Tuesday, August 30, 2011

LOST SURNAMES : AGUILAR


AGUILAR

To this day, there is a branch of the Torres family called the "Agilat" family.  "Agilat" is the Chamorro pronunciation of the Spanish surname Aguilar, which used to exist on Guam.

As far back as 1727, there was a Spanish soldier on Guam by the name of Bernardo Aguilar.  By the 1758 Census, this Bernardo, now thirty years older, was married to Ignacia Usuni.  Usuni is a Chamorro word, which means "to persevere," and it is safe to say Ignacia was Chamorro.  Their mestiso children (in 1758) were Juan Bonifacio, Jose, Francisca and Teresa : two boys and two girls.

By 1897, there was only one person on Guam with the last name Aguilar.  She was Ana Pangelinan Aguilar, aged 53 or thereabouts, married to Antonio Crisostomo de Leon Guerrero.  They lived in Hagåtña.

But prior to this, another lady named Aguilar had married a Torres.  The "Agilat" Torres family keeps alive the memory of this now-forgotten Chamorro Aguilar family by maintaining their clan nickname.

No comments:

Post a Comment