Año de 1823: An Observation of the Vital Statistics

As a researcher documenting Chamorro genealogy, I have reviewed the Spanish record Año de 1823 and the translated 1823 Vital Statistics by Omaira Brunal-Perry, Spanish Documents Collection, University of Guam Richard F. Taitano Micronesian Area Research Center published on the Guampedia.com website. Below, I have documented my observations of the photo-copy Spanish record and translated document that other fellow genealogy researchers may find useful. Although these documents contain a total of 429 names, 420 names were added to the Chamorro Roots Genealogy Project as a result of reconciling infant births and deaths that potentially matched. To date, there continues to remain a wide gap in Chamorro genealogy towards bridging the history of Chamorro names from the 1600’s to the early 1800’s and reconciling with the 1897 Census through the present Chamorro genealogy source records.

Vital Statistics Recapitulation

Births (Nacidos)

• 235 names, months and dates were recorded.
• Two sub-columns of names distinguished the males (Niños) and females (Niñas).
• It does not appear that infants were recorded with their mother’s maiden name since most middle names throughout the documents contained common names.

Marriages (Casados)

• Unfortunately, only male names were recorded and did not include the spouse’s name.
• 65 names, ages, with marriage dates and months were recorded. Because the age at the event of death was recorded, one is able to estimate the year of birth of the male recorded.

Deaths (Muertos)

• 129 names, ages, and causes of death were recorded. Unfortunately the dates of deaths were not recorded; however, infants that were less than a year old were identified by their approximate age at the time of death (i.e. 1 day old, 3 months old). Because the age at the event of death was recorded, one is able to estimate the year of birth of the deceased.
• Two sub-columns of names distinguished the males (Barones) and females (Hembras)
• Due to Spanish trends for recording names during that point in history, it appears that female maiden names were recorded. This observation is further supported by the fact that one is unable to associate an infant birth with a mother that died (dates of death were not recorded) while giving birth.
• Top five common causes of death:
  • 17 deaths were due to fevers, of which seven included nose bleeds
  • 14 deaths were due to tetanus
  • 12 deaths were due to abdominal pains
  • 10 deaths were dysentery related
  • 9 deaths were tenesmus related
• I was not able to fully reconcile the 20 recorded infant deaths (those that were less than one year of age) with the births recorded. A couple of potential explanations could be due in part that some infants were born in 1822 and subsequently passed away in 1823 and secondly, there appears to be an inconsistent recording of names due in part of spelling (within same period as opposed to today’s spelling of names) and not completely including full names as recorded at birth.
  • Nine reconciled infant deaths include:
    • Mariano Angoco, born 7 August 1823 with Mariano Cayetano Angoco, died nine days later on 15 August 1823 as a result of food indigestion.
    • Jose Maria de Leon Guerrero, born 20 April 1823 and died five days later on 25 April 1823 due to inflammation of the throat.
    • Maria Josefa Garrido, born 17 August 1823 and died five days later on 21 August 1823 as a result of tetanus.
    • Maria Monica Mendiola born 5 May 1823 died two days later on 7 May 1823 due to a fever.
    • Pedro Francisco Asis Mesa born 8 October 1823 with Pedro Francisco Mesa died 11 days later on 19 October 1823 as a result of a fever.
    • Nicolas Naichon born 10 October 1823 with Nicolas Naychon died one month later sometime in November 1823 due to tetanus.
    • Jose Nangauta born 7 October 1823 with Jose Ngangauta died two months later sometime in December 1823 due to abdominal pain.
    • Juan Quitonguico born 5 March 1823 died three months later sometime in June 1823 due to abdominal pain.
    • Maria Nicolasa Taytagui born 26 March 1823 with Maria Taytague died five months later sometime in July 1823 due to a fever.
  • One undetermined infant death and birth is Francisco de Castro, who died three days old due to tetanus. There were two other infants born in 1823 with the same first name and surname: Francisco Paulino de Castro born 5 October 1893 and Francisco de Castro born 17 Oct 1823. It is possible that this may be one of them that passed away. However, one should not rule out, and although highly unlikely, that Francisco may have been born late December 1822 and pass away early January 1923.

Reference

MARC Resource , ' 1823 Guam Vital Statistics Report', referenced January 26, 2011, © 2009 Guampedia™, URL: http://guampedia.com/1823-guam-vital-statistics-report/.

(Note: this article has been submitted to Guampedia.com for peer review and publishing.)