Maldonado Journey to the Kingdom of New Mexico: Volume X - Descendants of Antonio Pérez

By Gilbert Maldonado

Volume X is a continuation of the journey of the Maldonado family to the Kingdom of New Mexico. It documents the Maldonado descendants of Antonio Prez and his wife Catalina Aponte. This couple is connected to New Mexico through the marriage of their grandson Diego de Vera to Mara de Abendao, granddaughter of Juan Lpez Holgun and Catalina de Villanueva, founders of the Kingdom of New Mexico. From this marriage and the marriages of their great-granddaughters Mara Ortiz de Vera and Petronila de Vera (Salas), Don Antonio and Doa Catalina became the ancestors of leading New Mexicans in later generations. This volume contains not only their direct line of descent but also cousins, uncles, aunts, and in-laws. The Maldonado database has more than 5,800 names, with many of them represented here. The time period is generally from 1598 through the nineteenth century for most names, though the direct line continues to the present. Antonio Prez is the ancestor of many people living in New Mexico today. In this volume his other descendants can trace their connections to cousins from this extended Maldonado family. Antonio Prez and Catalina Aponte are my twelfth great-grandparents.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Nov 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490739564

Gilbert Maldonado

Gilbert T. Maldonado is the thirteenth generation of his family born in New Mexico. He is first vice president of the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico where he has written numerous articles on the genealogies of the first families of New Mexico. He retired after forty-two years of service with the US government. His last assignment was as Title X program manager for the Department of Energy in charge of remediating all radioactive mill-tailing sites in the continental United States. During the Vietnam War, he served as a Vietnam Era captain with the US Air Force. Maldonado holds master’s degrees from two universities. He resides in Albuquerque with his wife, Susie, daughters Lisa Maldonado and Cathy Jones, son-in-law Mark Jones, and grandson Coleton.

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Copyright 2014 Gilbert Maldonado.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Cover photo by Susie G. Maldonado, May 30, 2009

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3953-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3956-4 (e)

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CONTENTS

About the Cover

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

Ahnentafel of Gilbert Maldonado

Relationship Chart - Gilbert Maldonado

Pedigree Chart - Gilbert Maldonado

Descendants of Antonio Pérez

Endnotes

Bibliography

Dedication

For

Mark, Cathy, and Coleton

ABOUT THE COVER

The Maldonado Coat of Arms illustrated on the cover is the facade of the Maldonado Castle, also known as the Casa de las Conchas (House of Shells) a historical building in Salamanca, Spain. This photo shows the Maldonado coat of arms displayed over the front door to the castle, which currently houses a public library. Salamanca became the seat of the Maldonado family following the creation of the family name, from around the third generation (circa 1324), if not from the beginning.

The Maldonado castle was built from 1493 to 1517 by Rodrigo Arias de Maldonado, knight of the Order of Santiago de Compostela, and a professor at the University of Salamanca. Its most interesting feature is the facade, mixing late Gothic and Plateresque style, decorated with more than three hundred shells, symbol of the Order of Santiago. Each shell signifies one pilgrimage along the Way of St. James by the Maldonado family. Pilgrims brought sea shells to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela (where the apostle James is said to be buried) for absolution of their sins, and to indicate they had traveled a great distance, such as from the sea.

The entrance portal has the coat of arms of the Maldonado family over the door, while in the architrave are dolphins, a Renaissance symbol of love, and vegetables. In the facade are also the coat of arms of the Catholic monarchs and four windows in Gothic style, each one having a different shape. The inner court is characterized, in the lower floor, by arches supported by square pilasters, while in the upper ones they are supported by shorter columns in Carrara marble.

The Maldonado coat of arms also appears on the walls, around the windows, and on the other architectural features inside the castle. It features five fleurs-de-lis supported by angels, lions, and other creatures, and is sometimes circled with laurel. The Spanish description is: De gules, con cinco flores-de-lis de oro, puestas en sotuer (On a field of red, five gold lilies, placed like an X).

Red was chosen to show the charity, daring nature, magnanimity, and fervor of the Maldonados, who were pledged to help the oppressed. Gold symbolizes their sense of justice, mercy, purity, seriousness in duty, constancy in danger, and commitment to help the poor and defend the kingdom. The lilies, which give off a sweet aroma when crushed, were signs of generosity in the face of injury and insult.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A work such as this is rarely the product of one person. While the end result is mine, it owes its existence to the building blocks of many people, among whom are numerous historians and genealogists from New Mexico.

Although absolute perfection is admirable, I thought it best to publish this pioneer genealogy at this time, hoping to disseminate available information and stimulate inquiry about our ancestry, that we may be bound closer together as one great family, whether by the name of Maldonado or otherwise.

The search for this ancestry has largely increased my respect and admiration for this family, and I believe that it compares favorably to the genealogies of other Spanish colonial families of New Mexico whose genealogical records have been carefully preserved in the Spanish Archives of Santa Fe. From the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible), the Lord beseeches us to do all we can to perfect and preserve our own. In the language of Job 8:8, For inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers.

First and foremost, thanks go to our ancestors, some of whom risked their lives to come to the ends of the earth to escape the Spanish Inquisition in search of freedom and prosperity for their descendants. Their careful preservation of the record made it possible for me to participate in the discovery of such a grand ancestry. Bringing together the records of this family has been a labor of love, and I hope this volume meets with a kind reception among those for whom it has been especially prepared.

Our heartfelt gratitude goes to Fray Angélico Chávez, a cousin many times over, for researching and writing Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period, Revised Edition, which includes Juan Antonio Montaño de Sotomayor and his family among many of our other ancestors. Juan Antonio’s son, Juan Antonio Montaño Maldonado, was the first in the family to go by the name Maldonado exclusively in the Kingdom of New Mexico. His descendants are found throughout New Mexico, as well as in most of the remaining United States and distant lands.

Special thanks go to Robert Beto Baldonado Isaac, another cousin many times over, who initiated the search for our family and provided critical and voluminous research. His research helped to connect the dots between the Montaño and Maldonado names, proving they were the same family, and thus, opening the door to finding our other ancestors. Beto was the first to untangle the tangled web of our name by discovering that José Montaño was actually José Maldonado, my fourth great-grandfather. José Maldonado and his wife, María Dolores Benavides, connected us to the 1598 founders of the Kingdom of New Mexico, who came under the leadership of don Juan de Oñate. The ancestry of these conquistadors took us to places beyond the sea.

Special thanks go to my niece Laura Annette Galván Lucero for taking charge of the photography and helping her aunt Susie Maldonado take the photographs.

Thanks go to José Antonio Esquibel for making available his website Beyond Origins of New Mexico Families, from which I gained valuable information.

Thanks go to the board of directors of the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico, past and present, for their contributions to New Mexico genealogy.

I am particularly indebted to my wife, María de Jesús Galván (Susie), who not only provided photographs, valuable suggestions, and review, but whose greatest contribution may have been her willingness to spend many an evening alone while I labored over this project.

Gilbert T. Maldonado

Albuquerque, New Mexico, July 30, 2012

PREFACE

Volume ten is a continuation of the 1598 journey of the Maldonado family to the Kingdom of New Mexico. It documents this family’s Maldonado descendants of Antonio Pérez and his wife Catalina Aponte, my twelfth great-grandparents.

Antonio Pérez and Catalina Aponte are connected to New Mexico through the marriage of their grandson Diego de Vera to María de Abendaño, granddaughter of Juan López Holguín and Catalina de Villanueva, founders of the Kingdom of New Mexico. From the marriage of Diego and María, and the subsequent marriages of their great-granddaughters María and Petronila, don Antonio and doña Catalina became the ancestors of leading New Mexicans in later generations.

María de Vera married Manuel Jorge and later Diego de Montoya, son of first-colonists Bartolomé de Montoya and María de Zamora. Petronila de Vera became the wife of Pedro Romero, grandson of the pioneering New Mexico couple, Bartolomé Romero and Lucia López Robledo. The record indicates that the de Vera, Romero, and Robledo families were Jewish. Some historians consider them the Crypto-Jews of New Mexico.

The marriages of their descendants linked Antonio Pérez and Catalina Aponte to a number of the first-families of New Mexico, including the families of Pedro Robledo, don Pedro Durán y Chaves, Cristóbal Baca, and Bartolomé Romero mentioned above. This combined family formed one of the most prominent and powerful alliances in Spanish colonial New Mexico receiving many of the land grants and encomiendas, as well as occupying the highest offices in the government. Numerous people from New Mexico descend from Antonio Pérez and Catalina Aponte.

This volume incorporates the extended Maldonado family that descends from this couple including cousins, uncles, aunts, and in-laws. On the Maldonado family tree they number more than fifty-eight hundred, many of which are included in this genealogy. Names in this volume extend only through the nineteenth century, more or less, to keep the genealogy from becoming too large, though the main line continues to the present. Through this volume, other descendants of don Antonio and doña Catalina can trace their connections to cousins from this extended Maldonado family.

The above-named families are featured prominently in this genealogy. Other significant old New Mexico families include Baca, Luna, Ortiz and García, though the family tree covers much of the alphabet of Spanish colonial names.

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New Mexico Colonists of 1598 with their livestock. Photo by Laura Annette Galván Lucero.

INTRODUCTION

This volume, as well as volumes eight, nine, and eleven, contains the latest information on the Maldonado family tree. Errors found in currently published volumes one through seven were corrected in these four new books. Names of family members not previously known to the author were entered into the genealogies and numerous new source citations were added to the family tree.

Two important corrections were made to volume one. On the bottom of page 38, Antonio de Carvajal and María de Olid are my twelfth great-grandparents, not my cousins-in-law. On the bottom of page 319, Antonio Pérez and Catalina Aponte should only be in the fifteenth generation, not in both the fifteenth and sixteenth generations.

The new and updated information significantly enhanced the family tree by making it more correct and complete, in addition to extending the branches where the newly-found names were added. Anyone following the Maldonado family tree should refer to volumes eight through eleven as the most current genealogical information.

While this genealogy is based on Gilbert Maldonado as the root person, all members of the family can trace their connections to these ancestors from the point where their names appear in the genealogy. The current generation of cousins can literally substitute their names for mine when tracing their lineage under the Maldonado name.

RootsMagic, the computer program chosen for compiling this genealogy, is a proactive, read-write program that reads an entry’s data fields and writes a narrative report from the information. It takes the date entered into the various blocks of information for each person, such as date of birth, date of marriage, place born, place married, etc., and strings them into sentences. While this is a useful feature, it often makes the computer-generated writing seem stilted and repetitive. As this is the way the computer program is written, I have no control over it. The sentences sometimes don’t make a great deal of sense, but there is little I can do about it. It also makes the writing difficult to change, so when I could not easily revise the computer-generated language, I generally left it alone.

Finding a person’s place of birth was the greatest challenge of all, because the computer program defaults to this field before allowing data to be entered into the family tree. Without filling in the place of birth, the program does not allow names, color codes, or connections to be assigned and identification numbers to be entered into the narrative reports. It leave these data fields blank. Consequently, whenever I could not find an ancestor’s place of birth, I entered a birthplace according to the following general rules: 1.) 1519 to 1598: New Spain, 2.) 1598 to 1680: New Mexico, 3.) 1680 to 1692: Guadalupe del Paso, and 4.) 1693 to present: New Mexico.

The above rules for designating birthplaces are intrinsically accurate, because the locations referenced were the only populated and protected places where a person could originate in those days. The periods that gave me the most difficulty were the years after the Pueblo massacre of 1680, and the years after the reconquest of New Mexico in 1692-1693. During these periods I often found it difficult to tell whether someone was born in El Paso or New Mexico, so I used my best judgment.

To make it easier for the reader, as well as for myself, I chose the current names of towns, counties, states, and countries instead of trying to figure out their ancient names by historical period. For example, I used Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico, in spite of the fact that this name did not exist in the seventeenth century and earlier. The Spanish Archives of New Mexico (SANM), Volumes I and II, by Ralph Emerson Twitchell have a great deal of information about our family that I was unable to include in this genealogy. Most of the entries deal with real estate transactions that are fairly benign but quite interesting. To find them, look up the individual’s name in the SANM index and go to the page indicated.

The titles Don and Doña are always capitalized in the records, but I chose not to capitalize them so that they would not be confused with the American names of Don and Donna.

The names, places, and footnotes in the pedigree chart are not included in the indexes and endnotes of this volume. You will find this information in the other sections.

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El Santuario de Chimayó north of Santa Fe.

Photo by Laura Annette Galván Lucero.

AHNENTAFEL OF GILBERT MALDONADO

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Pilgrim to the shrine of Chimayó north of Santa Fe. Photo by Laura Annette Galván Lucero.

RELATIONSHIP CHART - GILBERT MALDONADO

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Alter screen of the Santa Fe Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. Photo by Susie Maldonado.

PEDIGREE CHART - GILBERT MALDONADO

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Cross in honor of the original settlers of Santa Fe. Photo by Laura Annette Galván Lucero.

DESCENDANTS OF ANTONIO PÉREZ

First Generation

1.   Antonio Pérez ¹ was born about 1548 in La Graciosa, Canary Islands, Spain.

Antonio Pérez and Catalina Aponte were married in La Graciosa, Canary Islands, Spain.¹ They were the maternal grandparents of Diego de Vera, a colonist from the Kingdom of New Mexico. Catalina Aponte ¹ was born about 1548 in Garachico, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.

Antonio Pérez and Catalina Aponte had the following child:

Second Generation

2.   María de Betancur ¹ (Antonio-1) was born about 1569 in La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.

María de Betancur and Pedro de Vera Perdomo were married in La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.¹ Pedro de Vera Perdomo ¹, son of Hernán Martín Baena and Catalina García, was born about 1569 in La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. He was also known as Pedro de Vera Mojica.

Pedro de Vera Perdomo and María de Betancur had the following child:

Third Generation

3.   Diego de Vera ¹ – ² (María de Betancur-2, Antonio-1) was born in 1590 in La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. He was baptized on April 29, 1590 at Nuestra Señora de la Concepción in La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.³

Diego emigrated to New Spain in the late 1610s, and lived with a cousin, Juana de Vera Perdomo, who may have also gone by the name Mojica, because Diego’s father, Pedro de Vera Perdomo, was known as Pedro de Vera Mojica. The importance of the Mojica name will become apparent in the penultimate paragraph. After a year or so, Diego traveled north to New Mexico, where he married María de Abendaño on January 16, 1622.

Chávez says that within three years of de Vera’s marriage, Fray Alonso de Benavides arrived in Santa Fe as custodian of the Franciscans. Perhaps because Fray Alonso had inside information or because he wanted to salve his guilty conscience, de Vera confessed to the prelate that, despite his marriage to María, he already had a wife whom he had left behind in the Canary Islands. His trial for bigamy before the inquisitors in Mexico City in 1626 reveals considerable demographic information that, when linked with data from Inquisition, notarial, and sacramental records in the canaries, suggests a connection with a de Vera family of Crypto-Jews who had fled to the islands from various parts of Spain following the edict expulsion of the Jews in 1492.

During his trial, Diego mentioned a relative, Juana de Vera Perdomo. Hordes states that his review of the sacramental records for Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, suggests strongly that all the de Veras living on that island belonged to the same family and that, through Juana de Vera Perdomo, Diego de Vera was related to Francisco de Vera Moxica, a cousin of Juana de Vera Perdomo. Francisco descended from the original Jewish de Vera family that had gone to the Canary Islands following the edict of expulsion. (Refer to volume one, page 177 for Francisco de Vera Moxica’s line of descent.)

Francisco de Vera Moxica had applied for a license to emigrate to the Indies in 1609, but we don’t know if he ever made it because the Inquisition discovered that he had falsely testified in his application that he was not Jewish. He may or may not have known that the Inquisition files contained the long Jewish history of his family going back more than one hundred years. If he did make it to New Spain, he could have stayed with Juana de Vera Perdomo, his cousin, as did Diego de Vera, their other cousin. These cousin relationships prove that they were all from the same de Vera family of Crypto-Jews who had escaped to the Canary Islands. An additional connection can be found through the family of Ana de Vera and her husband Manuel Jorge discussed later on in this genealogy.

Diego de Vera and María de Abendaño were married on January 16, 1622 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. María de Abendaño ¹, ⁴ – ⁵, daughter of Simón de Abendaño and María López de Villanueva Ortiz, was also known as María Ortíz de Abendaño. She was born in New Mexico.

After her marriage to Diego de Vera was deemed invalid, María de Abendaño married Antonio de Salas where they lived in the encomienda that he held in Pojoaque Pueblo along with their son Simón Salas, and María’s two daughters by her previous invalid marriage to Diego de Vera.

Diego de Vera and María de Abendaño had the following children:

Fourth Generation

4.   doña María Ortiz de Vera ¹,⁶ (Diego-3, María de Betancur-2, Antonio-1) was also known as María Baca. She was born in New Mexico.

Doña María Ortiz de Vera and Alférez Diego de Montoya were married in New Mexico.⁶ Alférez Diego de Montoya⁶– ⁷, son of Bartolomé de Montoya and María de Zamora, was born about 1591 in New Spain.

Diego de Montoya was an alférez living in Santa Fe in 1628. He married Ana Martín daughter of Alonso Martín Barba, by whom he had a daughter, Ynéz de Zamora, who married Juan López. They had at least two sons, Pedro, twenty-six in 1634, who was still living in 1663, and Bartolomé, who inherited his father’s encomienda of San Pedro Pueblo in 1660.

After his wife’s death Diego, who was deceased by 1661, married doña María Ortiz de Vera daughter of Diego de Vera and María de Abendaño. She had three daughters prior to her marriage to Montoya. These were Beatriz, Josefa, and Juana, who sometimes were referred to as Ortiz and also as Montoya. There was also a Lucía de Montoya mentioned in 1663, perhaps a daughter by Diego, who became the wife of Francisco de Trujillo. Juana married Andrés Gómez Robledo.

Diego and María are the couple through whom practically all of the New Mexico Montoyas descend.

Diego de Montoya and María Ortiz de Vera had the following children:

5.   Petronila de Vera (Salas) ¹ (Diego-3, María de Betancur-2, Antonio-1) was born in New Mexico.

Petronila de Vera (Salas) and Pedro Romero were married. Pedro Romero ¹, ⁸, son of Matías Romero and Isabel de Pedraza, was born in New Mexico.

One of the daughters of Simón de Abendaño and María Ortiz, Petronila, married Pedro Romero, grandson of Bartolomé Romero and Lucía Robledo.

Fifth Generation

8.   doña Juana Ortiz⁶, ⁹ (María Ortiz de Vera-4, Diego-3, María de Betancur-2, Antonio-1) was born in New Mexico. She was also known as Juana Montoya.⁶

Doña Juana Ortiz and Commanding General Andrés Gómez Robledo were married in 1665–1680 in Santa Fe, Santa Fe County, New Mexico.¹⁰ Commanding General Andrés Gómez Robledo ¹⁰, son of Francisco Gómez and Ana Romero Robledo, was born in 1643 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He died before 1692 at the age of 49.

Andrés Gómez Robledo, twenty years old and single in 1663, said he was twenty-four, a native of Santa Fe, and still single in 1665 when he and his brother Juan helped Governor Peñalosa cheat on sacks of piñon kept at the Gómez estancia of Las Barrancas in the Río Abajo. Andrés served with two of his elder brothers in the General Council of the Kingdom prior to 1680. When the Indians struck he was a Maese de Campo, most active in the defense of Santa Fe in which he lost his life, the only officer killed.

Andrés had married Juana Ortiz, a daughter of María Ortiz de Vera, by Diego de Montoya, or a previous husband. Juana escaped with the Santa Fe refugees along with her orphaned children, all girls, most of whom figured after the Reconquest as the wives of prominent leaders. Their names were: Margarita, wife of Jacinto Peláez; María, who married Alonso Romero and then Diego Arias de Quirós; Francisca, wife of Ignacio de Roybal; Lucía, married to Miguel de Dios Sandoval; and Rosa, who died single. Perhaps a Juana, who married Domingo Roybal, was a sister of theirs.

Andrés Gómez Robledo and Juana Ortiz had the following children: