The Islenos from the Canary Islands

My grand uncle, Henry "Jack" Muir, married four times during his lifetime. His second wife was Armita Alleman. He and Armita had four children. I discovered a few of Henry's grandchildren on Ancestry.com's message boards. They were looking for more information about their grandparents. One had always been told she had Native American heritage from her grandmother, Armita. At the time I knew very little about Henry and only Armita's first name.

After several months of digging and help from my research collaborator cousin in New Zealand, we found the record of Henry and Armita's marriage license and learned her last name. Once I had that name I began tracing the Alleman family. I have yet to find Native American ancestors, but what I have discovered so far is fascinating.

Armita's parents were Arrestide Alleman and Alice Istre. Arrestide's grandmother, Maria Xaviera Carmelite Domingue (1814-1876) was descended from Islenos. As a child growing up in Virginia, my education was loaded with Colonial history, but I discovered it was sadly lacking in the early history of the United States beyond the thirteen original colonies. I knew nothing about Islenos. Learning about their history and culture has been the fascinating part of this research effort.

Prior to 1778, Spanish settlements in Louisiana could only trade with ships owned by Spanish subjects, which sailed from Seville, Alicante, Malaga, Carthagena, Barcelona, or Corunna. Don Carlos III eased those restrictions and, at his own expense, sent a large number of farmers and soldiers to Louisiana. He offered each colonist a home, tools and subsistence on which to live for up to four years. As a result of the inducements offered by the Spanish king, several families from the Canary Islands immigrated to Louisiana. They became known as Islenos. 

When the ships landed, the colonists were classified. Soldiers were sent to several Spanish regiments for training and farmers and their families were sent to settlements to claim their land and homes.

The ships that brought Islenos to present day St Bernard Parish;
Photo courtesy of NOAdventure.com

Thanks to the transcription work of Sidney Louis Villere in 1973, we know quite a bit about when and how the Islenos arrived in Louisiana. The villages allocated to the Islenos were:

• San Bernardo de Galvez, located on the shores of the Terre-Aux-Boeuf in Saint Bernard Parish
• Galveztown, located on the shores of the Amite river near Manchoc, in Iberville Parish
• Valenzuela, located on the shores of the Bayou Lafourche, in Assumption Parish
• Nueva Iberia, located on the shores of Bayou Teche in Iberville Parish

They were settlements strategically placed to guard the approaches to New Orleans.

Four original Isleno settlements; base map courtesy of Google Maps

Armita Alleman's 4 times great grandparents were Islenos. Juan Gonzales Carbo and his wife, Andrea Ruiz, along with their nine children arrived in Louisiana on 26 July 1778 aboard the Scaramento. Carbo became a member of the Infantry Regiment of Louisiana. His daughter Lorenza Gonzales Carbo married Augustin Dominguez in 1782 at Assumption Parish. Augustin's parents arrived in Louisiana on 9 October 1778 aboard a frigate named San Ignacio de Loyola. His father also became a member of the Infantry Regiment of Louisiana.

During the American Revolutionary War, Spain declared war on England and coordinated their efforts with France. Isleno soldiers fought against the English at Natchez, Manchoc, Baton Rouge, Mobile, and Pensacola.

To learn more, visit the Los Islenos Heritage and Culture Society website.

A Surprise in My Inbox: Ternes Family Photograph

I've written about Edith Mary Madeline Ternes before (here, here and here). Edith communicated via voice tapes to a relative named Sofee, who is also interested in researching the Ternes family. They traded information about themselves and photos.

After reading the following section of the transcript last November, I scoured the Internet, looking for the photograph of the Anthony Ternes family Edith described in the transcript.  No luck.  Yesterday morning, I woke up and read a new email in my inbox from one of my Ternes family connections.(1)  Attached was the very photograph for which I had been looking for months. It made my day!

I have also included some photographs of other family members mentioned in Edith Mary Madeline Ternes' transcript that are not in the subject photograph.

Here's what Edith Mary Madeline Ternes had to say about the Anthony and Mary Ann (Horger) Ternes family, which were her adopted grandparents:

The Ternes family was German. Mother Ternes was part French. She lived in a French community, Newport, Michigan, and spoke French. During the first war this led to some rather lively discussions at the dinner table. I have often wondered what Mother would have said had she found out, as I have since I have been researching family trees, that her family could well have been more Spanish than French. Dr. Valade, mother's grandfather traveled from Spain to Canada to Newport, Michigan. That Dr. Valade was your great, great, great grandfather.

Mother's father was August Loranger and her mother was Mary Valade. Mary died and August Loranger married again. His second wife had children of her own and was not too happy to have little Madeline Laura at all. She reportedly treated her so badly that her Grandmother Valade took your Great grandmother to live with her. Thus she was raised with aunts and uncles. This was the reason Mother always felt so close to Clara Valade Beckham. They are aunt and niece but raised as sisters.

Now, if you take the large family picture I will tell you about the people in it. There are three men and a woman in the back row. They are George Ternes, William Ternes, Theresa Ternes and Albert Peter Ternes.

Anthony Ternes Family

In the middle row are Maggie, Anthony, the father of the group, Mary Horger Ternes, the mother of the group and Francis "Frank" Anthony Ternes, my foster father and your great grandfather. Seated on the floor are Della and Frederick.

Let's start with Anthony, the father of the family. He is the son of Christian Ternes and Anna M (Schiller) Ternes. (Note: The patriarch of the family, Christian Ternes, was brutally murdered in the streets of Detroit.) Anthony was born on Feb. 22, 1843 and died on Feb. 28, 1904. Mary Ann (Horger) Ternes was the daughter of John Horger and Margaret Meisel Horger. Mary Ann was born in 1847 and died Jan 21, 1904. The church records show that Anthony Ternes and Mary Ann Horger were married June 1868. Anthony's father Christian Ternes was born in 1807 and died in 1881. His mother Anna Marie Schiller was born in 1808 and died on Dec. 25 1884.

The first boy in the last row is George Ternes. George married May Connolly. They had four children, Edna who became a nun, George Junior was in the war and I believe was at Pearl Harbor. The experience left him sort of at loose ends but he finally married a beautiful young lady (I am still trying to find out her name) They were married just 30 days and she died with spinal meningitis. George was devastated by this tragedy and it was quite a while before he married again but he never could come to terms with the disasters in his life and he finally decided it wasn't worth trying to cope with it any longer so he chose his own time to die. Claire married James Martin and lives here in Dearborn. I do not have her children's names. And then there was Lloyd the youngest. I see him at church sometimes. He is a fine young man with a family and he runs the Ternes Paint Store right here in town.

Hannah May (Connelly) Ternes and her children, George Anthony, Claire and Edna

After May died Lucille Carlen kept home for George and his four children until George married again. He had four children and he married a widow, Marguerite Emback Schroeder, who also had four children. They evened things up but made for quite a household.

Marguerite (Embach) Schroeder/Ternes

The second young man in the family picture is William Peter Ternes who married Elsie Gerstner and they had six children as near as I can find out. (Note: You may remember from an earlier blog post, they eloped.) They were Evelyn who married a Monaghan boy, William who married Madeline Maillue whose father was a lawyer and her mother was an opera singer, Ruth, Joy Marion,(2) Jack and Donald.(3) Ruth was drowned out at the cottage on Hickory Island. She was about three years old. After William died Elsie married a Mr. Deacon and they had one more child called John P. Deacon.

Donald Joseph Ternes

The lady is the back row is my favorite Aunt, Theresa, whom we called Aunt Trace. She married Albert Bernard Carlen a musician and piano and organ tuner and repairer. They had four children, Lucille, Eugene, Dorothy and Bernard. Lucille married William McCleer, Eugene became a priest, Dorothy became a Monroe nun with the name of Sr. Claudia. Bernard married Frances Shulte, a nurse. They had four children, Marie Therese, Dorothy, Kathleen known as Kitty and James. Then they called the whole thing off and were divorced and Bernard married Rose somebody or other. I'm still working on that name too. Marie Therese married William D. Hopkinson and they had six children, Elizabeth Ann, Donald, Ann, Kathy, Amy and Patty. Dorothy married William Beers and moved to California. They have three children, William, Mark and Shawn. Kitty works for the social services in Detroit and has never married. James lives in California and his aunt doesn't know if he is married or not.

The other man in the last row is Albert. Albert was a handsome confident man who was a very successful business man. He and his three younger brothers, Frank, your great grandfather, William and George were in the coal and lumber business for a number of years. The company was called The Ternes Coal and Lumber Company which was quite normal. Albert married Maude Burke and had three sons. Arthur, Howard and Paul. Arthur married Laree but I do not know her last name yet. They were divorced and I believe he married again a girl by the name of Esper, another good old Dearborn name. I believe he had two children Dale and Donald but I do not know by which wife. Howard married a lovely girl with an odd first name. She was Steve Rooney. They had a daughter Burke. I think there were other children but I have not been able to track them down yet. Paul married Patricia O'Reille and they had three children, Paul, Patricia and Michael. About 1918 Aunt Maude died. I remember that very well because the boys stayed with us for a few days. Al later married Helen Reber and had one more daughter Alberta Ternes who married Bill Bent.

The young woman sitting in the middle row is Margaret or Maggie as she was called. Maggie married Peter Neckel and this seems to have been a mis-mating if ever there was one. Margaret and Peter had three children, only one of whom Alice lived to grow up. The other two, Madeline and Alfred, died as children. Alice married Joseph Hammel and had six children Joseph, Robert, Margaret Kohlmeier La Salle Renelda Bonefant and Mary Alice Best.

Neckel brothers, Peter is on the far right

Next in line is Grandpa Ternes, your great great grandfather Anthony who, I understand was especially posed with his knees covered by hands to cover a hole in his pants. When he went into the photographer's studio he tripped and fell, tearing both his pant legs. Next to him sits Grandma Ternes who, by the looks of her must have been the authority figure in the family. I never knew her but Mother spoke highly of her and grandpa too, so there must have been some good to her. Then there is Frank, your great grandfather. He was a handsome man, good, kind, and with a terrific sense of humor. We loved the stunts and tricks he used to pull on us.

I hope you've enjoyed how so many pieces of the Ternes family history are coming together. I am thoroughly enjoying getting to learn about this history and meeting Ternes family members.

_______________
(1) My connection is the granddaughter of Christian Ternes, who moved to Panama and changed his name to Charles Ternes De Reuter. His very interesting story may be found here.

(2) William Peter Ternes' daughter, Marion, married Harold Muir, my first cousin, twice removed. They moved to California and had four children.

(3) I have also been in contact with Donald Ternes' daughter on Facebook.