Bilingual text 

Que el abuelo fue un escalvo es mi pena,
 si hubiese sido el amo, seria mi verguenza.
                                Julia de Burgos
                                Poetisa puertorriquena

(Lea el texto en espanol que sigue al de ingles.)

This is a bilingual site, though the content in each language is, at times, different. I will discuss the reasons for my search, the root surnames as well as our family's  new branches through our descendants.

Not all the information available to me has been uploaded to the site.  I worked with  pen and paper for many years and it was only recently that I started to transfer the  data here.  While the presentation starts with the Acaba surname, the alpha list will  bring you to an array of surnames with direct link to the family tree; so move past  the Acaba section if you are related but do not have Acaba as your first or second  surname,particularly if you are a grandchild, since I have taken pains to document  kinships and research adyacent family trees. I have traced the Acaba surname back to  late 1500, the Robles, back to the 1600 and the Echegaray back to 1730.  I have a  direct descendancy on the Echagaray family Bernardo Echegaray and Juana Babide,  who originated in Haparran, France, were married in 1730 and whose descendancy  travelled to Guipuzcoa, Pais Basque, with 3 offsprings arriving in Puerto Rico as  businessmen and locating in San Sebastian and Camuy.  The work on the Robles family,  aside from what can be detailed in the late 19th hundreds and early 20th century  census, was done by Edgard Rivera Ortiz, who generously shared his information with  me.  I don't want to downplay the role of the 
 Gonzalez, as it is my father's surname and I have tried really hard to untangle its thread.  The  Gonzalez and Roman families were well known in Lares with common kinship in San  Sebastian and Camuy; but thre are two threads that I am having some difficulty  separating because of that little annoying costume of calling all the sons Jose. Gilormini has a  place in the history of Yauco.  I have been able to reach back on the McCafferty ancestry five  generations and located the area in Donegal- Tyrargus- where Patrick McCafferty was born.  If the  reader has any information to share, conflicting views to discuss or any other input,  please send me an email: zgonzalezacaba@hotmail.com.  My 
 yahoo address I used only for research and your message may get lost among the six to  seven throusand I sort through on any given day.

While genealogy is for me a recent endeavor, this search for my ancestors started in  childhood, feeling myself different and wondering whether this was due, perhaps, to  those ancestors with the unusual surname, Acaba which I carry twice on my mother's  line: Acaba Echegaray and Robles Acaba and once on my fahters line, though my  grandfather Julio Gonzalez Acaba.

I was born facing the sea, and the cadence of the ocean that would have lulled  another child to sleep, awoke me restless and disoriented, unattached and insecure.   This otherness brought along a desire to escape and a certain guilt for not  knowing how to love that tiny island of mine.  The past is a mystery that is best left  alone; but who does?

I have spent long hours trying to make sense of my past.  The surnames Acaba  and Robles rooted me to Camuy and San Sebastian.  The Gonzalez Aponte brought  forth the smells of Lares and Arecibo.  They weave into one long  thread: Echegaray, Samalot, Velez, Roman, Zapata that comes undone and reweaves  itself since time eternal. I search for those voices, but I can only hear  echoes.

My children's ancestry now mingles with mine. Travelling from Hassparan, France, our  iberian duende plays hide and seek 
 with leprechauns, while corsairs roam the waters of the three islands that greeted my  children at birth-Corcega, Ireland and Puerto Rico. Our cousins, nieces and nephews  link us to Lara and Marrero, Fontana and so many others...

Every family has a secret, a father that is unknown to the world, a surname that was  wispered.  I thought long and hard whether to expose those links. Some ancestors chose  not to be acknowleged, denying their flesh and blood a part of their history.  Others  were not allowed to play a part in their children's lives.  I opted for transparency. History distorted is but a tall tale.

The rambling in my notes-mispelling included- is indicative of the fact that this site  is a work in progress, like life itself. I toiled alone for years until 1998 when,  with the advent 
 of the internet, I received an email from James Acaba.  On his own, he had done the  same.  We tried to put together our efforts, but we lost contact until recently.

Not that long ago, a different cousin-Rafael Acaba- called my mother about his  family's reseach.  Mami referred him to me and so I added Rafael, as well as his sons,  Rick and Ralph Acaba, as travelling companions. Rick had done an elegant family tree  with the information he had gathered from published census and personal histories and  was generous enough to share it with me.

I am working to acknowledge facts that were researched and documented by  others, even in those cases were I had direct access to all or part of the  information. There is a group of people that merit special recognition.  The members  of SAMocanos.  While working with the basquense and canario message boards, one of my  messages was picked by Carmen Gonzalez, who recalled seing an Acaba in one of her  group's postings.  She set in motion a flury of activity among  SAMocanos, the most wonderful group of individuals that I have yet to meet personally-  and located old postings refering to my target surnames.  With the guidance of Dr.  Helen Fernandez Sacco, PhD, and the tireless enthusiasm and contributions of Lourdes  Guillama, Luis J. Moreno, David Acevedo, Maria Kreider, 
 Wilfredo Maldonado, Jose M Albelo, Ricardo Orttiz, Maria Aldahondo, Gladys Gonzalez,  Rosalba Mendez, Edgard Rivera Ortiz and so many others the history of the island is  unfolding, town by town, family by family, and event by event. I am also grateful to  the New England Genealogy Society for gracefully guiding me, despite the fact that my  research is outside the scope of their archival goals.  If there are errors or  mistakes, they are all mine.

For many years I assumed we were arabs because of the Golf of Aqaba and the moorish  influence in spain for over 5 centuries.  The research that I have done does not  support that theory.  I studied semitic naming traditions and linguistic differences  among  the semitic and noon semitic peoplepopulating the area - arabs, jews,  assyrians, nestorian christians, among others. Acaba appears as Acava in some of the  family's old tumbstones- the letter "v" does not exist in arabic, the concept of a  family name or surname, patronimics nor toponimics are part of the arabic naming  tradition.  I considered a hebrew ancestry, but not approximation to Acava or Acaba  exists in any of the records that I have searched, nor has it being identified with  any root name by any of the sources that I have consulted.

Someone usggested to me that the name could be from Acaba -with a sedilla under the c-  which is now Azaba, a province in Salamanca.  If that were the case, then there should  bbe some Azabas or Acabas with the sedilla in the Pasajeros de Indias or somewhere in  present Spain.  But none can be found.

It is likely that the name is Basque, as are the surnames of the rest of the family.   While no Acaba is found in the name distributions in Spain, the area of Alaba, known  as Araba in Euskera is most likely were the name originates. Old writing links lettes  at the top, so the "l" in Alaba/Alaba can seem like a "c" when linked to the  following "a".  Echegaray comes from the southern pyrenees and I have been able to  establish a documented a direct link through the Acaba Echegaray branch dating back to  the early 1700s.

My earliest documentation of any Acaba that I can find is of the late 1500's and early  1600 in Yuyuria, Mexico.  I find four women, which I nicknamed the four sisters.  I  will soon upload the parish records were these names appear. I am working hard to  decode that old scrip to find links and determine kinship.  It is unclear to me  whether these "sisters" were spaniards bringuing a family name, natives that were  baptized into christianity, portuguese or basque.  The name appears in a circimflect  accent in the second "a".  Modern Euskera does not seem to use the circumflex, nor  does Spanish.  But Portugese, French, Catalan do.  Could it come down the pyrenees  with the french basques?  What about the portuguese? Agood portion of what is now  Spanish territory belongued to Portugal for the longest time.

In early 1900 I find Acaba in the Phillipines in large enough numbers as to call it a  community. they seem to appear in the Phillipines around the same time that the Acaba  surname appears in Puerto Rico, so it is more likely that this group is directly  related to our ancestors.  The Despite my many theories I am not sure that  I have found the ethnic trunk the joins us.  At present the documentation I have  brings me back in space and time to southern France and northern Spain in what is  known as Pais Basco. A part of me hopes never to find my origins, so that I can  continue searching.

As a heading I quote Julia de Burgos, our great Puertorrican poet, who wrote: ...that my grandfather was a slave, that is my pain; had he been the slave master it  would had been my shame.

I share in the pride of our distinguished ancestors.  I am inspired by a new  generation curious and daring; those that make a statement by the manner in which they  lead their lives. But I aim to cast some light on our common ancestors, the ones  that toiled, dreamed, hoped and often lacked and suffered leaving behind the only  thing they had- their DNA- which encodes our character and the hows and whys of who we  are.

I have included and will continue to add shields of armor for surnames that  legitimately had them bestowed upon them and include members of a clan where I can  identify an ancestor comming to Puerto Rico and establishing roots in proximity to our  direct ancestors.

Some ancestors achieved high standing and some of living individuals are public  figures or have achieved prominece within their fields. I offer only information that  is already known to the public via internet links.  For the McCafferty and Wagner  families, I have relied on marriage and birth certificates, immigration data and  verifiable sources.  I caution the reader not to jump to conclusions assuming a direct  kinship, where I have not identified one.  To see direct family connections, navigate  the program or use the tool bars to link two individuals.  Since it is going to be a  while before I can upload the information that I have available (I do not want to slow  down my research, so I only work on this site periodically), feel free to send me an  email if you have comments or have any questions.  Please join me.  Zilma  
 Espanol

Nací frente al mar, y el vaivén de las olas que, de ser yo otra, habría acunado  mi sueño, despertó en mi un desasosiego, un no saber a que atenerme.  Me sentí  ajena y quizás traidora a mi islita.  El pasado es siempre un misterio, y es  aconsejable dejarlo quieto. ¿Pero quien?

Llevo muchos años buscando el por qué de mis antepasados.  Los apellidos Acaba  y Robles me arraigan a Camuy y San Sebastián.  Los González Aponte me huelen a  Lares y Arecibo.  Pero son toda una hilera, Echegaray, Samalot, Velez,  Román,  Zapata, atándose y desatándose desde sus orígenes.  Busco esas voces; solo  escucho ecos.

ACABA
 Por anos pense que Acaba procedia del Golfo de Aqaba, en Libano.  Muchos libaneses  llegaron a mediados del siglo 19 a Centroamerica y al Caribe. La presencia de los  moros llega hasta los pirineos. El temperamento contrario de la familia, y digo  contrario en su mejor sentido, firmes, dedicados, un tanto tercos, pero siempre  leales, me llevo a pensar que no eramos,por asi decirlo, propiamente espanoles.  Hize  un periplo emocional e intelectual por las tierras de la cien mil maravillas.   Consulte con linguistas para esclarecer la posibilidad de las variantes v/b en arabe,  hebreo; incluso encontre la palabra acaba en turco - quiere decir "I wonder"  -  sera  que???

Nada, que cada promesa venia con varios otros nudos.  

El resto de la familia era claramente basquense, en su mayoria. Los Acaba eran tan  pocos, y sus semillas habian dado frutos en pequenos poblados, un tanto distantes unos  de otro.  Pero la historia es maravillosa, y poco a poco se encuentra.

Investigando el apellido Acaba, encuentro a 4 hermanas en Yuriria, Guanajuato,Nueva  Espana- ahora Mexico, a finales de los 1500 y principio de los 1600.  Tambien  encuentro muchas mujeres de apellido Acanba y Acamba, tambien de la misma localidad y  para la misma fecha.  ?Sera la misma familia?

En las Filipinas se encuentra un pequeno grupo de Acabas. Apenas los comienzo a  investigar.

Focalizo en los Acaba por ser tan pocos y tan dificiles de trazar.  Me agrada que no  tengan un escudo de armas.  Las gentes importantes han ocupado grandes paginas en la  historia.  A mi me interesa mas rellenar el hueco que le pertenece a los comunes: los  labradores, los aventureros, los romanticos, los prisioneros, los escapistas y los  escapados.  No le quiero restar importancia a ningun otro apellido y antecedente.  Es  solo que para este viaje,prefiero la compania de los que hasta ahora han estado  callados.