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A University of Miami project
helps Cuban-Americans trace their family
histories
By Madeline Baró
Diaz, Miami Bureau. Sun-sentinel.com.
January 14, 2007.
After Martha Ibañez Zervoudakis
left Cuba as a child, her grandmother's
stories connected her to an island she remembered
mostly through photographs.
"Whenever my grandmother would start
talking about family, I would just sit there
and be hypnotized because I just loved it,"
said Zervoudakis, 47, a mother of four who
lives in Southwest Ranches. Over the years,
that interest turned into a genealogy hobby
that led her to document about 2,400 relatives,
with one family branch going back to the
city of St. Augustine in the 17th century.
Like Zervoudakis, other Cuban-Americans
have gotten hooked on tracing their family
histories. Now, a year-old program at the
University of Miami wants to add to their
ranks. The Cuban Family History and Genealogy
Project aims to turn more Cuban-Americans
into amateur genealogists, giving them tips
and tools for tracing their family histories.
"What happens with every migration
is you bring with you your music, your food,
and you pass it on to future generations
... but we lose our family history,"
said Jorge Piñón, a senior
research associate at UM's Institute for
Cuban and Cuban-American Studies who runs
the project.
The goal of the project is to preserve
the history of the Cuban-American community
and the various ethnic groups that called
Cuba home over the centuries, beginning
with the Guanahatabey, Ciboney and Taino
indigenous settlers. Christopher Columbus'
discovery of Cuba in 1492 ushered in Spanish
colonization and the decimation of the indigenous
inhabitants by war, slavery and disease
less than a century later.
The Spanish brought in African slaves and
as the sugar industry grew and railroad
construction began in Cuba, an international
labor force, including some indentured workers,
came to the island from China, the United
States, Mexico and other countries. Cuba
also drew Jewish, Arab and Caribbean immigrants.
Following Fidel Castro's rise to power
in 1959, Cubans of all ethnic groups fled
and resettled in the United States and other
countries.
Piñón was bitten by the genealogy
bug three decades ago while he was living
in New Orleans, the city of his ancestors.
Armed with his great-grandmother's maiden
name, Waugh, and the telephone book, Piñón
sent out 40 to 50 letters to people sharing
that name.
Distant cousins responded and in 1981,
he visited them in New Orleans. In his long-lost
relatives' attic was a family Bible with
pictures and letters. He traced his New
Orleans family back to Robert Waugh Scott,
who was originally from England, and his
wife, Alice McNicol George, a native of
Scotland. Both moved to Cuba in the 19th
century. He has since traced bloodlines
going back to the 1600s and has documented
more than 1,200 ancestors.
The institute has held seminars in Miami-Dade
and Broward counties on how Cubans and other
Hispanics can trace their family history.
Much of the research involves obtaining
church records -- such as baptism, marriage
and death certificates -- and in many cases,
tracking families back to Spain.
Because civil records are much more difficult
to obtain in Cuba than in other countries,
Piñón said the goal is to
get a family's research there done as soon
as possible.
The community of Cuban-American genealogists
is transcribing documents and putting them
online. The Cuban Genealogy Center has many
of those documents, ranging from lists of
people buried in cemeteries to databases
for military and ship passengers. Ed Elizondo,
a retired engineer who lives in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea,
runs the site, www.cubagenweb.org.
Elizondo has traced one side of his family
to a knight who moved to Spain from what
is now Germany in about 850. By combining
his interests in computers and genealogy,
Elizondo, 70, has become an expert on tracking
Cuban family trees.
"It's an endless hobby," he said.
"It's like collecting stamps or collecting
coins, where you're never going to have
a complete collection."
Zervoudakis, who teaches English in the
homes of Miami-Dade children who are too
sick to attend school, is a founding member
of the Cuban Genealogy Club of Miami. She
began dabbling in genealogy in 1988, when
she interviewed her grandmother and prepared
a family tree for her 80th birthday.
Hooked on the hunt for history, Zervoudakis
discovered her paternal roots went back
to St. Augustine, the oldest city in the
United States.
She learned her father's family left St.
Augustine for Cuba after the English took
it from the Spanish in 1763. When the Spanish
returned 20 years later, so did her ancestors,
but they went back to Cuba when Florida
became an U.S. territory. Eventually they
settled in Pinar del Rio, where they became
farmers and business owners.
Since finding the St. Augustine link, she
has made many trips to the colonial city.
Even during family getaways, she finds time
to pore over old records.
Like her grandmother's stories, her search
is a link to her roots.
"Every time I go to St. Augustine,
I feel like I'm walking in a place that
my ancestors walked," she said. "I'd
like to be able to do that in Cuba."
How to trace your roots
Some tips on starting genealogical research:
* Start with yourself and work backward
in time.
* Interview all of your immediate relatives.
* Know locations to search for official
documents.
* Don't trust everything you see in print.
* Don't limit yourself to searching for
just one spelling of a name.
* Don't accept family tales as facts.
* Organize your information and note the
source.
Some online resources:
* Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the
Internet, www.cyndislist.com
* Cuban Genealogy Center, www.cubagenweb.org
* Cuban Genealogy Club of Miami, www.cubangenclub.org
Source: Jorge Piñón, director
of the Cuban
Family History and Genealogy Project
Madeline Baró Diaz can be reached
at mbaro@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5007.
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