Asturian-American Migration Forum

What you have found appears to be a baptismal certificate rather than a birth certificate. You may want to request a birth certificate from the Registro Civil (i.e., civil rather than religious authorities), as Terechu has suggested. It's free, and there is often a wealth of information there.

In terms of jomaguca's translation, an archpriest (arciprestazgo) is sort of a priest who is a special assistant to the bishop. I think the title still exists in Spain, although not in the EEUU. See, for example, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01697b.htm The title appears in some of the very early literature. The character of arciprestazgo is one of many who engage in a dialogue with Death in "La danza de la muerte" (exact title from memory only (my book is in my other home), but the text of the original - in an old version of castellano - is available in an anthology pubished by GarlandPress. Not quite the classic medieval "Dance of Death" but quite interesting in its own right.

Art y Jomaguca,


Thank you so much for your translations ! Muchisimo gracias !!!!!
I will re-scan the certificate of birth and post it again. (Larger)
This is very exciting for my family to reconnect to Spain and Asturianos !

Roberto

Roberto, based on this certificate your grandfather's name was:
Rufino Vega Martínez, and although he was born in the parish of Sta. Cruz de Mieres, his parents and grandparents were from Tamón (county Carreño). It's no wonder he went looking for a bride in the Tamón area and found one in the neighbouring county of Castrillón

With a last name like Vega you could likely trace that back several hundreds of years, if you are lucky over a thousand years. Don't know how knowledgeable are you on the subject but Spaniards were nothing if not excellent record keepers, specially when there was nobility involved. It was not done so much for the 'nobility' part but because most of these nobles were exempt of paying taxes and so, it was in their best interest to ensure that they could demonstrate their nobility to be live tax free (would be nice if there was something like that around here, hey, you if you are 0 negative a universal donor, you are tax exempt kinda thing...) anyways, if you are able to trace your family back to 'de la Vega' the rest will be as easy as pulling the thread from a sweater.

Don't know how advanced are you but here are a couple of generally speaking rather full links
http://www.heraldaria.com/investigar.php
http://www.hispagen.org/america/
http://www.genealogia-es.com/
http://www.elanillo.com/index.html

here is info on some other folks that are also studying the last name Vega (de la Vega) they list the oldest known 'Vega' in their ancestry.

Apellido Provincia Pueblo Fecha Enviado por E-mail Página Web
Vega A Coruña Aguadilla 1900 Jose Vega Castillo esojvc@gmail.com
Vega León Canales c.1840 Margarita López Gila kaa1es@yahoo.es
Vega León Sotillo De Cabrera 1924 Antonio De Cabo decaboantonio@gesell.com.ar
Vega León Sotillo de Cabrera 1916 Antonio de Cabo Vega decaboantonio@gesell.com.ar
Vega Málaga Cortes de la Frontera 1900 Antonio Vega avegamartin@ono.com
Vega Sevilla Lebrija y Trebujena 1850 Cheryl-Carmen Fall fall@teleport.com
Vega Sevilla Municipio de Paradas l92l Raul Diaz Parrilla rdiz@latinmail.com

hope it helps
Good luck

Eli, these people can spend a thousand years looking for their ancestors and never find them, if all they have to go by is a common surname. Names like Vega or de la Vega, Monte or del Monte, Río or del Río, Valle or del Valle are nothing but geographic indicators. Surnames were established for everybody as late as the 16th Century when Emperor Charles V (and later his son Philip II) established the first census of their subjects in order to collect taxes.
Census takers employed several methods: if there were several Peters in a village, they would be identified by either their patronimic, their physical characteristics or their place of origin; i.e.

) Pedro González, if his father's name was Gonzalo
2) Pedro del Valle, if he was from the valley
3) Pedro del Monte, if he was from the hills
4) Pedro de Oviedo, if he was from Oviedo
5) Pedro de Inés, if he had no father and his mother's name was Inés
etc.
Pedro Blanco, if he was fair-skinned
9) Pedro Prieto, if he was dark-skinned
10) Pedro Delgado, if he was skinny
etc.

When soldiers, officers, clergy etc. were knighted or granted a nobility title due to bravery in the battlefield or any other outstanding service rendered to their king, duke or count, that title was obviously not extensive to all people by that same surname throughout the country, only to the brave soldier and his descendants. They would be allowed to design a coat of arms and pass it down to their children, but their other relatives had no part in the matter.
And believe me, those who have a coat of arms in this country know it!

Hi Terechu,

You are absolutely correct, that's why I said "f you are able to trace your family back to 'de la Vega'" one of those that had nobility associated with their names, he would then be able to follow it centuries maybe even a thousand years. There are several 'de la Vega' surnames in Spain some date only to the mid 1700's others without researching it fully to the 1,100's. So the key is 'if you are lucky' and your family goes back that far and 'if you are able to trace your family back to 'de la Vega'" that has nobility associated. Once you've done that the rest is relatively simple. Unlessl you run into one of the scenarios were the invading Napoleonic armies used the archives with hundreds of years of your family's records to burn in the fireplace and warm up the soldiers....

There is another problem with tracing families back hundreds and hundreds of years, and it's based on biology. Quite simply, if surnames come from the father, the probability that the father of record is the actual biological father becomes important (if we are concerned with genetics rather than culture and families). If there are four generations per century (the number for most societies, historically, is somewhat less than 25 years per generation), then there are 40 generations in 1000 years. If thge rate oif false paternity is 5% (supported by some modern research), then the chance of actually being descended from the male ancestor 1000 years in the past is 95% (the chance of true paternity) raised to the 40th power (the number of generations. This is only 12.85%.

Roberto, el certificado qué usted puso aquí, es un certificado de bautismo,qué no es lo mismo qué una partida de nacimiento,se lo digo por si tuviera alguna confusión.

Hola Terechu, Art y Jomaguca,

Thank you for your translations !
I uploaded a larger image of my Grandfather's Certificate of Birth.
If you "Refresh" your page you will see the larger image !
I hope it better, the image was a negative of the Certificate and I had to reverse the negative for posting. I was suprised to find out this was not a Certificate of Birth. I will write to the Civil Registry to try to get both grandparents Certificates.

Best Wishes to everyone !

Roberto Vega

Hi Bob,

If there are four generations per century (the number for most societies, historically, is somewhat less than 25 years per generation), then there are 40 generations in 1000 years. If the rate of false paternity is 5% (supported by some modern research), then the chance of actually being descended from the male ancestor 1000 years in the past is 95% (the chance of true paternity) raised to the 40th power (the number of generations. This is only 12.85%.

hmmm interesting, just last week there was an very good debate on a board about this percentage, it is too long and complicated to attempt to condense it but their conclusion was that 2.5% was more realistic. Also the time frame of 25 years is accurate but not so much for genealogical purposes rather for anthropological research, if we are speaking in genealogical terms a closer figure is 30 years per generation and in some societies 40, case in point in my family 10 generations ago take us back to circa 1640 Santander, that is 320 years or 32 years per generation. Now, if I was to have a child by 2009 we would keep the average right on target at 33.5 ....

Those numbers however good they may be to debate semantics, have been proven useless in reality. For instance, using Y-DNA tests we can prove if two men are related or not, if we know that according to traditional research they share a common ancestor 800 years ago, and the YDNA test confirms the relationship, odds of those figures being accurate are highly suspect. They do make for very interesting debates though, have you been following the debates on the Y-DNA rootsweb mailing list?

We have just contacted a suspected members of my family in Spain and Australia, to do the test on them and find out if we are related (via paternal line) or not.


Elí


ps. BTW I neither agree nor disagree with either premise.

Roberto, encontré la partida de bautismo de su bisabuelo Casimiro. Nació y fué bautizado el 19 de marzo de 1855, era hijo de Francisco de la Vega y de Petronila (Antonia) Díaz, siendo sus abuelos paternos Pedro de la Vega y Teresa González ¿Quilames?, oriundos y vecinos de la parroquia de San juan de Tamón y los maternos, Rodrigo Díaz-nacido en la parroquia de Guimarán- e Isabel Martínez de la de Tamón. Sus padres vivían en un barrio llamado Fontanina. Tengo los nombres de los otros abuelos y bisabuelos de Casimiro, pero no sé aún si podré encontrar las fechas de bautismo, matrimonio y defunción de todos ellos pues hay pocos libros de esta parroquia en el Archivo Diocesano.

Los libros que hay en Oviedo acaban hacia 1890-1900, supongo que los posteriores estarán en la Parroquia.

Le dejo un mensaje en el correo de su página web y cuando ordene los datos que tengo se los enviaré directamente o los pondré aquí, según me diga.

Ruego a Terechu, Art u otras personas que traduzcan mi mensaje. Gracias.
[Art: ¡No hay problema! Gracias para tu ayuda, Luiña. ¡Eres nuestra experta de los archivos!]

----------------------
trans. Art

Roberto, I found the baptism entry his great-grandfather Casimiro. He was born and was baptized on March 19, 1855, he was a son of Francisco de la Vega and of Petronila (Antonia) Díaz, his paternal grandparents were Pedro de la Vega and Teresa Gonzalez (Quilames?), originally born and in and residents of the parish of San Juan of Tamón and the maternal [grandparents] were Rodrigo Díaz, born in the parish of Guimará, and Isabel Martínez who was from the parish in Tamón. His parents were living in a neighborhood called Fontanina. I have the names of other grandparents and great-grandfathers of Casimiro, but I don't know yet if I will be able to find the dates of baptism, marriage, and death of all of them since there are very few books from this parish in the Diocesan Archives.

The books which they have in Oviedo go up until 1890-1900, I suppose that the later ones will be in the Parish.

I left a message for them [the parish?] on their contact page of their web site and when I get the information that I have all in order, I will send it directly to you or will [put??] them here, whichever you tell me [to do].

I'll ask Terechu, Art or someone else to translate my message. Thank you
[Art: No problem! Thanks for your work, Luiña. You're our expert in the archives!]

Gracias Roberto, ahora si se puede leer mejor la partida de bautismo.

Hola Luiña y Art,

Thank you so very much for the research in the archives Luiña and Art again for your translations !! I am so excited on learning so much about my Asturian family. I will be contacting others in my family to also share this family history, they will be pleasantly suprised. Luiña, Art, Terechu, Bob, jomaguca, Eli and everyone helping, a sincre THANK YOU !

Roberto
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Transl. Terechu

Hola Luiña y Art,
Muchísimas gracias por consultar los archivos, Luiña, y Art gracias de nuevo por tus traducciones!! Estoy tan entusiasmado con lo que estoy conociendo de mi familia asturiana. Voy a estar en contacto con otros miembros de mi familia para contarles esta parte de la historia familiar, se van a llevar una grata sorpresa. Luiña, Art, Terechu, Bob, jomaguca, Eli y todos los que habéis ayudado, mis GRACIAS más sinceras!

Roberto

¡Hola a todos otra vez!:

Solamente aclararos, que el Registro Civil de Castrillón esta en Piedras Blancas desde el año 1871.

Juzgado de Paz
Registro Civil de Castrillón
c/ La Libertad nº 15 - bajo
33450 Piedras Blancas
Castrillón - Asturias

Tfno: 985.53.00.59

Ya se que en la Web del ministerio no consta, pero es lo que hay. Tienen las partidas de nacimiento desde el año 1871, ya sabeis que Castrillón se separó judicialmente de Aviles en la primera mitad del S XIX., supongo que en Avilés tendrán los registros anteriores.

Para pedir una copia literal de partida de nacimiento, solo hay que enviar una carta, con la mayor cantidad de datos posibles (Fecha aproximada y lugar de nacimiento, nombre y apellidos de los padres, y si es posible de los abuelos, nombres de hermanos, cualquier cosa que pueda identificar a la persona que se busca)

Esta carta, caso de enviarla desde EE.UU. debe llevar dentro un sobre con la dirección para la respuesta, SIN DINERO, NO TIENE COSTE ALGUNO. Se envia directamente a la dirección que puse antes, y desde el Juzgado, envian la respuesta al consulado, que la remite al interesado en EE.UU., supongo que alli tendrán que pagar el franqueo al recibirla, no creo que sean mas de 2 0 3 $.

Saludinos
----------------------------------------------
Hello again, everybody!
Just a few lines to advise you that the Civil Registry of Castrillon is located in Piedras Blancas since 1871.

Juzgado de Paz
Registro Civil de Castrillón
c/ La Libertad nº 15 - bajo
33450 Piedras Blancas
Castrillón - Asturias

Tel. 985.53.00.59

I know it's not reflected on the web of the Ministry of Justice, but that's how it is. They have birth records since 1871, as you know Castrillon judicially separated from Avilés in the first half of the 19th Century, I presume that Avilés keeps all previous records.

To request a literal copy of the birth certificate, you only have to send a letter with as many data as you can (approximate birth date, birth place, names and surnames of the parents and if possible of the grandparents, anything that might help identify the person in question)

Said letter, if it is mailed from the USA, should include an envelope with the return address on it. NO MONEY, THIS IS FREE OF CHARGE. It should be addressed to the above Court of Justice, they will send their reply to your consulate and they will forward it to the petitioner in the USA. I suppose the recipient might have to pay postage on receipt, I don't know, but it shouldn't be more than 2 or 3 $.

Buenas tardes a todos.

Estoy recopilando datos de los antepasados de Roberto: Vega, Martínez, Bango, Díaz, Alonso, etc.
Los Vega vivían en el pueblo o barrio de la Fontanina; los Martínez en San Martín; los Bango en Rio Anceo en la casa nº 114 ( en 1880) y los Díaz en Orilla del Río. Todos ellos en la Parroquia de San juan de Tamón.
Los Alonso Fernández en La Llordal, Parroquia de San Miguel de Quiloño y el Alonso venía de San Martín de Laspra.

Pongo ésto para los que conozcan esas zonas, pues yo sólo puedo encontrar datos antiguos. Estoy ordenando todo para mandarlo directamente a Roberto, pero ahora me voy al pueblo y desconecto hasta la próxima semana.

Art, gracias por traducir ya que mi inglés es muy malo y seguiré colaborando siempre que pueda. Disfruto con ello.

Un saludo
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Transl. Terechu

Good afternoon, everyone,
I'm compiling data about Roberto's ancestors, Vega, Martínez, Bango, Díaz, Alonso etc.

The Vegas lived in the area of La Fontatina; the Martinez in San Martín; the Bangos in Río Anceo in house no. 114 (in 1880) and the Díaz in Orilla del Río. All of them in parish of San Juan de Tamón.
The Alonso Fernández in La Llordal, parish of San Miguel de Quiloño and the Alonso surname came from San Martín de Laspra.

I'm quoting this for those who know those areas, as I can only find the old data. I'm arranging it all to send directly to Robert, but right now I'm off to my village and will sign off until next week.

Art, thanks for translating, as my English is pretty bad, I will go on cooperating whenever I can. I enjoy it.

Regards