I am reaching out for your help to support Jillette Leon Guerrero, my relative, friend and fellow historian/genealogy collaborator of the CHamoru Roots Genealogy Project on her upcoming book release, “COMING OF AGE IN WAR-TORN GUAM: The WWII Memoirs of Justo Torre Leon Guerrero.”Proceeds of this effort are to donate copies of the books to middle, high school, college libraries and other nonprofit organizations on Guam.This is real history by someone who has lived and experienced it.
From my personal interviews with some elders, my late father, Eustaquio Anderson Punzalan served with Justo (Uncle Tutu) and both retired from the U.S. Air Force. They were part of several cohorts of CHamoru men that enlisted in the Air Force after experiencing being prisoners of World War II at home, and then later obtaining citizenship from the Guam Organic Act of 1950. They were exclusively trained on Guam and then released on world-wide assignments to serve, protect and defend the United States.
I am quite anxious to read about Uncle Tutu’s memoirs and learn about his experiences and the experiences of the CHamoru people.
Biba Uncle Tutu and Jillette Leon-Guerrero! Na’lå’la i sinangan CHamoru!
Please click on the link to support the publishing and distribution of this historical book!
Subscribers of the annual Genealogy Library Plan now have exclusive access to the eBook, “Alphabetical Index of Names Contained in Dr. Jane Underwood’s Guam Genealogy Database.” It provides more details, such as the individuals parents surnames, and the surnames of spouses.You can view the eBook under “Misc Reports,” or search on the site for Jane Underwood. I’m having some challenges with compiling the software eBook to run as stand alone eBook programs for Windows and Mac. The files are quite large for an eBook, with over 2900 pages. So that remains a work in progress.
And just like that, 39,460 names have been added to the CHamoru Roots Genealogy Project’s database incorporating the late Dr. Jane Underwood’s work. The database was gifted to Dr. Gary Heathcote (retired UOG Anthropologists professor) and Dr. Vince P. Diego (assistant professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley). In turn, they gifted it to me to add to the CHamoru Roots Genealogy Project. Dr. Heathcote writes, “I can't help but think about how pleased Jane would be that her records have found another good home! No, an EXCELLENT home!! “
Since I received the data, I burnt the midnight oil converting some of the data to make it available to subscribers as soon as I could. Because of that there are limitations to the data. The individuals do not link to families…yet. I am working on recoding and creating new family ID numbers because that data field needs to be numerical. Jane’s data had alpha-numeric characters so I was not able immediately convert that data. However, and for the interim, I have used Jane’s individual ID data as “Nicknames,” so that will be the key to searching and identifying parents within the database.
The way Jane maintained her data was ingeniously unique. Therefore, some individuals will have their first name listed with their mother’s paternal and maternal surname (i.e. eustaqui andersonpereda Punzalan). Note that when Jane listed paternal and maternal surnames, she used lower casing on all names and did not provide any spacing between names. I have chosen to leave that intact, because it provides for better research potential when researching the maternal lineage of an individual. The surnames are the only names that begin with a capital letter, because that is my addition to the database and rather than reflecting a paternal-maternal surname.
The birth years within the database range from 1808-1941. She did phenomenal job at developing and sustaining it!
I hope to write more about Jane's work later, but I am still learning about her. I was first introduced to her index cards at the Micronesian Area Research Center by fellow genealogist Jillette Leon-Guerrero and Omaira Perry-Brunel, but had no idea at the time that Jane had maintained a database in Microsoft Access.
God bless Jane for blessing us!
Sidebar ---- I'm still in shock about this birthday wish coming true. Gary was my anthropology professor at the University of Guam back in the 90's (Yeah I'm a late college bloomer. lol). It was so ironic with timing that he reached out to me by connecting with me on Linkedin. From there the collaborative communication exchange began and a few more emails later he sends me the data! How amazing is that?!
I recently extracted some information from a container list at the “UOG University Libraries Digital Repository” and converted into an index. This information is from the work of anthropologist and biologist Dr. Jane H. Underwood, which is a collection of birth, marriage, and death information from Guam. Her records are written on index cards which contain an individual's name, gender, and birth date. They also list the names of spouses, children, parents, and sometimes the death dates. The original records can be found at the Richard Flores Taitano Micronesia Area Research Center at the University of Guam in Mangilao, Guam.
I look forward to the day the CHamoru Roots Genealogy Project will be able to incorporate this invaluable data into the Project’s database.
I have been researching CHamoru mess attendants/stewards who served during World War II. Occasionally I discovered sailors who served around the World War I era. Recently I came across Joaquin Aflleje Tydingco, born June 24, 1895, in Asan. He enlisted in the Navy sometime in 1915.
This is all I was able to find about him.
A letter dated Aug. 25, 1916, from the commandant of Naval Station Guam that requested transportation for military personnel going from Guam to Manila. Tydingco is listed as a general court martial prisoner. A passenger list from the United States Transport Thomas, dated March 18, 1917, traveling from Manila to San Francisco lists Tydingco as a general court martial prisoner.
He was confined at San Quentin Prison March 22, 1917, sentenced to life in prison for murder. He was listed as a naval prisoner.
He died of unknown causes in 1920 and he is buried in Mare Island Cemetery, beyond a locked gate, with limited access. His last name on his tombstone is misspelled as Tindinco rather than Tydingco. It seems no one cared enough to properly bury him.
Despite his transgression, Tydingco was a son of Guam, a son, a seaman in Navy, and deserves to be remembered and not forgotten.
If anyone has any information about Tydingco’s family or about him, I would appreciate if it could be sent to me: Arthur Meilicke, 2000 Pear Valley Dr., Elizabethtown, KY 42701.
Arthur Meilicke is a resident of Elizabethtown, Kentucky.
