Asturian-American Migration Forum

I have been told by my grand aunt, that we are descended from Spanish kings, on my great grandmother's side. Her maiden name is Natividad Fernandez, daughter of Baldomero Fernandez and Barbara Lopez. Now I know that Spain was once made up of different kingdoms and that the Asturias was where the reconquest of Spain over the Moors began. I found a few Fernandez surnames as children of King Ferdinand III of Castile I think Asturias was part of Castile. I'm looking for any info that may help either prove or disprove this linage. Are their any good books or web sites on the genealogy of the Spanish Kings? Any help will be appreciated.

Translation section done with http://translation.lycos.com/lycos

Mi tía magnífica, de que me he dicho que nos descienden de reyes españoles, en el lado de mi gran abuela. Su nombre virginal es Natividad Fernandez, hija de Baldomero Fernandez y Barbara Lopez. Ahora sé que España fue compuesta una vez de diversos reinos y que la Asturias era donde la reconquista del excedente de España amarra comenzó. Encontré algunos apellidos de Fernandez como niños de rey Ferdinand III del castile que pienso que la Asturias era parte del castile. Estoy buscando cualquier Info que pueda ayudar a probar o a refutar este linage. ¿Están sus buenos libros o sitios de la tela en la genealogía de los reyes españoles? Cualquier ayuda será apreciada.

Hi Spdairy,
I believe the royal families are pretty much accounted for by now Sorry to disappoint you, but Fernández is an extremely common surname.
Fernández is a patronymic, meaning that in the old times before surnames existed, people were identified through their father's names. In other words, if your father was called Fernando, you would be called so-and-so Fernández (or de Fernando) and if your father's name was Gonzalo, you would be so-and-so González, etc. It's pretty much like the prefix "Mac" in Scotch surnames, or "Fitz" in Irish ones, or the suffix "son" in English and Scandinavian surnames.

That doesn't mean that you don't have any knights or noblemen among your ancestors. In fact, according to Jovellanos, by the end of the 18th century 90% of all Asturians were "hidalgos" (free landowners), as opposed to the rest of Spain where the rate of hidalgos was less than 6% and all the land was owned by the clergy and the aristocrats.

I hope you're not too disappointed.

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Hola Spdairy,
Creo que a estas alturas todas las familias reales están localizadas
Siento decepcionarte, pero Fernández es un apellido muy corriente.
Fernández es patronímico, lo cual quiere decir que antiguamente, cuando no existían los apellidos, a la gente se les identificaba por los nombres de sus padres. Osea, si tu padre se llamaba Fernando, tu te llamarías fulano-de-tal Fernández (o de Fernando) y si tu padre se llamaba Gonzalo tú serías fulano-de-tal González, etc.
Es más o menos como el prefijo escocés "Mac", o el irlandés "Fitz", o el sufijo "son" en los apellidos ingleses y escandinavos.

Esto no quiere decir que no tengas caballeros o nobles entre tus antepasados. De hecho, según Jovellanos, a finales del siglo 18 el 90% de los asturianos eran hidalgos (propietarios de sus tierras), lo contrario que en el resto de España donde menos de un 6% lo era y la tierra pertenecía a la Iglesia y a los aristócratas.
Espero que no estés muy decepcionado.

Saludos
Terechu

I have heard my grandfather make similar claims of his Fernandez family and being part of the forces that drove the Moors from Spain. Many years ago my Uncle visited Madrid and open the phone book to find 28 pages of Fernandez.

Eileen, I checked the on-line phone guide for Asturias just out of curiosity and there are 26,520 persons listed as having Fernández for their first surname!

By the way, for any one interested, the web address for Spain's white pages are:
www.paginasblancas.es

You can search for people by first or second surnames, but you always have to enter the province, as well.

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Eileen, he mirado la guía telefónica on-line para Asturias por curiosidad y hay 26.520 personas registradas con Fernández como primer apellido!

Por cierto, por si a alguien le interesa, la dirección de las páginas blancas españolas es:
www.paginasblancas.es

Se puede buscar personas tanto por el primer como por el segundo apellido, pero siempre hay que indicar la provincia.

Terech

Terechu

Bob once pointed out that everyone in Asturias could be related if you go back far enough (but he also cautioned that his rough estimate didn't include migration and intermarriage).

Just because Fernández is a common name doesn't mean that you don't have ancestors who were royalty. Names from the mother's side get lost very quickly, even in the Spanish style of naming.

My father has traced his ancestors back to Lady Godiva (the English gentlewoman who rode naked through the streets of Coventry) and Julius Caesar (I'm not sure how Julius got into the family tree). Most of us probably have ancestors of note.

On the other hand, it is also possible that what Terechu says about hidalgo is what the family was mistakenly thinking of as "royalty." It is only a very low level of nobility, often won by service to the crown. In some periods, the wealthy could even purchase this title!

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Una vez Bob indicó que cada persona en Asturias podría ser relacionado si vuelve bastante lejos (pero también advirtió que su cálculo aproximado no incluyó la migración y el intermatrimonio).

Solamente porque Fernández es un nombre común no significa que no tengas los antepasados que eran royales. Los nombres del lado de la madre son perdidos muy rápidamente, aún en el estilo de nombramiento español.

Mi padre ha remontado a sus antepasados atrás a la Señora Godiva (la señora de familia aristócrata inglesa que montó a caballo desnudo por las calles de Coventry) y Julius César (no estoy seguro como Julius entró en el árbol genealógico). La mayor parte de nosotros probablemente tenemos los antepasados de nota.

De otra parte, es también posible que lo que Terechu diga sobre "hidalgo" es en qué la familia equivocadamente pensaba como "real". Esto es sólo un nivel muy bajo de nobleza, a menudo ganada por el servicio a la corona. ¡En algunos períodos, los ricos aún podrían comprar este título!

Dear Art:

Your Dad must be one heck of a genealogist if he can trace his roots back to Lady Godiva and Julius Caesar! As Novice Genealogist, I would be very interested to learn how he did that incredible feat.

Yeah, Art, I'm with Donna here! If you descend from Julius Caesar, let me tell you that his family claimed they descended from the goddess Aphrodite! Some family tree, Art! Although, if I'm not mistaken, old Julius C. died at age 44 and had no surviving children (both Brutus and Augustus were adopted). But it's sort of fun to think that one could have famous ancestors. My brother one time came to the conclusion that we descended from Pepin the Short (King of France and brother of Charlemagne). Don't ask me how he did that!

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Sí, Art, en eso estoy con Donna! Si tu desciendes de Julio César, déjame que te diga que su familia decía descender de la diosa Afrodita! Menudo árbol genealógico, Art! Aunque creo recordar que el viejo Julio C. murió a la edad de 44 años y no le sobrevivió ningún hijo (tanto Bruto como Augusto eran adoptados). De todos modos es muy divertido pensar que uno podría tener antepasados famosos. Mi hermano una vez llegó a la conclusió de que descendíamos de Pepino El Breve (rey de Francia y hermano de Carlomagno). ¡No me preguntes cómo se las arregló!

Terechu

Tracing our family histories is fun, and gives us valuable information to pass on to our descendants, but I think that we need to temper our finding with a little reality. The truth is that the further back in time we go, the less certain we can be of our ancestry. There are two issues. One is cryptic adoption, which is very difficult to estimate. The other is false paternity. To put it in its starkest possible terms, the father of record is not always the biological father.

Studies suggest that the rate of false paternity in modern times somewhere between 5 and 10 percent. If we assume that this has been the case over the centuries, and that a human generation is 25 years (really a figure that is a bit high), the chance that there is an unbroken line of descent from male to male for 50 generations with a 5 percent risk of false paternity in any given generation is roughly 8 percent. In other words, there is about a 92 percent chance that the supposed ancestor 1250 years ago (50 generations) is not really an ancestor at all via the supposed line of descent. If we assume a 10 percent chance of false paternity in every generation, the figure falls to about half a percent. Even with only a 1 percent risk of false paternity per generation, the chance is still only about 60%.

To do the calculation, simply subtract the risk of false paternity from that of certain paternity (100%). That gives the probability in any one generation that there is a real father son relationship between reported individuals. Now raise the result to the power of the number of generations you wish to go back. The result is the probability that the distanct ancestor is really and ancestor through the alleged line of descent. If we ignore issues of false maternity (cryptic adoption) essentialloy the same argument applies to ancestry through any combinations of male and female ancestors. What is important is the number of male ancestors in the path.

Assuming that half of our ancestors back to any given person are male, the figure for the 5% false paternity level is about 26% for 1250 years. In other words, there is about 3/4 chance that the distance ancestor is really a biological ancestor.

Personally, I don't worry about this too much. The things that I care about are not necessarily transmitted solely along biological lines.

Bob Martinez

You're right on the money, Bob! That's what we get from passing on the fathers' surnames instead of the mothers'- no way to trace our ancestry reliably!
I think one of the funniest examples was Russia's empress Catharine the Great, whose five children were by different lovers and none by her husband, whom she had locked up in a fortress, although he was the legitimate Czar. Some lady! Today the heirs to the Russian throne, still bear the name "Romanov" and think nothing of such insignificant details

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Has dado en el clavo, Bob! Eso nos pasa por dar a los hijos el apellido del padre, en vez del de la madre - así no hay quien siga la pista de sus antepasados de forma fiable.
Creo que uno de los ejemplos más cómicos es el de la emperatriz de Rusia, Catalina la Grande, cuyos cinco hijos eran de sus distintos amantes y ninguno de su marido, al que tenía encerrado en una fortaleza, aunque era él el zar legítimo! Qué tía! Hoy en día los herederos al trono de Rusia siguen llamándose "Romanov" y esos detalles insignificantes ni los tienen en cuenta

Terechu

Bob wrote:Personally, I don't worry about this too much. The things that I care about are not necessarily transmitted solely along biological lines.

This is actually my interest. The genes passed along are less interesting to me. What I'm talking about is a personal construction, not a physical reality. Picking at that the physical strikes me as terribly unhelpful.

Also, it is not good for an artist to think too literally. I think this might be true for all of us, but it's not for me to say.

There are other useful things passed along that have nothing to do with whether there is actual paternity or not. Sometimes it's just an image. Let's say I'm descended in part from Lady Godiva. (I have no idea if that's true and don't really care.) Godiva's story is of someone who knows who she is. She has confidence in her principles and she's willing to act on them. That's an inheritance worth receiving. Now, this is the first time I've thought about this, but I'm not sure if it'll stick!

Partly because it seems more "real" to me, I have adopted many of my positive images from my Asturian ancestors. These are something like "role models," except that I construct them out of family stories and my own imagination.

Sweeney, my father relied on geneology done by other people. I think there have been a number of books published on the geneology of English families. I've never looked carefully at the materials, and have no idea of how wishful or accurate it is. I'm sure that any genes which may have been passed on from the good Lady are quite dilute by now!

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Bob wrote:[translated: ]Personalmente, no me preocupo de este demasiado. Las cosas por las cuales me preocupo no necesariamente son transmitidas únicamente a lo largo de líneas biológicas.

Esto es en realidad mi interés. Los genes que son pasado adelante son menos interesantes a mí. De qué hablo es una construcción personal, no una realidad física. Meterse con el físico me parece terriblemente inútil.

También, no está bien para un artista pensar demasiado literalmente. Pienso que esto podría ser verdadero para todos nosotros, pero no es para mí decir.

Hay otras cosas útiles que pasan que no tiene nada que ver si hay paternidad de verdad o no. A veces esto es solamente una imagen. Digamos soy descendiente en parte de la Señora Godiva. (No tengo ni idea si es verdad y realmente no me preocupa.) La historia de Godiva es de alguien que sabe quién es. Ella tiene la confianza en sus principios y ella está dispuesta a actuar sobre ellos. Esto seria un herencia que merece mucho. ¡Bueno, es la primera vez que he pensado en esto, y no estoy seguro si pegará!

En parte porque me parece "más verdadero" (algo que conozco), he adoptado muchas de mis imágenes positivas de mis antepasados asturianos. Estos son algo como "modelos de conducta," pero los construyo de historias de familia y mi propia imaginación.

Sweeney, mi padre confió en geneology hecho por otra gente. Pienso que hubo un número de libros publicados sobre el geneology de familias inglesas. Nunca he mirado con cuidado a los materiales, y no tengo ni idea de como deseoso o exacto es. ¡Estoy seguro que cualquier gene que puede haber sido pasado de la Señora buena es bastante diluido por ahora!

Now I understand. One of my family lines (Winters) was researched by a professional genealogists back to the 1100s. I am related to his line by my father's great great grandmother. I added his research to my genealogy report, but I made it clear to my family that I only had documentation back to 1800.

If the person researching your family line back to Lady Godiva had documentation and you have documentation joining his line of research, then you have solid bragging rights. In my case, the researcher published his results on the internet, but not his documentation. It does not matter, there are no Kings or Nobels in my family line. But there are a lot of soldiers, of which I am very proud.

Terechu

Thank you for the information I will save it for the future when I find Jose's parents names. As far as I know he was the only one of his family that came to the US so I could have relative still in Asturias.

Donna, yours is a perfect example. You may not really be directly (genetically) connected to all these soldiers because of some adoption or whatever, but that wouldn't matter because it's an emotional connection that ties in with your own story, which includes soldiering!

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Donna, el tuyo es un ejemplo perfecto. Es posible que no estas directamente (genéticamente) conectado a todos estos soldados (debido a alguna adopción o algo así), pero esto no importaría porque es una conexión emocional que relaciona con tu propia historia, que incluye el servicio militar!

With a common name like Fernandez, it would be difficult. I found the Fernandez name with some Kings of the different kingdoms. I have a tendency to disbelieve my familiy's Royal connection only because I have read of many people who claim to be decended from royalty who do it only to seem important. It would be great if it was true but I wouldn't be disappoted if it was not true.

Translated using www.lycos.com

Con un nombre común como Fernandez, él sería difícil. Encontré el nombre de Fernandez con algunos reyes de los diversos reinos. Tengo una tendencia a descreer la conexión real de mis familiy solamente porque he leído de mucha gente que demanda ser decended de derechos que la hace para parecerse solamente importante. Sería grande si fuera verdad pero no sería disappoted si no era verdad.

I would think if a person was truly a royal descendant they would KNOW. Their ancestors would be careful to safeguard any documents or proof of their royal heritage. I guess if you were a descendant of the third cousin twice removed from the King, then documentation may be scarce.

Here in America it seems everybody has a Indian Princess in their family line. It is almost impossible to prove either way (despite the fact that there is technically no such thing as an indian "Princess").

Personally, I am proud that my Grandfather was a "Foundry Furnace Man". He made great sacrifices for his family. I find that more impressive than any Royalty.