Rafael Betancourt Falcon – First Male Survivor – First Installment
For years I’ve seen people throw around where this Rafael Betancourt Falcon was born. Things such as how he was born in the Canary Islands in Spain and many other numerous claims. I’ve even seen some carry on how this was their direct grandfather. If he were your grandfather, you’d have to be close to 200 years of age. The ridiculous number of stories is just sad. How can people do such a disservice to their ancestors or ancestors of others when forcing someone on the tree? Why create a tree of falsehood and pass down something that isn’t true? I personally don’t understand this concept.
So you see, I do descend from this man and I’d like to know the truth about every single ancestor. I, and many others, are the fruits of the struggles they faced on this island. During Rafael’s lifetime, he, his wife, and his children had to face 17 Hurricanes that had hit the island. He and his family existed during times of turmoil in the world that was riddled with wars. One thing I did do was read books and articles so that I could understand their struggles and their living condition covering this time period. Just imagine living in an era where we don’t have our current comforts such as air-condition and electricity on a hot and very humid island. Not even indoor plumbing!!
This family lived during the era of the American Revolution with France joining the rebels against the British Empire in 1778, and Spain joining in 1779 along with the Dutch Republic in 1780 (additional read). There were many other wars and political situations during this time period. I’m sure that it wasn’t a walk in the park for any of them. So now this leads me to Rafael.
Rafael Betancourt Falcon wasn’t born in the Canary Islands. He was born right on our island of Puerto Rico and was baptized in Bayamon. Because of the condition of the baptism books; a priest at the Bayamon church had the books redone in the mid-1800s. We don’t know who he handed the task to, but unfortunately, we will never know if this person was lazy by leaving out information or if the records were badly damaged and pieces of the page were missing.
I’m leaning on the thought that the books were very damaged. I state this because Rafael’s date of birth wasn’t recorded but the date of baptism was. Also, the original records went missing never to be found. However, I can say that humans and habits don’t change so easily in a region where the Roman Catholic Church ruled. So in comparing baptisms in this time period, most people baptized their children within a month or two. So, for this reason, I simply set his date of birth to the first day of the month of when he was baptized. Rafael was baptized on March 16, 1773, at Parroquia Santa Cruz in Bayamon. Below is the image of the record in the book.
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| Rafael Betancourt Falcon Baptized March 16, 1773 |
I also determined that Rafael died between 1833 and 1839 based on wills filed. As mentioned in a prior post, Rafael was married to Maria del Rosario Mangual Falcon. Note that these two were first cousins as Antonia Falcon Lin (Rafael’s mother) and Casimira Falcon Lin (Maria del Rosario’s mother) were sisters. They were also listed in the article regarding the wills I mentioned in my prior post about his sister.
The first will was written on Aug 13, 1833, and it showed them to be married, having 11 children, owning 145 cuerdas in Quebrada Grande in Trujillo Alto with a house, 33 animals, his children listed as his heirs and listing his wife and his son Juan as his executors of the estate; I descend from Juan. On the will filed on May 28, 1939, I see his wife listed as a widow and the executors of the estate to be their sons Fermin, Diego, and Manuel. I know that many descend from these men and his children create an explosion of Betancourt descendants in this region till today. When I look at my tree I’ve noticed that I have only located 10 of their 11 children; I’ll need to find that 11th one to complete his family. Since I descend from this line, I will have plenty to add. This was just the beginning…
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| Parroquia Santa Cruz in Bayamon where Rafael was baptized |
Great story!
Thank you! 🙂
Wonderful story!
Rafael is my 4th grand father. Do you have the names of Rafael's sons. Is his Father Diego Betancourt Mendez? Thanks, V. Betancourt
Thank you! Sorry for the delay in responding. I didn't receive the notification that someone posted.
Hi Victor,
Yes his father is Diego Betancourt however I've yet to find a record giving his that second last name. Unfortunately people added the name and its wrong. In all the records of Rafael's father, there is no mention of Mendez. As for Rafael's sons yes I do. I actually descend from his oldest son Juan. I've posted a few blogs posts about the Betancourt family on here and plan to add more in the future. So that makes us cousins. 🙂
Also my apologies in the delayed response, blogger never notified me that someone posted, I just happened to notice a few minutes ago.
Thanks for all the info…but I have two questions….first is there any documentation linking Antonia Falcon to Casimira Falcon Lin and secondly was wondering where these wills are available for review.Just fascinating to know they still exist.
Marie, since this post, I am skeptic that they were indeed sisters. I have a baptism records that may or may not be Antonia. For now I have her down as not being Casimira's sister. As for the wills, they are in Puerto Rico in the Archivo General. There are many wills for many ancestors for Trujillo Alto. I'd like to travel down and just go through documents to determine if Antonia was indeed a Falcon Lin. However for now, I say she isn't. The above was based on someone insisting they had documentation, something they have never produced so I find it to be not factual.
Anna Thanks so much for the info….another good reason to take a trip to the island!!! Diego Juan Betancourt is my 4th great grandfather and I have documentation to that point. Will gladly share anything I find
You can find Diego on the 1860 Census for Trujillo Alto. You can request the film from Familysearch if you don't want to wait until it gets digitized.
I had my dna tested through ancestry and I am a bit confused with my results. According to dna it says i am relatef to one person but then as a bio it gives me all of Rafael Betancourts info, which by the way he was born March 1, 1773, in Bayamón, PR.
Hi Emily, if you're a descendant of Rafael, then you are a cousin to me as well as many who have come here. As for his birth date, that was I who gave him that date but we do not know for certain that he was indeed born then. I came up with that date simply because he was baptized that same month and because most infants during that era were baptized at 2 weeks of age. However, it is not a definitive date. So what is confusing about your results? Hopefully I can assist you with it.
I actually got that date from ancestry.com
Correct but it is because of my massive tree I loaded. Prior to me uploading the data, it wasn't available. Ancestry is giving you a date from my tree. If you follow the trail of the source it should lead back to me as I have at least 15 associated to that record. 🙂