Leave it to Hollywood to redefine an obscure religious holiday as a cultural extravaganza. Dia de Los Muertos, Day of the Dead, is growing in popularity among Latinos everywhere, but Los Angeles and Hollywood have added their own special spin to the celebration since 1999 when this holiday took on new life at Hollywood Forever cemetery.
For genealogists who customarily stroll city cemeteries on a quiet afternoon, Hollywood Forever will be a startling change on Saturday, October 22 when the L.A. Day of the Dead takes place on the grounds of the city’s oldest memorial park.
Dia de Los Muertos is celebrated on November 2nd by Latinos in Central and South American, Mexico, and throughout the United States. The holiday has its roots in ancient Mayan and Aztecan tradition evolving through Roman Catholic influence to become today’s modern Day of the Dead celebration.
Pre-Columbian Mexicans believed that the deceased continued to exist after death, resting placidly in Mictlan, the land of the dead. On one day each year, these departed souls were allowed to return home to visit friends and family. When Europeans arrived in Central American, they confronted this theology by adapting it to the Roman Catholic All Souls’ Day. Today, Day of the Dead, is an official Roman Catholic holiday celebrated November 2.
Celebrations vary by region, but typically include special foods, especially those favored by the departed, altars or shrines built in memory of the departed, sugar candy skulls, Pan de Muerto (Bread of the Dead), and tissue paper banners.
Los Angeles Dia de Los Muertos will be held this Saturday, 22 October on the grounds of Hollywood Forever Memorial Park from 12 noon until 12 midnight and feature performances by Astrid Hadad and Ruben Albarran. Tickets are $10 per person.
Highlights of the event include parades, food, music, theater performances, and viewing of the altars. Prizes are awarded for the Altar Decorating Contest – 1st prize $3000, 2nd prize $2000, 3rd prize $1000.
On this day, the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary (that resides within October, the Month of the Holy Rosary), The Catholic Gene takes a look at the centuries-old devotion that is making a resurgence in the lives of the faithful and may have played a role in the daily life of many of our Catholic ancestors’ families.
In her recent article, Full of Grace: Reclaiming the Rosary, Alice Camille, M. Div. gives a nice overview of the recent renewed interest in the Rosary and its value as a tool to “ponder the greatest events in salvation history” through the eyes of Mary, the young woman from Nazareth who watched them unfold before her. As explained on the Catholic Culture website, “The Rosary is a Christocentric setting forth of the entire life of Jesus Christ, the passion, death, resurrection and glory.”
The Rosary is a series of prayers repeated while those praying (individually or in a group) focus their thoughts on the various moments of joy, light, sorrow and glory during the life of Jesus and his mother Mary. The prayers are inspired by – and often taken word for word from – the Bible. In the rhythm of prayer that the Rosary creates, the faith-filled Catholic can take time within his or her day to rise from the duties and tasks of everyday life, and to find inspiration for living.
The Nativity: the third joyful mystery used for meditation during the Rosary*
It is a way of prayer that has been practiced by Catholics throughout the world for centuries. As far back as the 13th century, the Rosary was present within the church close to its current form, and was being promoted by religious orders such as the Dominicans, Franciscans, Cistercians and Servites. Since various family branches of my Eastern European ancestors lived in an area with a strong Franciscan influence, I have no doubt that the Rosary played a role in their faith lives for many generations. (More on the devotion to the Rosary within my family tree in an upcoming article later this month.) If you, too, have Catholic ancestors, chances are that this traditional way of prayer was a part of their lives, too.
The Hail Mary - a central part of the Rosary - printed here in the Croatian language*
During the 15th century as the Ottoman Empire was ravaging Eastern Europe (Constantinople had fallen to the Turks in 1453), devotion to the Rosary was growing throughout much of the continent. In the year 1569, Pope Pius V (a Dominican) first officially established devotion to the Rosary within the Catholic Church through the Consueverunt Romani Pontifices (this link provides an English summary of this document). Only two short years later in 1571, Catholic Europe found itself facing the wrath of the Ottoman Empire at a location too close for comfort – off the coast of western Greece. The Holy League – a coalition of Catholic states coordinated by Pope Pius V – took on the defense of Europe.
"The Battle of Lepanto" as depicted in the 17th century by Andries van Eertvelt
As the naval Battle of Lepanto raged, the faithful throughout all of Europe prayed the Rosary for victory at the request of Pope Pius V. Their prayers were answered and Catholic Europe was spared. The victory prevented the Muslim forces from taking complete control of the Mediterranean Sea and reaching further into the south of Europe. Rome and western Europe were saved from a devastating invasion by the Ottoman Turks.
In celebration and thanksgiving to God, Pope Pius V declared that October 7 would be remembered as the Memorial of Our Lady of Victory. Today the day is celebrated throughout the universal church as the Memorial of the Most Holy Rosary, and the month of October is dedicated to the Rosary.
If you think the Rosary might have played a role in the lives of your Catholic ancestors, you may be interested in reading more about the history of the devotion. John D. Miller’s book Beads and Prayers: The Rosary in History and Devotion is an interesting overview. The book places special emphasis within several chapters on the development of the Rosary within England and Ireland as well as continental Europe. His book also references an extensive online timeline of the Rosary’s history entitled Journaling the Bead by the Rosary Workshop.
The Hail Mary printed in Irish Gaelic script*
If you find, as I did, a reference in one of your ancestor’s obituaries to membership within the Confraternity of the Most Rosary or a similar society, you may be interested in looking into the history and activities of the organization. My great-grandmother, a member of the Mother Butler Society, hand-knotted Rosaries for many years to be sent to missions in other countries.
Lisa's beloved Grammy Ulaky and one of her handcrafted Rosaries
I am very happy to have inherited one of her Rosaries, and have enjoyed passing down her love for the devotion to my children. My daughters are following in their great-great-grandmother’s footsteps in a way. They use another technique – beading – to create beautiful Rosary bracelets, sharing the age old faith they have inherited with a new generation of faith-filled Catholics.
*The artistic ceramic panels depicting the mysteries and prayers of the Rosary were photographed on the grounds of the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Sepulchre in Washington D.C. within the Rosary Portico, a beautiful covered walkway. If you’d like to know more about the monastery, visit my article here at The Catholic Gene entitled Ave Maria in the Languages of Our Ancestors.
As this week the Catholic church celebrates the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary and remembers the life of the beloved St. Francis of Assisi, I’d like to introduce you to a peaceful oasis in the midst of the nation’s capital that was built in St. Francis’ honor and includes the beautiful Rosary Portico. My family and I have enjoyed making several visits to the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in Washington D.C. Its Rosary Portico is a picturesque covered walkway surrounding the glorious Memorial Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was designed in the style of the cloister of St. John Lateran in Rome and St. Paul’s Outside the Walls.
The Franciscan Memorial Church of the Holy Sepulchre, finished in 1899, was modelled after the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul in the Byzantine style with modified Romanesque influences
It is a beautiful walk, surrounded by charming gardens, and made even more interesting by a series of mosaics depicting the mysteries of the Rosary and a string of Hail Marys and Our Fathers in a multitude of languages which accompany you as you follow the path around the church. The generous number of artistic ceramic panels depicting the prayers of the Rosary (their website says nearly 200 – I didn’t count them!) includes many of the world’s languages – both modern and ancient. I was thrilled to find the languages that were common to my various ancestral families – even Glagolitic, the most ancient of the Slavic languages.
The Lord's Prayer in Etruscan, Glagolitic (ancient Slavic script) and Javanese
If you’d like to browse through the Angelic Blessing (another name for the Hail Mary) in these many languages, and possibly search for the language of your ancestors, visit the monastery’s Ave Maria book online. You’ll find Anglo-Saxon to Zulu and everything in between.
If you are in the Washington D.C. area, I encourage you to take some time to make a visit to this beautiful oasis in the middle of the capital, take a peaceful walk, and search for the prayers in the languages of your ancestors.
One of my daughters taking a thoughtful stroll down the covered walkway at the Franciscan Monastery
I was brought up within the folds of a fundamentalist Baptist church, but regularly attended Roman Catholic Mass. My Girl Scout leader had some sort of pact with the parents of Catholic Scouts: the girls could join the troop for weekend campouts, if they could get to Mass on Saturday night. So I went too.
We sat in the front pews of little mountain churches listening to the Latin inside and the wind in the pines outside. It was warm and dry compared to the wild weather we faced at our campsite. I rather liked going to Mass.
I thought my friend Anne might reciprocate by coming to church with me some Sunday morning after a sleepover, but the suggestion was quickly set aside. For some reason, she simply wasn’t allowed to go to a Baptist church. It was a sin or something.
She probably wouldn’t have liked it much, anyway. After all, for her Mass lasted an hour, tops. For us, Church included an hour of Sunday School, twenty minutes “recess,” and then a worship service that was considered “short” at 60 minutes.
The typical Sunday morning began with a scramble to eat breakfast, get dressed and get to Church with time to spare. Proper church attire was a dress for the moms and girls, suit and tie for the men. Grandmother added a hat and gloves; grandpa wore a hat. Shoes were polished on Saturday evening and left to dry overnight on a stack of newspapers.
We never walked in after the service started. One Sunday we drove up in front of the church a few minutes late. The doors were closed, the steps empty. My dad spun our Chevy Impala in a classy U-turn and we went home to spend the day quietly until we went back for the evening service. Twenty years later I noticed that my mother-in-law had no such compunctions about tardiness for Mass; any time before the sermon was fine by her.
Unlike most Catholic churches that seem to last for decades if not centuries, many protestant churches change or disappear with each passing generation. My old church, Bethany Baptist of Whittier, California, merged with nearby congregations in the mid-1970′s. Today, the property is home to the vibrant Zoe Christian Fellowship who worships in word, song, and dance. This short film shows that the main sanctuary hasn’t changed much since I attended in the 1960′s and 70′s, except for the addition of the big-screen monitors.
A typical Sunday in our Baptist family included Sunday School and Worship Service in the morning, followed by the evening service. This was a more relaxed meeting, often featuring special music, a religious film, or a talk by missionaries.
The missionary talks were incredible. Earnest men told stories about facing hostile natives in the South American jungle or saving orphans in China. Our congregation supported several missionary families all over the world; they had to be gifted speakers, the collection plate was their paycheck.
It wasn’t only the service that was different from Catholic Mass. The pews were all comfy padded benches, the better to keep you in your seat for those two-hour services. And, your feet were unrestricted by kneeling benches. Baptists didn’t kneel in church. Even the wooden hymnal racks were different, sporting little round cut-outs for the communion cups (Communion = Holy Eucharist in Baptist-speak).
We only used those tiny glass cups once a month for the regular communion ritual, the symbolic sharing of the Last Supper. The first time my cradle-Catholic husband was present for Communion Sunday, he was surprised by the “bread and wine.” Our “bread” was typically broken saltine crackers; the wine was usually sweet grape juice. The bread was sent around first, passed up and down the pews in a tray for each person to take a piece. When everyone was served, the pastor said a blessing and the congregation ate the bread at the same time.
The little glass cups (that really do resemble a miniature jigger) were assembled in a large round tray especially made for the purpose. Each tray held 25 or so cups and was sent up and down the pews by the ushers. We took the cup and held it until everyone was served. After a blessing, the entire congregation tilted their head and drank at the same time. The little cups were placed in the special hole on the hymn rack and collected later by the ushers.
When we said we were “going to Church” we might mean any number of things. We could be attending a Sunday Morning Worship Service, but we might also be washing cars with the teen group or participating in some other activity held on the church property.
Catholics, I’ve noticed, don’t so much “go to Church” as they “go to Mass.” It’s very clear there will be no car washing, no lunching, no meeting when Mass is mentioned. Other activities may occur at the Church, Parish, or Pastoral Center, but Mass is Mass.
Now, on Sundays I am honored to go to Mass at St. Andrew Parish in Pasadena, and frequently attend meetings and events at the Parish, but when I visit my parents I do enjoy joining them as we all go to Church.
If you suspect a few Protestants in your family tree, watch letters and documents for use of give-away vocabulary: Church instead of Mass, Pastor rather than Priest, and Communion instead of Eucharist.
This Ground Blessed by Holy Ritual and Tender Prayer is Sacred Ground.
All Souls Cemetery, Germantown, Maryland (Archdiocese of Washington, DC)
Catholic cemeteries in any given location generally are owned or controlled by the diocese or archdiocese for that area. The good news is that all of the major dioceses and some not-so-major ones have web pages devoted to their Catholic cemeteries. But these websites vary in terms of the genealogical information one will find there. Most will at least include a note about the diocese’s policies and procedures for genealogical research. My (less-than-scientific) canvass of diocesean procedures indicates that many will respond to mail requests for information and charge a small fee for the service. Many dioceses have PDF forms online for genealogical requests or direct email access for questions. Some dioceses will give this information free of charge. The Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, however, charges hefty fees ranging from $75 for gravesite locations to $120+ for lists of family members in the same grave. (Brooklyn’s bishop charge s$300+ for “extensive corporate/legal genealogy,” and what’s wrong with that? Nothing!)
Several dioceses have come into the 21st century, with searchable databases for their cemeteries.
A relatively new entry into the Catholic cemetery digital world is the search page at the website of the Mount Elliott Cemetery Association. The Association covers six Catholic cemeteries in the metro Detroit area. [Promotional plug: two of the Mt Elliott cemeteries are subjects of books by The Catholic Gene contributor Ceil Wendt Jensen. They are Mt Elliott and Mt Olivet. See here.]
At the website of Catholic Cemeteries of the Diocese of Phoenix, one may shop online for flowers and wreaths (using a credit/debit card or PayPal) and have them placed dirctly on the gravesite.
And finally, there is a Catholic Cemeteries Channel on YouTube.
If you know of other unique or interesting Catholic cemetery sites, especially those with searchable databases of Catholic cemetery records, please share in the comments here.
The job of a genealogist is much like that of a police detective. Success in both pursuits depends on searching predictable hidden places where evidence would be expected. A true detective genius, however, finds traces of clues out in the open – signs within plain sight yet invisible to the average eye.
Detective Dupin in "The Purloined Letter"
In The Purloined Letter, the short tale that Edgar Allan Poe considered his best detective story, the Paris police are unable to solve a perplexing mystery despite several days of searching every possible hiding place they can imagine within a small apartment. The clever detective Dupin cracks the case by discovering that the missing item is hidden not where the police have searched for it, but within plain sight.
When you are looking for clues in the family tree, sometimes you have to go no further than the hints that are staring you right in the face: first names. As Christine Rose wrote in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Genealogy, “Today’s parents-to-be thumb through books of names looking for ideas for the baby’s name. Although there have always been trends in first names, your ancestors didn’t rely on book lists. They thumbed through the Bible, or they named their children for friends and relatives or famous people.” Or, if they were Catholic, they named them after saints.
Much of genealogy is about surnames, but given names can provide additional clues that help to crack cases in the family tree. On today, September 12, the optional memorial of the Most Holy Name of Mary, let’s look more closely at “what’s in a name”.
William begat William who begat William: The first name as a legacy
Clues can sometimes provide confirmation of connections to a family. When I found what I believed to be my 3rd great-grandfather’s 1823 passenger list from Cork, Ireland to New York City, I discovered that the dates matched pretty closely with the handwritten information I had received from family members. I was also happy to see that fifteen-year-old Patrick Cowhey had traveled with a companion: Ellen Cowhey, five years his senior. Since Patrick later had a daughter named Ellen (possibly named after his traveling companion who may have been his big sister), this information gave me further confidence that I had found the correct young Patrick on his trip to America.
Ship William passenger list departing Cork for New York, c. 1823 (Listed are Ellen and Patrick "Cowhy")
Given names can provide clues to a family legacy. Within that same Cowhey family, I have often found names repeated from generation to generation. This was very common through the end of the 19th-century in many Irish Catholic families. John, Patrick, Michael, Mary and Bridget occur with incredible frequency within Irish families. In the Cowhey branch of my family, Williams and Anns are especially numerous. Following the branches down the family tree can be very confusing. When a generous cousin first showed me the family Bible in his possession, he was under the impression that it belonged to his Aunt Ann. Looking at it closely, I realized that it had to be older than that and thought it had belonged to another Ann the generation before her, who had shared the same name. Further investigation brought out the truth: the Bible had been owned by a third Ann, the original matriarch of the family in America – Ann Cowhey, wife of the young immigrant Patrick Cowhey mentioned above.
Ann Cowhey family Bible, c. 1844
Another naming pattern that I have observed on the Hungarian side of my family is that of naming a new baby after a sibling or other relative that has passed away. I was surprised to discover that my grandfather had another younger brother named Lajos who had been born in Hungary and immigrated along with the family to the United States. No one currently living in my family had ever heard of Lajos. Sadly, he passed away as a young child after the family made the trip to their new homeland. Months later, as I looked through birth and death records for the Hungarian village where my great-grandfather and his family had lived, I learned that my great-grandfather, too, had a brother named Lajos that had passed away as a young child. In naming his son after his deceased brother, he probably never imagined that his son would follow in his uncle’s footsteps in that tragic way.
Birth record of Lajos Toth, Gelej, Hungary, c. 1906
Naming patterns and clues to geography
“Given names have histories – just as surnames do,” wrote Myra Vanderpool Gormley in her article Given Names in Early America: Shaped by History, Religion and Traditions, “and for genealogists the study of the given names selected and passed down for generations by our ancestors can provide important clues to their ethnic origins, religions, educational and social backgrounds.”
Many cultures have traditional naming patterns. In some areas of Ireland and within other cultures, for example, it was once common to name the eldest son after the paternal grandfather and the eldest daughter after the maternal grandmother. Some Irish families continued this type of pattern by naming their second child after the other grandparent of the same gender, naming the third child after the father or mother, and naming the fourth child after the eldest brother or sister.
I have not seen that type of pattern within the Irish branches of my family, but I have noticed a few names that may provide clues to geographic origins of the family. I understand that the name William was more common in the north of Ireland – where many families named their firstborn son William. Learning this bit of information is another clue pointing me to the origins of my McCue ancestors in the north of Ireland, since their surname is more common there also.
WWI draft registration card for my great-grandfather George William McCue whose family's origins in Ireland I have yet to confirm
On the Eastern European side of my family, I was surprised many years ago to learn that my “Hungarian” grandmother’s family was actually of Croatian origin. Her parents had emigrated during a time when their home village was under the rule of Austria-Hungary, they had spoken both Hungarian and Croatian, and after they settled in New York City they became involved with the Hungarian Catholic church. My grandmother and her siblings believed, therefore, that they were Hungarian. The ethnic origins of this branch of my family have long intrigued me. I was interested to learn recently that it is common in Slavic countries for girls to be named after their mothers, although this is not usually true in Hungary. I have seen this in my Croatian-Hungarian family tree – we have three successive generations of Ilonas that are each near and dear to my heart.
Happy birthday name day! – Saints in the family tree
Hungarians put more emphasis on patron saints' "name days" than birthdays
A well-known practice in many Catholic European cultures – such as that of my Hungarian ancestors – was to give the newborn child the name of a saint. The name might have come from the saint on whose feast day they were born, the patron of their birthplace, or a saint special to the family in some other way. Many modern Hungarians still put more emphasis on the celebration of a person’s “name day” – the feast day of their chosen saint – than their birthday. In my family the feast of King St. Stephen of Hungary is a big one – there are loads of Stephens, Istvans, Stjepans, etc. in the family tree!
Given names with saintly origins can provide clues to possible birthdates, special family affiliations, and even religious beliefs. I was surprised to discover that one branch within my Hungarian family tree included a 2nd great-grandmother of Greek Catholic origin.
Studying the names and dates in a Catholic family tree alongside the liturgical calendar can provide some interesting discoveries. I recently made the surprising connection that my great-grandmother, who faced much sorrow throughout her life, passed away on September 15, the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows. I was touched to see that God chose that day to call home this woman of such strong faith who had dealt with tragedy during her life as a wife and mother.
When comparing ancestral given names and birth and death dates to the days in the Catholic liturgical calendar, it is important to note that many of the saints’ feast days changed with the introduction of the Novus Ordo calendar back in 1962. (Stay tuned for more information about the Catholic liturgical calendar within an upcoming article here at The Catholic Gene.)
One of my daughters and her friends stopping in to visit Jesus at church on All Saints' Day
What’s in that name? – Family mysteries
While there are some family name choices that may seem pretty easy to understand in light of cultural and religious traditions, there are also those that leave the family historian asking more questions. For example, St. Casimir was a 15th-century Polish saint who is very highly regarded primarily in Poland. The choice of the very Polish name Kasmir (an alternate spelling of Casimir) by my great-grandparents for one of their sons has always intrigued me. I am told that my great-grandfather was able to speak seven languages, including Polish. Could it be that the family has a Polish connection through his side of the family? That is a mystery that I have yet to solve.
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I hope that this tour of some of the given names within my family tree has gotten you thinking about the clues that might be found within yours. As I mentioned earlier, in Poe’s The Purloined Letter, detective Dupin wisely explored the simplest clues, and I hope that you will, too. When the prefect of the Parisian police came to Dupin for help with the case, Dupin gave a suggestion that every family detective would be wise to consider. “Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing that puts you at fault… Perhaps the mystery is a little too plain, a little too self-evident.”
