By dgmiv |

The lines that I am currently working on have Leonor Vásques de Retamosa in several different places. I have just finished reading all the information that I can find about her both in Nuestros Ranchos forums and also in FamilySearch and Ancestry.com. I am thoroughly confused.

In the lines I have, she first shows up as the mother of Pedro Pablo Macias Valades who would have been born in about 1588 in Lagos. Her husband there was Nicolas Macias Valades. In another line, she is the mother of Juana Bautista de Alba who would have been born right around 1600 in Lagos, based on when she started having children (1616). Her husband this time is José Alonso de Alba.

Some sources seem to think that there were 2 different Leonors - one born around 1561 and the other around 1583. The first was married to Nicolas and the second to Alonso. I am not so sure about this. I tend to think that there is only 1 Leonor. It is certainly conceivable that the Leonor born in 1561 could still have a daughter around 1600.

The issue of whether Nicolas is the same person as Alonso is more confusing. General consensus seems to be that Nicolas was born in Spain around 1527. This would make him pretty old to be having children in 1600, although not impossibly. The bigger issue for me is that all the documents that I can find give Juana Bautista's name as Alba. She also seems to have had a sister Maria de Alba who married in 1614. Where did Alba come from? It is certainly not unheard of for a person's name to change in these records, but from Nicolas Macias Valades to Alonso de Alba seems like a bit of a stretch. Not impossible, just a stretch.

So, anyway, it seems to me that there are a couple of possibilities:
1) there really were 2 Leonors - it may even be possible that the 1 born around 1583 was the daughter of the first one
2) the Leonor who was born around 1561 was married twice - first to Nicolas and second to Alonso
3) there was only one Leonor and only one husband, whose name changed as time went on from Nicolas Macias Valades to Alonso de Alba.

I know this has been discussed before, but I would really like to hear what everyone else thinks about this issue.

Alonso de Alba and Nicolas Macias Valadez are not the same person at all. But Alonso Macias Valadez and Nicolas Macias Valadez probably are. Most people say he was born around 1557, not 1527.

Alonso de Alba is married to Leonor de Retamosa, daughter of Leonor de Retamosa and Nicolas/Alonso Macias Valadez. Juana Bautista de Alba y Retamosa is the daughter of Leonor de Retamosa the younger and granddaughter of the original Leonor de Retamosa.

Maria de Alba was married to Francisco de Cerbantes y Villasenor. She was the daughter of the older Leonor de Retamosa and Nicolas/Alonso Macias Valadez.

So, there are two Leonor de Retamosa's. The second Leonor was daughter of the first. The older Leonor was married only once and Nicolas Macias Valadez and Alonso de Alba are two different people.

You can find more about them here: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/De_Retamosa-1

The sources and dispensas linking them are at the bottom

Danny C. Alonso

Genealogy Research