My Surname Monteverde

In the subject selected and with which I have been working for a long time that is the origin and history of the surname Monteverde (my surname), I had to investigate a lot with relatives, especially the elderly, to hear stories almost legends and different versions of relatives. There are currently thousands of individuals with the surname Monteverde in Venezuela. In all the Venezuelan cities there are descendants with that last name, although it is almost impossible to know if they are really familiar. It was possible to contact some until we were able to discover stories and documents that relate a little our family heritage as far as the surname is concerned.

Among the pages investigated I found that only from 1830 there is a documentation in the file General de la Nación (Caracas), which is the one that interests us in principle to refer already to Venezuela as a nation with a sovereign government, own, for that Moment of history. I also consider it important to remember that it was in 1942 that the first Venezuelan who was the citizen President of Venezuela, General Isaías Medina Angarita was ceded to the first Venezuelan with the number of cédula 0001 (although foreigners in Venezuela were first ceded for a migratory control issue). Prior to that date in Venezuela today it is very difficult to locate specific information about people without a certain social reputation This makes my research very difficult because very little documentation is kept and over the years they have destroyed many valuable documents.

In my particular case my family for being surnamed "Monteverde" and having always heard of "Domingo Monteverde", we always thought that there was some relationship of our surname with the history of Venezuela. After years of being questioned by the surname and listening a lot to friends and relatives talking about my family's last name, I decided to make a small research on my family name:

After investigating for several months with my loved ones, calling so-called relatives, searching hundreds of genealogical web pages talking to distant relatives and sometimes not known, I managed to close the search a little with some clues about the parents of my grandparents, their parents, Women and other descendants who provided some other ideas on the location of the first Monteverde families arrived in Margarita (Nueva Esparta in the past). My father tells me that my grandparents had business on the island, but few of the family remember anything of the story. I never thought that it was just that island, the port where our before came to Venezuela. The difficult part of the matter was to see if there was any relation or not with the Domingo Monteverde of history who casually landed in new Sparta by that time. Domingo Monteverde (1773-1832) was Spanish Military. Who happened to Venezuela, where in 1812, taking advantage of the devastation caused by an earthquake, attacked and overcame the emancipating army. After the surrender of this one and violating the agreed one, it persecuted to the patriots until it was defeated by Bolivar (1813).

An interesting fact that I found during the investigation is that in times of the Colony in Venezuela buried the dead in the courtyards of the churches, and the very important people inside them. The burial site was covered with a marble tombstone inscribed with the name and date of death. There came a time when the floors of the temples were completely covered by these stones.

It turns out that the first Monteverde family Resident of the time came to Juan Griego (St. John the Evangelist parish) coming from Genoa (Italy) in 1838. There were three brothers "Monteverde Raffa": Antonio, Manuel and Andrés.

Andrés Monteverde Raffa was the grandfather of my great-great-grandfather (Italian merchant). His father was called Lazaro Monteverde (Grandfather of my great-great-grandfather).

It could be determined by historical documents digitized by the Church, that our ascendants are of Italian origin and not of Spanish origin as many relatives and acquaintances thought. It is a great pride and relief to have done this genealogical research. However we know that the planet "we are all family of all" and it is very possible that several centuries ago, the ascendants were Spanish or some other region. There is much to investigate. It is fascinating to be in the story and find clues of our own past and share it with our children, leaving them also documents and anecdotes from their own history.

Andrés Monteverde
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