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LoginCounting Asturian Cousins
Moderators: mariamatoyos, Moderators
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Indalecio Fernandez
- Posts: 172
- Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 3:55 pm
- Location: San Martín de Podes, Gozón, Asturias
- asturias_and_me:
Art wrote:Gracias, Indalecio! Bien hecho!! 200,000 serían muchos más que pensaba, pero tal vez tiene razón. Piensas que hay cualquier parcialidad en el pensamiento del general?
No, no lo creo Art. El razonamiento y los números que cuenta tienen bastante lógica. El problema es que de aquella época no hay nada escrito y la historia escrita que habla sobre esa época y de tiempos antiguos, seguro que sí eran tendenciosas.
Por ejemplo el nacimiento de Pelayo y la continuación del reino Godo. ¿Si a los romanos les costó tanto, diez años y la presencia del propio Augusto, con los Astures y los Cántabros; o las guerras de castigo que el reino Visigodo de Toledo , pocos años antes de la invasión árabe, como se entiende que se diga que los astures podrían seguir a un líder nacido entre sus enemigos, los Visigodos? Fueros siglos después, en la época del invento del descubrimiento de la tumba del apóstol Santiago, cuando también había conversaciones con el Emperador Carlomagno, cuando se dice que Pelayo era un noble Visigodo, por lo que daba continuidaad al reino Visigodo.
Pero yo creo que fue todo marqueting, invención.
Fue la misma época en que el conflicto entre la iglesia de toledo adopcionista y las tesis del Beato de Liebana, en Cantabria, que dijo que Jesús era Dios. Las tres religiones que convivían en la capital del reino Godo, en Toledo, los judíos, los árabes y los cristianos adopcionistas, decían que ellos eran monoteistas y los del norte era herejes y politeistas. Hasta que llegó el Pápa y apoyo las tesis del Beato e instituyó el Misterio de la Santísima Trinidad, Dios trío, tres personas tres personas distintas y un solo Dios verdadero. Marcndo así, una diferencia mas fundamental con las otras dos religiones.
Sin embargo, la historia sigue manteniendo que Pelayo era Visigodo y el reino Astur una continuidad del mismo.
Enlazando con lo primero, nos vendieron que los pueblos del norte, eran primitivos, divididos y sin un carácter de grupo. Si así fuese, hubiesen sido derrotados en todas las ocasiones, con los romanos, con los Godos y con los Árabes. También nos imaginamos unas tierras y unos valles abruptos y despoblados. Si embargo, el territorio del que hablamos tiene una de las densidades de población mas altas de la península en base a un modo de vida del sector primario, ganadería y agricultura. Actualmente, Asturias tiene sobre un millón de habitantes en un millón de hectáreas.. Si quitamos las grandes ciudades, Oviedo (200000) Gijón (300000) Avilés y comarca (1000000), Siero y la zona centro (50000) las dos cuencas del Caudal y del Nalón (100000), lo que queda, la zona rural, en la actualidad muy despoblada, se acerca a esos 200000 habitantes. Así que no parece una cifra muy descaminada.
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Terechu
- Moderator
- Posts: 1540
- Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2003 4:43 am
- Location: GIJON - ASTURIAS
- asturias_and_me:
Counting cousins..
The Story of Balbina García, our Common Ancestor
Most people are astounded when they hear about how my husband I. Martín and I met in 1984-1985 and the circumstances that lead up to this meeting.
I returned to Asturias in 1982 after a seven-year- marriage turned sour in the USA. My father had died a few years earlier and my mother was a widow with a big house and 3 empty bedrooms in Sotrondio (S.Martín del Rey Aurelio). So I quit my job, because I had no relatives in the USA, and my daughter had gone through a viral meningitis that kept her in the hospital 10 days. As an Army dependent we had no medical bills to pay, but at the bank where I worked my ten days of absence were deducted from my paycheck. Having that experience in mind, I knew I couldn’t stay.
My mom welcomed us, but all the time knowing it was a temporary arrangement. I found a job pretty quickly, but pay was not enough for me to emancipate myself again. So I kept looking and soon I was working for a tiny highly specialized mining-mechanization company that had exclusive contracts with Germany’s top technology firms . They paid what I asked, because they were desperately in need of someone who could speak, read and write German and English.
After a year or so, they started looking for an engineer with equal qualifications to head the technical service department, that was bursting at the seams, we had so much work, and none of the mechanics could speak anything other than French to call the manufacturer and get some instructions.That was a job designed for Iván. The boss picked out his resume and had his secretary call him and give him an appointment.
The secretary was Nieves J. , born in Blimea, like I.Martín. She came to show me his file and I said I didn’t know him, because I didn’t. But Nieves knew his parents, his grandmother, his aunts, etc. and she knew my parents and entire maternal family, because they were mostly born in Blimea. Anyway, the boss was late and he called and asked me to interview him in German and English. I brought some sample letters and telexes, drawings and such, in German, for him to pick his way through and find why the machine broke down and how to fix it. He did well, understood everything, so when the boss arrived he called me first and asked me what I thought and I told him he met all his requirements. He spoke German, because like many Asturians, and like my own parents, his parents had emigrated to Germany in the ‘60s! What were the odds of us ever meeting?
By 1985 we were dating. I took him to Sotrondio to meet my family, and my grandmother Maria ZAPICO ALONSO asked about his family. He explained that his grandmother was Luisa, who had a butcher’s stall in the market hall years ago and my grandmother promptly replied:
- That young lady was my cousin.
- How could she be your cousin, granny?
- She was my grandmother Balbina’s granddaughter, so she was my cousin.
We left it at that, not knowing anything about the subject either of us, but it stayed on my mind, because they were really second cousins, Luisa being Balbina’s great-granddaughter.
Back in Gijón I called my soon-to-be mother in law and asked her. She confirmed that her grandmother’s name was Manuela and that her GGM’s mother’s name was Balbina!
So far so good, but we were stuck. I knew my GGF, Graciano Zapico García was Balbina’s son, but he had died young a long time ago and nobody knew him. I did, because my grandmother loved him and kept a picture of him until her death. She was 9 years old when he left and had to quit school and start working as a laundry maid at Don Aurelio’s wonderful house. He took his time coming back from Lens (Pas-de-Calais) to look after his wife and children. Balbina went around the mountain villages where she was unknown, begging for food for her grandchildren. Then, after he came back, he promptly got into a fight with an out-of-towner, and him being the Wild West type, he stabbed the guy, who died a few days later. So he got a jail term of 5 years for involuntary manslaughter or something like that. He was locked up in the state prison of Pola de Lena. My granny remembers walking from Blimea to Pola de Lena over the mountains in all kinds of weather to see her father. He had a rough life, was a child of his time, and he probably could have done better, but he had married Robustiana ALONSO CASTRO and he loved his wife and 5 little kids. Graciano died of TB before his jail term expired.
I also knew he had sisters. Rosa La Peña one of them. Let me explain who Rosa La Peña was. Obviously it should be Rosa la de La Peña. She was called that because she lived on top of the rock called La Peña in Sotrondio and she could overlook the valley far and wide. And her eyesight was equal to any eagle’s! Rosa herself had lots of kids and all of them had a bunch themselves. They were poor as church mice, but their house on the Peña was their own and they had a large kitchen garden. So her family extended all over Sotrondio and Blimea, later Madrid… but somehow got ahead in life, all of them.
Well, through Rosa we are related once more because one of her sons married a girl from Blimea and they had, among other children, Ofelia, who married a handsome coal miner, Horacio and in due time they became the parents of Máximo. When he married Pepi, who was Luisa’s youngest daughter, they knew they were cousins. This marriage still lasts and their daughters Cornelia, Bibi and Mara’s are just as stable in their marriages.
Balbina had at least one other daughter, Carmen, who lived in Laviana and had a large guesthouse, next to the city Hall in the main square, where the civil guards from out of town were housed after the Civil War. She had one son, Aurelio, a very handsome young man, who was rounded up in Oviedo and taken to a church with other prisoners and the civil guard watching over them told a member of Falange that there were several men from his hometown and did he want to speak for them to have them released and he said: “Never mind, I’ll kill them myself” and he pulled his gun and shot 8 men inside a church, “just because”. He was never accused or tried for this, of course.
But summing it up, poor insignificant Balbina García was the common ancestor of my husband and me, my mother and siblings, their children and childrens’ children etc. plus my daughter and her two sons, my brothers and their children, all my cousins by the surname Blanco, all my cousins by the surname Zapico, their children, etc., etc. I lose count…and that is just Graciano’s branch!
Pictures: 1.Graciano Zapico García,
2.Reverse of picture, postcard form, he sent from Lens
3. Rosa la Peña around 80
4. María Zapico, my granny at 18
[
Most people are astounded when they hear about how my husband I. Martín and I met in 1984-1985 and the circumstances that lead up to this meeting.
I returned to Asturias in 1982 after a seven-year- marriage turned sour in the USA. My father had died a few years earlier and my mother was a widow with a big house and 3 empty bedrooms in Sotrondio (S.Martín del Rey Aurelio). So I quit my job, because I had no relatives in the USA, and my daughter had gone through a viral meningitis that kept her in the hospital 10 days. As an Army dependent we had no medical bills to pay, but at the bank where I worked my ten days of absence were deducted from my paycheck. Having that experience in mind, I knew I couldn’t stay.
My mom welcomed us, but all the time knowing it was a temporary arrangement. I found a job pretty quickly, but pay was not enough for me to emancipate myself again. So I kept looking and soon I was working for a tiny highly specialized mining-mechanization company that had exclusive contracts with Germany’s top technology firms . They paid what I asked, because they were desperately in need of someone who could speak, read and write German and English.
After a year or so, they started looking for an engineer with equal qualifications to head the technical service department, that was bursting at the seams, we had so much work, and none of the mechanics could speak anything other than French to call the manufacturer and get some instructions.That was a job designed for Iván. The boss picked out his resume and had his secretary call him and give him an appointment.
The secretary was Nieves J. , born in Blimea, like I.Martín. She came to show me his file and I said I didn’t know him, because I didn’t. But Nieves knew his parents, his grandmother, his aunts, etc. and she knew my parents and entire maternal family, because they were mostly born in Blimea. Anyway, the boss was late and he called and asked me to interview him in German and English. I brought some sample letters and telexes, drawings and such, in German, for him to pick his way through and find why the machine broke down and how to fix it. He did well, understood everything, so when the boss arrived he called me first and asked me what I thought and I told him he met all his requirements. He spoke German, because like many Asturians, and like my own parents, his parents had emigrated to Germany in the ‘60s! What were the odds of us ever meeting?
By 1985 we were dating. I took him to Sotrondio to meet my family, and my grandmother Maria ZAPICO ALONSO asked about his family. He explained that his grandmother was Luisa, who had a butcher’s stall in the market hall years ago and my grandmother promptly replied:
- That young lady was my cousin.
- How could she be your cousin, granny?
- She was my grandmother Balbina’s granddaughter, so she was my cousin.
We left it at that, not knowing anything about the subject either of us, but it stayed on my mind, because they were really second cousins, Luisa being Balbina’s great-granddaughter.
Back in Gijón I called my soon-to-be mother in law and asked her. She confirmed that her grandmother’s name was Manuela and that her GGM’s mother’s name was Balbina!
So far so good, but we were stuck. I knew my GGF, Graciano Zapico García was Balbina’s son, but he had died young a long time ago and nobody knew him. I did, because my grandmother loved him and kept a picture of him until her death. She was 9 years old when he left and had to quit school and start working as a laundry maid at Don Aurelio’s wonderful house. He took his time coming back from Lens (Pas-de-Calais) to look after his wife and children. Balbina went around the mountain villages where she was unknown, begging for food for her grandchildren. Then, after he came back, he promptly got into a fight with an out-of-towner, and him being the Wild West type, he stabbed the guy, who died a few days later. So he got a jail term of 5 years for involuntary manslaughter or something like that. He was locked up in the state prison of Pola de Lena. My granny remembers walking from Blimea to Pola de Lena over the mountains in all kinds of weather to see her father. He had a rough life, was a child of his time, and he probably could have done better, but he had married Robustiana ALONSO CASTRO and he loved his wife and 5 little kids. Graciano died of TB before his jail term expired.
I also knew he had sisters. Rosa La Peña one of them. Let me explain who Rosa La Peña was. Obviously it should be Rosa la de La Peña. She was called that because she lived on top of the rock called La Peña in Sotrondio and she could overlook the valley far and wide. And her eyesight was equal to any eagle’s! Rosa herself had lots of kids and all of them had a bunch themselves. They were poor as church mice, but their house on the Peña was their own and they had a large kitchen garden. So her family extended all over Sotrondio and Blimea, later Madrid… but somehow got ahead in life, all of them.
Well, through Rosa we are related once more because one of her sons married a girl from Blimea and they had, among other children, Ofelia, who married a handsome coal miner, Horacio and in due time they became the parents of Máximo. When he married Pepi, who was Luisa’s youngest daughter, they knew they were cousins. This marriage still lasts and their daughters Cornelia, Bibi and Mara’s are just as stable in their marriages.
Balbina had at least one other daughter, Carmen, who lived in Laviana and had a large guesthouse, next to the city Hall in the main square, where the civil guards from out of town were housed after the Civil War. She had one son, Aurelio, a very handsome young man, who was rounded up in Oviedo and taken to a church with other prisoners and the civil guard watching over them told a member of Falange that there were several men from his hometown and did he want to speak for them to have them released and he said: “Never mind, I’ll kill them myself” and he pulled his gun and shot 8 men inside a church, “just because”. He was never accused or tried for this, of course.
But summing it up, poor insignificant Balbina García was the common ancestor of my husband and me, my mother and siblings, their children and childrens’ children etc. plus my daughter and her two sons, my brothers and their children, all my cousins by the surname Blanco, all my cousins by the surname Zapico, their children, etc., etc. I lose count…and that is just Graciano’s branch!
Pictures: 1.Graciano Zapico García,
2.Reverse of picture, postcard form, he sent from Lens
3. Rosa la Peña around 80
4. María Zapico, my granny at 18
[
I haven't been able to find a good estimate 0f the population size of Asturias at the beginning f the reconquista, but t must have been quite small, certainly less than the 100,000 estimate for the 16th century. Also, the modern borders of Asturias are not the same as those of the early 8th Century, the Moors had entered the area, and during the preceding centuries invading tribe such as the Visigoths and the Suevi entered northern Spain. All such populations are likely to have brought in new strains of disease to which the early Asturians had little immunity. Warfare and crop failures undoubtedly limited population size.
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