the magi names.  Shown above is representative baptismal page from the records of Paoay, which we photographed from microfilm images at the Family History Center of the Mormons on Temple Drive, Quezon City. 

We scoured these records because Ilocanos from this town, our ancestors, moved to Zambales around 1838 and became the core of founders of the town of San Narciso.


Reference:

Bautismos, Paoay, Ilocos Norte.  Microfilm. Family History Center, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Temple Drive, Quezon City.

 

How Narciso Claveria altered our genealogical chart ...

This may help Filipinos configure their genealogical trees specially if they fail to find some ancestral links before 1850.  Hopefully though, the baptismal and matrimonial records of their hometown Roman Catholic churches are all preserved in microfilm at the Family Research Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS or Mormons, for short) to help them out. 

  

In our case, the church records of the San Sebastian Church of San Narciso, Zambales are still there on top of the convent shelves, now very brittle and gathering dust, some pages burned by acidic ink or mangled by generations of termites.  Fortunately, these were microfilmed sometime in the ‘60s or ‘70s; thus, we were able to read the extant bautismos, matrimonios and defuntos of the Hispanic period of our town’s history starting from 1849, when the church was built.

However, records of our ancestors when San Narciso was the Ilocano barrio Alasis or Alasiis attached to the Zambal town of Cabangaan (now Cabangan), and was a visita of that parish around 1836-1838 to 1849, are forever lost.

Folk lore tells that our town was formed by settlers from Paoay, Ilocos Norte.  The microfilmed baptismal and marriage records of this town's St Augustine of Hippo Church confirmed that our forebears really came from there.

One thing was clear:  there was no Farin among the surnames of Paoay folks before the Ilocano migration in the 1830s and 1840s to the coastal plain of Zambales between Cabangan town and the barrio that later evolved into Castillejos town.  Into this plain also settled Sur and Norte Ilocanos whose barrios would become San Marcelino, San Antonio and San Felipe.

The name of one woman started our journey of discovery through the Paoay records.  She was our great-great-greatgrandmother, Ana Gonong, who, in the Zambales records, was married to Carlos Farin.

She was born on 24 July 1804.  We stumbled on her other siblings in the Paoay baptismal files--Damiana (23 September 1806) and Andrea (24 November 1811)—and in the matrimonial books—Santiago, Petrona, Francisca and Venancio.   They were children of a well-off couple Don Pasqual Gonong and Doña Pasquala Bernabe who belonged to the barangay of Don Pasqual Concepcion (their names suggest they were baptized on a Sunday that was a Christmas day).

Matrimonial record of Don Carlos de Dios and Dna Ana Gonong, 03 Jun 1822, Paoay, Ilocos Norte.

That an Ana Gonong married a Carlos de Dios on 03 June 1822 in the Paoay books jolted our memory to an antique document signed by the cura parroco of Paoay attesting that he baptized Juan de Dios, son of the couple, on 10 Mar 1828.  That document is being kept by an aunt in California who remembers being told by her father, also a Juan, patriarch of our youth, that this de Dios changed his surname to Farin.  They also had an older son, the earliest Juan, who was baptized on 24 May 1823.

Carlos descended from another well-off family, Don Manuel de Dios and Dna Sebastiana Abad.  He was born on 02 November 1803.

One link was finally found:  the Geronimo Farin line to which we belong started from the Carlos de Dios-Ana Gonong matrimony in Paoay, Ilocos Norte.   Carlos Farin and Ana Gonong were listed as abuelos paternos (paternal grandparents) of Geronimo’s children born after 1865 (baptismal records did not have abuelos in the earlier years).

Claveria declared, “[f]amilies who can prove that they have kept for four generations their surname, even though it may be the name of a saint, but not those like de la Cruz, de los Santos, and some others which are so numerous that they would continue producing confusion, may pass them on to their descendants; the Reverend Fathers and the heads of provinces are advised to use their judgement in the implementation of this article.”  The last clause suggests why not all the de Dios in San Narciso at that time switched to Farin.

Baptism of Manuel Farin Eugenio, 27 Jul 1851, as recorded in the San Narciso, Zambales church files. He was the son of Modesto Farin Eugenio and Francisca Gonong,

When we found Andrea and Francisca Gonong, we remembered that these names are in two other Farin lines in our town, both of which we were able to establish as both Eugenio on the paternal side, finally configuring relationships through the church records of San Narciso and Paoay.   

It baffled that there was only Francisca in the Eugenio family line before 1849.  She married Modesto Eugenio, son of another well-off couple, Don Manuel Eugenio and Doña Paula Evangelista in the Paoay records, on 11 April 1842.  When Manuel was born to Modesto and Francisca in San Narciso, he was baptized Manuel Farin Eugenio on 27 July 1851.

Ana could have convinced Modesto Eugenio and her sister Francisca to adopt their new Farin surname as well even if the Eugenio surname was not in the banned list or those that were “so numerous.”  Could  Ana and Francisca have contrived to perpetuate their sisterhood by this new surname?  During the Spanish regime, men and women carried their given names to the grave; women did not assume their husbands’ surnames.  Ana and Francisca could have thought then that their Gonong link would be preserved among future generations through their common stamp, the Farin surname.

Juan (surnamed Farin Eugenio in post-1849 records of San Narciso),brother of Modesto, married Eduarda Fontillas de los Santos (as also recorded), and their son Mariano was born and baptized in San Narciso in December 1851.  

Mariano, son of Juan Farin Eugenio and Eduarda Fontillas de los Santos, was baptized on 07 Dec 1851 at the San Sebastian Church, San Narciso, Zambales.  Before he turned 20, he married Nicolasa Guieb, daughter of Bonifacio Guieb and Andrea Gonong.

Since Modesto’s son Manuel was baptized a Farin Eugenio earlier in July, would it not be appropriate to have Mariano be baptized a Farin Eugenio as well?  It could have been Modesto urging his brother Juan to do so.

Mariano Farin Eugenio would, sometime in the late 1860s, marry Nicolasa Guieb, daughter of Bonifacio Guieb and Andrea Gonong.  Andrea was, serendipitiously, the aunt of his uncle Modesto Farin Eugenio's children. 

“In the lists that will be made for the cabecerias, in order to complete the register later,” the Claveria decree stated, ”each person shall indicate (a) his baptismal name, followed by the new surname which may be assigned to him, and (b) the name which, until then may have served him as surname, leaving him free to retain this as long as he wishes.”

The Eugenio and the de Dios surnames were not retained for long. 

This genealogical map was constructed from baptismal and matrimonial records of San Sebastian Church, San Narciso, Zambales and St Augustin of Hippo Church, Paoay, Ilocos Norte.  These records are in microfilms at the Family History Center, Philippine Temple of the Mormon Church in Quezon City.  The core of the Farin map comprises the descendants from the union of three Gonong sisters with gentlemen from the Eugenio and De Dios families

It was under the regime of Gov. Gen. Narciso Claveria that the Ilocano barrios of Cabangan were constituted into a new town in 1846, and it was also under him that many genealogies were altered because of his 1849 decree urging for the change of surnames.

Thus, there exists today kinships on nominal terms (sharing the same surname) or on true bloodlines. In this story, we have gone as far as tracing the Gonong roots.  We have yet to flesh the Eugenio and De Dios sides of the big Farin umbrella.

References:

1.  Manuscripts in films at the Family History Center, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Temple Drive, Quezon City: 

• Registros parroquiales, 1758-1979 of the Conversion of St Augustine of Hippo Catholic Church, Paoay, Ilocos Norte.

• Registros parroquiales, 1849-150 of the San Sebastian Catholic Church, San Narciso Zambales.

2.  Decree of 21 November 1849. Retrieved from http://www.zahlerweb.info/pm/claveria.htm

In search of our Ylocano ancestors

Source:  Family History Center, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,13 Temple Drive, Greenmeadows Subd., QC

For the past three weeks we've been poring through baptismal, marriage and burial records of the San Sebastian church of our hometown in Zambales, and these are in six reels of microfilms at the Family History Center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) on 13 Temple Drive, Greenmeadows Subdivision, Quezon City.   

We've looked at the real antique documents, all written in Spanish, two or three years ago, but some of the books had deteriorated due to age and the effect of acidic ink on paper, and we were not able to retrieve all the information we would need for our paternal and maternal genealogies starting from 1849 when the church was established in our town.  Hence, we've been enjoying the very friendly assistance of the Family History Center staff esp. Sister J and Veronica in our ancestral search.  They told us that some researchers had done their genealogies for several generations dating as far back as the 1700s.  This is possible since the LDS had all available church records and civil registrations across the country photographed in the 1970s.

We've checked if we can trace back to Paoay, Ilocos Norte, where our ancestors are said to have come from in the late1830s, when Gov-Gen Narciso Claveria approved their migration to the central part of Zambales. But that would entail scouring 12 reels of Paoay church records covering the period 1780-1891!

We thought may be we can go as far as what the Center has done for Jose Rizal (see photo).  There's a big framed copy of this right beside the microfilm readers that has the hero and his siblings at the bottom and more ancestors in their maternal side. They've also done President Noynoy Aquino's ancestry (it's not on display), and it surprised us to know that he also has a Chinese ancestor in his paternal side.

Our search has also yielded interesting insights into the cultural and social structure of those times.

The baptismal records prior to 1865 only indicated the parents of the child, but from then on, the documents had both the paternal and maternal grandparents. The child either had a padrino if he's a boy, or a madrina if he's a girl, ninong or ninang, as we're more familiar with.  One has to deduce the birth date from the phrase that says the child was baptized on the given date "so many days after birth."

In the case of weddings, the bride and groom had only a pair of testigos (witnesses), a man and a woman, and this was true up to the last entry of our reference document (1880-1950).

The baptismal documents confirm that there was no such thing as "reproductive health" during the Spanish regime.  We've been looking at probably teen-age marriages, and couples bearing children while their eldest ones were giving birth as well, meaning some grandchildren older or as old as their uncles or aunts.

It's sad but health care was not also adequate. There was high mortality rate among the children due to fever or dysentery.  Among the adults (and there were young widows or widowers), deaths were attributed to fever, tuberculosis, pasmo (which we read as heart attack), head and stomach ache, and vejez (old age). 

We're engaged in writing the history of our town.  In the founding document of 1846, there were just seven barangays.  From the church records, we noted that these have grown to 32 by 1895.  What's interesting was the seeming exclusivity of becoming a cabeza de barangay among the principalia families.  If the cabeza died, the eldest succeeded him in accordance with the Law of Good Governance.  With the population and economic growth, barangays were split, and we noted that other brothers also became cabezas.  By the 1890s, grandsons along with their father or uncles had become cabezas as well of different barangays.  The so-called political dynasties of the present time are nothing new then?

It may take years before anyone can do their family trees using digitized genealogical data from LDS, and for those interested to check what has been stored so far, they can do an initial search survey by going to Family Search web page.  The site can tell what reference documents in microfilm are available for a particular time and place in the country (or the world), and what Family History Center is nearest to the searcher. 

Centers are open not only to LDS members but also to the public Tuesdays (8am to 4pm) to Saturdays (8am to 2pm).  These past weeks we've helped other searchers read their reference documents from Cavite, Bulacan, Masbate and Bohol.