Forgotten gravestones in the Basque Country

Previously... 

I had the opportunity to visit Barcus and Esquiule last​ year, their churches, graveyards and town halls. But only Marie Larrory was supposed to be buried there (Marianne Etchegoren migrated with her family shortly after Marguerite Lerdou was born). Unfortunately she was not in the grave of the present-day Larrory and she could be buried in one of the many unkept headstones which names are almost completely erased. 

We waited for the town hall to open and asked for information regarding these tombs. They had none, the oldest records went missing a long time ago and recommended to try to identify them by gravestone rubbing. They were many headstones in this pitiful condition and we were only there for the day. I guess a collaborative restoration and indexing project is in order.

Carved in stone? Cemeteries and headstones as a Genealogical resource.

When you start playing rock-paper-scissors, you may intuitively consider the paper as the weakest element and the rock as the strongest. But the beauty of the game is showing that all three elements are just as resistant. It just depends on how we use them.

Unless you are very very lucky, you've been there, you've seen the paper trail vanish in front of your eyes: lost baptismal books, torn marriage records, missing pages of a notary's archives, whole churches burned to the ground (yeah, thank you, Carlist Wars) or plain and simple bureaucratic stupidity.

But of course, silly me! It is just paper! So you consider using a tougher material. After all, that is the whole purpose of a headstone: eternity.

Some headstones display a lot of information, besides the usual dates of birth and death, and the FAN (Friends And Neighbors) strategy can uncover even more data. Moreover, if you are well versed in the subject of funerary art, you could even come up with an accurate profile of the family's socioeconomic status. So, again, the strength of this resource depends on how we use it, but also, the cultural context of our ancestors, and our own.

I've had avoided cemeteries as much as possible. In my culture (catholic-based but no more, extremely urban and obsessed with youth), you can easily ignore they even exist. But then I visited France and found myself walking around the well kept graves by the church of a village in Alsace. They didn't have tons of information but many had those telling details of lives well lived and suddenly, I didn't find it so gloomy. Then, it became easier, and, given the chance, I would visit the cemetery whenever I visit a village.

But when it comes to bigger towns, it is a whole other story. If they are not glamorous historical places where you can find A-list celebrities like Oscar Wilde in Pére Lachaise, Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir together in Montparnasse or Evita Peron in Recoleta, they can be quite sad.

Left: Oscar Wilde in Pere Lachaise, Paris. Center: Jean Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir in Montparnasse, Paris.
Right: Eva Duarte de Perón in Recoleta, Buenos Aires.

But again, what are the chances of finding your great grand uncle buried next to Jim Morrison? (Hopefully, very low, the place is a mess).

Their big advantage is that they usually have an administrator, databases, a direct phone number and an e-mail address (seems obvious? Well, some of them don't). So when I started to work in Genealogy and ran out of resources to find information about that narrow time-frame between my elder's memories and public available data, I had to chose rock. Luckily, at least two of the main branches of my tree had established in the same town back in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina (and their cemetery has an institutional e-mail address!).

I wrote my first email asking about my Sosas 8 and 9 with estimated dates and got an immediate reply from the administrator. 8 was there, and I got an exact date of death, but 9 wasn't (she was quite a character, actually). I've continued to email for information about other ancestors so I could ask the civil registry for death certificates, which were free of charge if you can provide the exact date (if you can't, you can pay, they will take your money and still not search for the records). I was filling the information gap faster than ever (except for my dear Margherite, who's date of death was missing).

Later the same year, I had the opportunity to go home and took my parents to a Genealogy road trip to our ancestor's town. Long story short: the copy machine of the civil registry was broken (so, logically, no searches), there was nobody in charge of the records in the church and the café across the main square was closed for mourning. Everything seemed to point out in the same direction. So we finally visited the cemetery. My contact was on vacation but I got a glimpse of how they had their files organized: a big poster with the coordinates of the parcels and an excel sheet that can only be opened in a very old PC that runs on Windows 3.11. Of course they have the original books but when we don't know the dates, it will take them too long to find what we need.

Big deal! All the information is carved in stone, right? Well, maybe initially it is, but sometimes headstones or metal plaques are removed, changed and summarized, losing all those telling details a database can never reflect.

To be continued... in France and Italy...

The Etxe strategy

Previously... La theorie de l'escargot.

Recap: After one unsuccessful attempt, one not even tried, and one shortcut, I found a way to leave the comfort zone and try a new technique to search for Marianne's hometown. Voici, la Etxe!

Esquiule is part of the Basque Country and for the Basque culture, the father's house (maison in French, Etxe in Basque) remains in the family for many generations, if not forever. This way, the houses become lieu-dit or landmarks and sometimes the street also carries the family name. There could easily be a Maison Etchegoren nearby.

So where in the area may the Etchegoren house be? According to Google maps, there is a maison Etchegoren and belongs to Barcus, the closest town to the West. This house is also mapped in the cadastre (a map that registers the properties of a certain district). 

Right: Cadastre of one of the districts of Barcus. Left: detail with the maison Etchegoren and neighbours.

I browsed the Tables Decenales of Barcus around 1818 for the birth of Marianne (who was 34 years old at the time Marguerite was born) and the next decade for her wedding. I found a Marie Etchegoren in 1815 (math was not their forte, or they really liked to lie about their age) and the wedding in 1843 of Gabriel Lerdou Hilarreguiborde with a 27-year-old Marie Etchegoren (born about 1816). Was she the same person?

Fortunately, the mayor of Barcus in charge of writing down the act clears this out for us: "Marie surnomée (a.k.a) Marianne Etchegoren". Both acts also name Marianne's parents: Benoit Etchegoren and Marie Larrory.

The marriage record has an extra hint. Before the name of her mother, there is the particle "feue" which means the late (as in deceased). Marie Larrory had died before her daughter's wedding and I found her death record in 1838, she was 51 years old but the only information of filiation is regarding her husband and his house.

This was a new opportunity to test the Etxe theory: Google it, or even better, Cadastre it. The house of Larrory is literally down the road (take another look to the detail in the picture).

Unfortunally, the Tables Decenales don't go back in time forever and neither does the civil registry.

But, it is still to be continued...

La theorie de l'escargot...

Previously... Un ticket pour Pau, s'il vous plait.

Recap: I had traced Margherite Lerdou all the way back to Esquiule, France, where she was born and cofirmed the names of her parents: Gabriel Lerdou Hilarreguiborde, born in Esquiule, and Marianne Etchegoren, born elswhere. Seems like I will be heading... Elswhere.

Leaving your comfort zone is not easy, but since you are already there, you might as well get something done. So I tried my old trick of Geopatronyme for the Etchegoren lastname but with only 5 hits between 1891-1915, the distribution was not going to mean much.

There was an even older trick, that I hadn't used before, and that some experts like to call “L'escargot”. No, it doesn't mean it will take forever to search for records in other towns, quite the contrary. We grab a map of the area and we pin the last known residence of the person (in this case was Esquiule, where Marianne gave birth to Margherite), that will be the center of our cloud of possible hometowns. Then, it is pretty much like connecting the dots, we draw a line to the closest town and the next dot should be as close to the center as possible (you will probably end drawing a snail, which I hate so I don't care about representing them correctly).

It does seem logical and sometimes it works. But we must keep in mind the circumstances in terms of Geography and History. What if there are mountains (like in this particular area) and towns are better connected by the roads of the valley than across the mountains? What if there was an exodus towards the cities?! Which cities?!! Where they moving east to reach the Mediterranean, or west, towards the harbours of the Atlantic to migrate to the Americas???
Don't panic, there is still one more trick that I learnt later and should work very well for those researching their Basque roots.

To becontinued... NOW!

How to use Twile for Genealogical Research

Twile is a website where you can upload your tree and create timelines for your family. It is free and accepting feedback. Speak now or forever wonder why you cannot find what you need.

As soon as I learned this tool became free, I signed up and started to test it. I had been waiting for a tool that would not only list my ancestor's events (birth, residence, marriage, death, etc) in chronological order, but also, put their lives in context.

Location, location, location.

I had used the maps where you can pin down the events geographically, which gives you a nice idea of the cultural origins, migrations and clues about where else to find records. But it became clear, early enough, that the town where my great-grandmother grew up, although in the same geographical spot, was not the same in which her daughter grew up, nor where her grand daughters were born. And you should see it now, because you can, if you go to Google Maps and use the street view tool. But how about then ? And when is then exactly ?

« You are forgetting the fourth dimension, Marty ».

Time is the key resource when using Twile. You sign up, upload your tree (even transfer from FamilySearch, although it has some issues with « special » characters, like simple accents) and you chose the Timeline view, which you can customize to suit your needs. At least some of them for the moment.

So, what's in the timeline ?

The most basic information would be the recognizable fields you already have in your tree (mainly birth, marriage and death), and then you can add milestones (education, voyages, prices, recruitment, etc).

You can chose to display the timeline of either one person, you and your direct family and, the whole tree (meaning everybody you have transferred or uploaded). So, for example, you could visualize how the events of two houses occur in parallel until their children get married ; or whether the length of generations is even among branches.

Context, context, context.

But what makes it really stand out is the possibility of adding historical events, this is what really gives you context. However, it is highly biased towards USA history. You do get WWI and WWII events and Inventions, which I emphatically recommend to understand why there are no pictures of your 5x grandfather's car (no, not even on Instagram).

Screen capture of several juxtaposed branches (from Argentina, Spain and Italy)...
plus the invention of the car.

I decided not to be shy and send them some direct feedback (down right corner talking balloon that reads Talk to us) and they answered later by email (not a bot!) : they are working on it (already aware of the special character's problem) ... and they are open to suggestions.

Make History Yours

So I started to brainstorm (with me, myself and I, these gals are nuts...) some ideas and I'm still pondering whether I should share them and how. Here are some of them:

• Go Global: of course, world, country or regional history are the first things to add (no-brainers, no umbrellas required). 
• Contemporaneous but not mixed: I would also like to display the lines of different branches in parallel so if they their origins are different you can customize their historical events (say Italians and Irish). 
• Stop clutter: The ability to narrow the time-frame or the branch we want to display would be useful too (maybe it is there, I haven't seen it, I know you can delete events but didn't dare to) to avoid clutter. And export or print would be nice too (the image was a screen capture).

Considering that it is a free tool, and hoping it stays as such, it should be able to profit from user generated content, which users can upload and share, evaluate and improve, like packs of events for a specific purpose (fashion, political movements, musical trends, etc). Let's also go wiki and encourage the experts to validate content.

Those were just the first raindrops of the brainstorm. 

Try Twile, send feedback and let's go dance in the rain.

Mind Map my Research

Genealogists may come in all shapes and sizes but if there is one thing we have in common is our thirst for knowledge. As such, some of us have learnt on the go and keep looking for opportunities to learn new techniques and improve the quality of our research.

I came across a great opportunity this year to test my methods and get everything straight from the beginning. I joined a free MOOC at FutureLearn called Genealogy : Researching YourFamily Tree.

I wanted to share one of the concepts that were discussed very early during week 2 : Mind mapping.

Mind mapping is a graphic way to organize your ideas hierarchically and experts like veteran genealogist (his words) Ron Arons are using it to improve their research.

Yes, it does sound like we've been doing this for years one way or the other but, sometimes, we've been restricted by space, or our system is far from reproducible, or we just simply don't like to doodle.

Don't panic ! There is an app for that, many, actually, some free and I tested one of them.

Mindly offers a basic app for free (with in app purchases) and I installed it a few days ago. I was able to learn how to use it in less than 10 minutes and it took less than an hour to translate my to do list looking research plan into a nice constellation of concepts.

Here is how they looks like in an early developmental stage.

I started with the main topic which was : Finding information about my great great grandfather Cipriano. Then I split the information into 3 different bubbles : what I know (Bio), what I want to know (Questions), and where to look (Sources). Each of these bubbles contains facts or clues or questions. For example inside Bio we will have Birth, Marriage, Children. Inside Questions there is Date and Place of Death. Inside Sources I will add links to only the likely sources (no point to look for him in Thailand, for instance). They can also contain images and links. When I find an answer from Questions I just move the bubble to Bio. And voila !

Did I break my brick wall ? Not yet, of course.

Am I motivated to do the research in an organized way ? Totally.

Does it look awesome ? You bet it does !

Bienvenue chez Marianne

Esquiule es parte del País Vasco Francés y en la cultura vasca, las distintas generaciones se acumulan en la casa paterna (maison en francés, Etxe en vasco) que se hereda generalmente al hijo mayor (a veces incluso a la hija). Así, las casas se convierten en lieu dit o referencias geográficas que retienen el apellido de la familia.
La casa Etchegoren podría estar en el área y sería cuestión de cambiar de motor de búsqueda. Según Google maps, la casa Etchegoren pertenece a la comuna de Barcus, el próximo pueblo hacia el Oeste.
Marianne tenía 34 años cuando nació Marguerite así que busqué su nacimiento en las Tablas Decenales de Barcus que comprenden el año 1818 y el matrimonio con Lerdou las décadas siguientes. Encontré una Marie Etchegoren en 1815 (las matemáticas no eran lo suyo) y la boda en 1843 entre Gabriel Lerdou Hilarreguiborde de 27 años y Marie Etchegoren nacida alrededor de 1816. Es la misma persona? Afortunadamente, el intendente de Barcus encargado de escribir el acta aclara: “Marie también llamada Marianne Etchegoren”. En ambas actas figuran los nombres de los padres de Marianne: Benoit Etchegoren y Marie Larrory.
El acta de matrimotio tiene una pista extra, antes del nombre de la madre figura la fórmula "feue" que significa difunta. Marie Larrory habría fallecido antes de la boda de su hija Marianne. Su acta de deceso en 1838 a los 51 años lo confirma pero no da otro dato de filiación que su matrimonio con Benoit Etchegoren y la casa donde falleció.
Sin embargo, la casa Larrory se encuentra literalmente al lado. Es de esperar que Marie Larrory y Benoit Etchegoren se hayan casado en Barcus. Desafortunadamente ni las Tablas Decenales ni el Registro Civil se remontan eternamente en el tiempo, pero en ese momento los Registros Parroquiales salen al rescate.

De dónde vino Marie Larrory?
A dónde fue Marianne Etchegoren?
Continuará...

Marie Larrory y los Registros Parroquiales

Antes del Registro Civil y sus Tablas Decenales estaban los Registros Parroquiales que guardaban las actas de Bautismo, Matrimonio y Defunción. Menos estandarizadas y muchas veces sín índice, estos registros requieren más tiempo y dedicación para pasar hoja por hoja en busca de un nombre familiar.
El acta de matrimonio de Marie Larrory y Benoit Etchegoren en 1806 registra las edades de los esposos y los nombres de los padres de ambos. Marie premiere nee cadette de Larrory de 23 años, agricultora, domiciliada en su casa natal de Larrory, hija legítima del finado Francois propietario de Larrory y de Marie Larrasquet de Larrory, presente. Un dato extra es la presencia de Jean Suhit como padrastro de la novia, esta información cobra sentido indagando más sobre la vida de Marie Larrasquet, quien volvió a casarse dandonos, la opción de una segunda acta de matrimonio y explorando la geografía de Barcus. La casa Suhit está literalmente en frente de la casa Larrory.

Graciana usted está aquí

En nuestro capítulo anterior...

Recapitulando: mi tatarabuela Graciana Chanquet nació en Argentina pero hablaba francés, quiénes fueron sus padres?

Eugenia Ortalli, hija de Graciana Chanquet.

 Empecé la búsqueda a partir de la información más vieja y fiable que tenía de hace 100 años: según la tradición oral familiar, su hija Eugenia Ortalli nació en Saladillo, provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina, donde vivió toda su vida. Los registros de la iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Asunción están parcialmente disponibles en línea y gratuitos (Family Search) aunque no necesariamente indexados. Y a veces, aunque estén indexados, tienen errores de copiado que no se parecen en nada a los nombres originales.
Sin embargo, en muchas iglesias, el cura de la época se había tomado el trabajo de armar un índice en manuscrita que se parece mucho a una agenda telefónica. En estos índices podemos buscar los bautismos por el apellido paterno (estimando la fecha entre el nacimiento y un par de años después).

De acuerdo con el acta de bautismo de Eugenia en 1906, su madre Graciana Chanquet (mi tatarabuela) tenía 26 años y había nacido en Marcos Paz, también en la provincia de Buenos Aires pero más cerca de la capital. 

Graciana Chanquet, hija de Margarita Lerdou.

Estimando su nacimiento en 1880 hay que buscar su bautismo en la iglesia de Merlo que también tiene disponible un índice. Busqué el nombre de su padre y encontré su bautismo en 1880 (la única otra Graciana Chanquet nació diez años después). Según este nuevo documento, la madre de Graciana era Margarita Lerdou de 26 años y Juan Chanquet, ambos de Francia.
Considerando que ya había aparecido una homónima, decidí confirmar la identidad de los padres con otra fuente, idealmente, el acta de casamiento de Graciana con el padre de Eugenia, Juan Ortalli. Tradicionalmente la boda se celebraba en la iglesia del distrito de residencia de la novia pero en esa época la gente migraba frecuentemente siguiendo la instalación de las nuevas colonias agrícolas y las fundaciones de nuevos pueblos. No es de sorprender que Graciana no se haya casado en Marcos Paz o Merlo. Su familia se había mudado y decidí intentar buscarla en el segundo lugar más probable: donde nacieron sus hijos. De vuelta en el índice de Saladillo, bajo el nombre de su marido, encontré su acta de casamiento en 1902 que confirmó los nombres de sus padres y su nacionalidad.

Sólo por curiosidad y porque la fuente está disponible, busqué a la familia Chanquet-Lerdou en el censo nacional de 1895. Lo que me gusta más de los censos es que son como un gran collage de fotos de todas las familias pegadas juntas. A veces tenemos suerte, pero a veces los registros están sólo parcialmente indexados (lo que lleva a falsos resultados de búsqueda automática negativos). Decidí entonces dedicar un domingo entero a hojear el censo de Saladillo con mi buen ojo y mirar una maratón de Kitchen nightmares con el otro. Y ahí en el medio de un balde de pollo rancio y ensalada de col encontré la página donde una quinceañera argentina llamada Graciana Chanquet vivía con sus padres franceses Juan Chanquet y Margarita L de Chanquet.

Extracto del Censo de 1895, Saladilo, Argentina.

Todos sabemos que no se puede comprar un boleto simplemente a Francia, si quería seguir mi búsqueda necesitaba especificar la destinación.

Continuará...

English

La primera postal del viaje

Esta es una de mis fotos preferidas. Fue tomada a principios de los años '50 y muestra cuatro generaciones de mujeres. Ese bebé tan lindo es mi mamá. La joven que la tiene en brazos era mi abuela. La mujer a su derecha era mi bisabuela y la última señora a la derecha era mi tatarabuela. Todas nacieron en Argentina, y yo también.

Todas llevaron apellidos distintos porque, al contrario de muchos otros países de Latinoamérica, en Argentina no se usa heredar el apellido materno para formar un doble apellido. Salvo en raras ocasiones. Pero lo que me fascina de esta serie de apellidos es que son de origenes distintos: los Perez de España, los Balbiani y Ortalli de Italia, y los Chanquet de Francia.

Todas aprendieron a hablar el español castellano y yo también. Sin embargo, según la tradición oral de la familia, mi tatarabuela Graciana Chanquet hablaba francés desde la cuna y no dejo de preguntarme cómo hubiera sido esta foto si Graciana fuera el bebé. Quiénes fueron las otras tres mujeres? Qué lenguas hablaban? Por qué Graciana nació en Argentina?

Así empieza mi viaje a través de mi lína materna y esta es la primera postal que les envío.

Continuará...

English

Un ticket pour Pau, s'il vous plait.

Previously...

Marguerite Lerdou was born around 1853 when the civil registration of France was well established. The Departamental Archives of the Pyrenées Atlantiques based in  Pau are available on-line for free but not yet indexed. Another advantage of the French registries are the Tables Decenales: an alphabetical index of all the births, marriages and deaths spanning 10 years. They are real time savers.

I started with Esquiule, the highest ranking village and found Marguerite in 1852 with matching age and parents. Except that Marguerite's father was not named Cayetano (which wasn't surprising since it was a very strange for France) but Gabriel Lerdou Hilarreguiborde and Mariana's correct spelling was Marianne Etchegoren (I learned later that in Basque could sound the same). I wanted to dig deeper but I hit another wall with the lack of information about Marianne's origin: her marriage and birth act are not registered in Esquiule.
But she couldn't be too far.

To be continued...

Marguerite, vous êtes à peu près par ici.

Previously...

Recap: The earliest information we have about the Chanquet-Lerdou family is that their daughter was born in 1880 in Marcos Paz, Argentina but that both parents have always declared to be French.

Back in the day there was no civil registration in Argentina so most people didn't need to prove their identity or origin if they were white enough, seriously, it is written in some acts. A simple declaration was enough and sometimes the priest would assume the origin depending on the family name or the accent but sometimes, people would simply just lie.
If Marguerite was really French we should be able to find her birth records in France. But where? Were there any other available records that would lead us to her hometown? Sometimes wedding records carry more information. However, although her daughter was born in Marcos Paz, the wedding records do not appear in the same church. It could had been back in France but I took a shot searching in Argentina.

Fortunately, many of the records from the province and the capital are indexed and a quick search in FamilySearch can help a lot, if we know how to properly filter. I was lucky, they married in one of the churches of the capital the year before Graciana was born. The act shows the names of their parents: Pedro Chanquet & Gracia Pelot for Juan; Cayetano Lerdou & Mariana Echegoen for Marguerite Lerdou. Strangely, Cayetano Lerdou and Gracia Pelot are declared as Italians although they carry French names. Marguerite is again declared as French but without specifications.


Despite the scarcity of information in early church records from Argentina, there are other ways to solve this problem and like with many other things in life, I start with a Google search. As powerful as this search engine might be, it is still very useful to keep our brains plugged in and our filters clean so the more specific, the better.
For instance, if I want to narrow my search I should know how popular this name is. Geneanet and Genealogie.com both agreed: Lerdou is not a common last name in France nor elsewhere (peu populaire).

Screen cap from http://www.geneanet.org/

 

Screen cap from http://www.genealogie.com/

Geopatronyme allows to narrow the search geographically by region and town. Lerdou is highly endemic of the department 64: Pyrenées Atlantiques. And the highest ranking village is Esquiule.

Collage of screen caps from http://www.geopatronyme.com/

The Archives of this department are in Pau and we can find them online.
Un ticket pour Pau, s'il vous plait!



To be continued...

Graciana, vous êtes ici

Previously...

I started with the oldest reliable information I had from about 100 years ago: according to our family's oral tradition her daughter Eugenia Ortalli was born in Saladillo, an agricultural city in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she spent her whole life.

Eugenia Ortalli (1906-1993), Saladillo, Argentina.

The records of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, the only catholic church of the city at the time are partially available on line for free in FamilySearch although not necessarily indexed (and even when indexed they have spelling mistakes that don't resemble at all to the original). However, in some churches, the priest would add an index, that looks a lot like a black-book, and where we can search baptism acts by the father's name.

According to Eugenia's baptism act in 1906, her mother Graciana Chanquet, 26 years old was born in Marcos Paz, also in the province of Buenos Aires, but closer to the Capital.

The church San Marcos Evangelista was not yet build so she was baptised at Nuestra Señora de la Merced that belongs to Merlo and had also a handwriten index. I browsed for her father's name and found a match for the estimated birthdate in 1880. According to this act, Graciana's mother was 26 year old Marguerite Lerdou and Juan Chanquet, both from France.

However, there was a homonym ten years younger so it was wise to confirm the identity of her parents with another source, ideally her wedding with Eugenia's father, Juan Ortalli.

Traditionally, the wedding took place in the church of district where the bride lived but back in the day, people moved a lot as new colonies were established in the Pampas. Unsurprisingly, Graciana didn't marry in Marcos Paz or Merlo. Her family had already moved away so I took a shot to the second most likely place: where her children were born. Back in the index of Saladillo, listed under her husband's name there was her wedding record in 1902. This document confirmed the names of her parents Marguerite Lerdou and Juan Chanquet from France.

Just out of curiosity and because the source is also available, I looked for the Chanquet family in the second National Census of 1895. What I love about a census is that it is like a massive poster of family portraits all stitched togheter. Sometimes we are lucky but sometimes the records are only partially indexed so I dedicated an entire Sunday to browse the differents districts of Saladillo with my good eye while I watched a Kitchen Nightmare's marathon with the bad one. And there, in the middle of a bucket of spoiled chicken and coleslaw, I found the page where an Argentinean teenager named Graciana Chanquet (14) lived whith Margarita L. de Chanquet (13) and Juan Chanquet (12) from France.

It is widely known that you cannot just get a ticket to France, if I wanted to continue through my journey I needed a more specific destination.
To be continued...

The first postcard of my journey

Four generations of my maternal line.

This is one of my favorite pictures in the world. It was taken in the early 50's and shows four generations of women. The cute baby on the left is my mother. The woman holding her was my grandmother. The woman on her right was my great-grandmother and the women in the far right was my great-great-grandmother. They were all born in Argentina and so was I.

They carried different last names because, unlike in many other countries in Latin America, it is not customary to inherit the mother's maiden name to form a double family name. But what I find both interesting and beautiful is that their family names were from different origins: Perez from Spain, Balbiani and Ortalli from Italy, and Chanquet from France.

They all spoke Spanish, and so do I. However, according to my family's oral tradition my great-great-grandmother Graciana Chanquet also spoke French and I can't help wondering what would this picture look like if my great-great-grandmother was the baby. Who were these other four women? What language did they speak? And why was Graciana born in Argentina?

This is how the journey through my Matrilineage starts and that is the first postcard I share from it.

To be continued...

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