Re: Filipino relatives in the US
-
In reply to:
Re: Filipino relatives in the US
11/21/00
Marhay na aldaw! And happy thanksgiving!
>So your ancestry is from Camarines Sur also?
My ancestors come from all parts of the Philippines, but yes, Camarines Sur is one of them.
>With re: to your own research in
>Libmanan, am I to understand then you were >able to do all that thru the Mormon Family
>w/o having to go the the Philippines?
That's correct.Since the 1970's the Mormonshave been putting almost all the church books (baptismals, deaths, confirmations, marriages, censuses) in the Philippines on microfilm.
The microfilm has been made available to everyone... Including non-Mormons like me.Wherever there are Mormons, it's certain that they have a Family History Center.They can order the microfilm for you -- which takes anywhere from 11 days to a couple of months -- for $3.75 per microfilm.
You have to be sure of which timeline because you only a few books (maybe 10-20 years worth of records) are worth...
The benefit are of course you don't have to travel to the Philippines.. I did my research (and will continue in the future) at a small Mormon Center in Tacoma, Washington.
But there are some disadvantages... The church may have burnt down in WWII or a priest may have ran away with the church books.You will also run into pages with lots of water damage, tornand termite-eaten pages... I have run into this myself, but fortunately not on my ancestors' records.Faded pages are a big problem too.
Also, if and when you go about this... get some practice in reading old Spanish Handwriting.. The priests wrote in a very fancy way ... At first mahirap basahin.. but you should get used to it.. sanay ako doon.
>there, I'm wondering if it was a consequence >of the Spanish authorities ruling in the >19th century that assigned Spanish surnames >to native Filipinos by geographic location. >I.e. did my ancestors proliferate so easily >or was there a mass name conversion?
[By the way type ALT+0241 to get ñ, use the numberpad for the +0241]
First off.. the Clavería edict did not assign Spanish surnames.. It demanded that the Filipinos have a consistent way of surnames... There were too many de los Santoses and de la Cruzes - i.e. religious surnames - running around.and many did survive the edict.But the rule was unevenly encorced... The Bicol region was one of the places where it was forced the most.
Well I hope this was of some help to you, if you need any questions don't hesitate to ask me.. I enjoy answering people's questions about genealogy.
--Chris