Greetings to all
I have some information that Peter Carrico several years ago, that I
wanted to share. You all probably have this but just in case you don't
here it is. It's the original mail Pete sent me with my comments for
some corrections and clarifications for the Portuguese terms.
Also it is nice to have other Portuguese Carriço in the mailing list.
Cheers!
I didn't have time to look up the results and the meaning and
implications of my father having a different new haplotype. I'll
contact you Diana (hopefully soon) with some questions.
Cheers
João André Carriço
Hello João,
The following is part of the research of records by people in our
family that
are amateur archivists, but have used the best resources available.
The 1691 year that I mentioned was based on the stories I heard as a
child, and
after reading the following information, the year is 1674.
You may find the following to be of interest:
Please share this with anyone with interest in this interesting
history.
Ciao,
Pete
ORIGINS OF THE CARRICO FAMILY NAME
Although we have attempted to confirm that Peter Carrico may have
come to
Maryland from France, as family lore has held, we have not been able
to do so.
There are no records of the Carricos in France that we can find
except those who
have immigrated to France from other countries. The same is true
for Britain.
We have researched the LDS files, the library of the London Society of
Genealogists and the British Library for information along with
numerous other
sources. The closest we have come to a French connection is the
reference to
John Carrico "of France" who served in the U.S. Navy from
Massachusetts during
the Revolutionary War.
However, research by the author here and in Portugal reveals that
the Carrico
family name comes from Portugal. The name has been spelled in its
present form
(with cedilla) at least since the twelfth century when a coat of
arms was
awarded to the Carriço family for its service in the expulsion of
the Moors
from Portugal. The name is actually derived from the Latin word,
carex. The
name is pronounced Cah-REESE-oo in Portuguese.
Interesting. There is a portuguese word Caniço, that means a small
sedge/rush which is the direct translation from carex
Variations of the word appear in other languages but the Portuguese
spelling is
not repeated. The Spanish word for carrico is carrio.16 The Italian
word(s)
for carrico: canna di pantano.
Canna di pantano is really the direct translation from latin (carex) and
in portuguese we would say caniço .
17 Jerry Carrico of Florida did some
etymological sleuthing and discovered that carriço in Spanish is
spelled
carrizo and means ditch reed. I might note that the name is
sometimes spelled
in Portuguese documents with two S's (Carrisso).
Never seen it spelled with to S's but in portuguese the pronunciation
would be exactly the same and that phenomena is not unheard of..
Although the Spanish “z” is
pronounced as in English (Zen), in American Spanish the z is also
pronounced as
an s. One of the words is a variant of the other. The cedilla c in
carriço is
a medieval form of the letter z, a diminutive of the Latin “zeta.”
In the
modern Romance languages, the cedilla is found only in French and
Portuguese.
This perhaps suggests that Spanish is the modernized version of the
older
medieval French and that it derives from carriço (with the cedilla),
and not
the other way around.
The archivist for the town of Montemor o Novo (in the Alentejo
region of
Portugal) found an original ancient council meeting record of 1443,
which lists
Lourenco Anes Carriço and Martin Lourenco Carriço, granting them
land-use
special privileges. This information comes from Dr. Jorge Fonseco,
Director of
the Biblioteca Municipal de Montemor-o-Novo (Municipal Library of
Montemor-o-Novo). The document source is the “Book of the Council
Meetings for
1443 ref. A1B1.” This Council authorized those persons listed to
hunt within
the limits of the king’s hunting grounds. This is the most ancient
book of the
council meetings in existence in Portugal. It is in this Council of
Montemor-o-Novo that the king, Dom Manuel I made a decision in 1496
to go to
India by sea and requested Vasco da Gama to attempt the trip. The
Council
meetings included the nobility and authorities of the church--a kind
of
parliament that could help the king decide on state policy
(“cortes”). The
1443 document tells us that Lourenco Anes Carriço lived in the
Quadrela of the
way of Alcacer toward Lisbon (known as an excellent place for
vineyards) and
Martin Lourenco Carriço, in the Quadrela of the way of Alcacer,
through
Alcacovas. These lands are still open to agricultural use to this
day.
It is believed that this Carriço family originally came from the
area of
Montemor o Velho in the Beira Littoral
Typo: Beira Litoral
(Central Coast) which is about 180 miles
north of Lisbon and about 20 miles from Coimbra. It is well known
that families
from the Beira Littoral resettled the Alentejo after the defeat of
the Moors.
They migrated with the armies of the Christian Knight Geraldo
Sempavor who
captured Evora in 1165 in the name of the Portuguese king
Henriques. The
resettlement also assured the monarch a population that would fight
any
re-invasion of the Moors for protection of their land.
Carriço Family Crest
We have found documentation of a family crest.18 The translation
reads as
follows: “This is from a family without known history having a name
that may
either derive from a nickname or has roots in names of places.
Their coat of
arms is of silver with three carricos of green placed where blue
water comes
from the earth. Their seal is unknown.” Below we show a drawing of
the
Carriço crest that appears in a heraldry reference at the University
of
Coimbra.19 The translation reads as follows: “Shape of the Crest.
The basic
form is the square from which it has the result of a peninsular
shape. Its
very common form and stands out because it is the shape of the
national coat of
arms and municipal coats of arms.” This coat of arms was apparently
granted to
the Carrico family, along with privileges, perhaps including lands,
by the king
for service in helping drive the Moors from Portugal. This effort
was completed
by 1200 AD so the Carrico coat of arms is ancient.
Carriço, The Town.
The only inhabited town of "Carriço" that we have located and
visited in
Portugal is in the Beira Littoral near Figuiera da Foz. Another
smaller
hamlet, "Carriços," is located nearby. Both are in the fertile
valley of the
Mondego River in the wide flood plain that extends southward from
the river’s
mouth at Figuiera. The town itself is called Matos do Carriço. It
is a place
of 1,309 inhabitants located in an area of small farms, nearly, all
of which
are vineyards. It is from this area that families re-settling the
Alentejo
(especially Montemor o Novo) came, although Carriço families still
can be found
in both locations.
The original ancient fortress in the Beira Littoral, about ten miles
from Matos
do Carrico, is still standing and a splendid example of a medieval
fortification. It was built to protect the rich farmland of the
Mondego
valley, including the area around Carriço. This is a very old part of
Portugal. The ancient Roman city of Conimbriga, which was almost
certainly
predated by the Celto-Iberain settlement dating back to the Iron
Age, is a few
miles from Coimbra and less than 20 miles from Montemor. The
vineyards are
relatively small, perhaps an acre or two. Because of the method of
cultivation
and the abundant supply of water from the Mondego, the area is alive
with marshy
plant life especially the carricos. There is an important
connection between
the carrico plant and the cultivation of grapes. The cane from the
carriço
plant is used throughout the region to hold up the grapevines.
> From the documents found by our researcher and translator, Celia
> Brito, at
Pombal, Portugal, Matos do Carriço was part of a testimonial present
of D.
Afonso Henriques (Portugal's first king) in 1167 to the Convent of
Santa Cruz
de Coimbra (a church that still exists). Ms. Brito also contacted
the parish
authorities in Pombal asking about the history of the village, Matos
do
Carriço, and its connection to the plant, carrico. They told her
that the
carrico plants grow on the dunes of Praia do Osso da Baleia (beach
of the bone
of the whale - exact translation) and the coat of arms of the
Carriço parish
has a whale because this beach was the most important place of the
parish. The
parish reports are held at Leiria's Municipal Archive.
The Carriço Family And The Inquisition
> From records we found in Portugal, it turns out that a Peter
> Carriço (Pero Dias
Carrico)
Peter is Pedro in Portugues so he would be named Pedro Dias Carriço
is documented extensively in ancient proceedings from the
Inquisition.18 The librarian who indexed the volumes as "Conica" had
misspelled
"Carriço." The correct spelling is found in the actual records.19
The record
was produced at the request of Thomas Perdigao Freire, natural born
in Montemor
o Novo, a descendent of the brother of Pero Dias Carriço. It
appears that his
request was first made 28 April 1683 and again 26 Aug. 1683.
Apparently this
information was sought by this relative to clear the family name
perhaps to
qualify for a position or privilege. The entire case is 148 pages
long written
in the original hand on parchment and still in very good condition.
The record
states that the accused, Carriço (Pero Dias), the son of Manuel
Pires Carriço
and Brites Fernandez, was born in Montemor o Novo, and married
Isabel Lima di
Pena. His family home still stands in the Square of Donna Isabel di
Pena, so
named for his wife. The trial record of Pero D. Carrico states the
following:
Pero Dias Carriço was incarcerated in the Antigos Pacos do Concelho
Evora, or
the Ancient Municipal Prison of Evora located in the main town
square. The
building still stands and is now used as the Bank of Portugal. We
visited the
bank and found that the ancient cells had been destroyed ten years
ago to make
room for more bank offices. Evora was one of three places in
Portugal where
the Inquisition process was carried out. Evora, an ancient walled
medieval
city, is the major city in the region. It was originally settled by
the Romans
and was known at the time of Julius Caesar as Liberalitas Julia.
The Roman
temple of Diana still stands on the highest point of the city.
Evora became
the center of royal power, the arts and wealthy merchants in the
16th century
under Joao III. It is now a living monument of Roman, Moorish,
Gothic and
Baroque architecture. At the time of Pero Dias Carriço's
condemnation and
imprisonment, the city had passed its golden era and was under
Spanish control.
Connection to the Carrico Family of Rowlesburg
We include our findings from Portugal because we think that the
original Peter
Carrico who came to Maryland in 1674 may be related to the 17th
Century family
of Pero D. Carriço. Documents show that his sons fled Portugal
except for one
and he was granted permission to leave Portugal as part of the deal
to release
Pero Carriço from prison. Documents show that his widow, Donna
Isabel di Pina,
eventually transferred his estate to her nephew, meaning that his
sons did not
return to claim their inheritance. None of his daughters ever
married. Our
assumption is that one or more of the sons came to England--the
only real
choice, other than colonies in India or China, to escape the
Inquisition which
by that time had spread to most of Europe, South America and
Mexico. From
England, we assume that Peter Carrico (aka, Peter Currico) arrived
in Maryland
along with the other English-surnamed indentured servants. The
timing of these
events fits our assumptions. The prominence of the name PETER
CARRICO in the
early colonies is significant. The name Peter (Pero in Portuguese)
was handed
down by tradition for several generations in Portugal as well prior
to the
Inquisition. The name PETER appears in every generation of Carricos
in America
up to the present.
We continue to search for the connection that would take us from
12th Century
Portugal to 21st Century America. With many people doing the
searching, we
believe the connection will be found one day.
I wish to thank all of the Carrico descendants who contributed to
this chapter.
I especially want to thank Rosalyn Dowling for the generous sharing of
genealogical and document sources on the Carrico families of
Maryland and West
Virginia.
On Jul 29, 2010, at 8:03 AM, Diana Gale Matthiesen wrote:
Hello List,
We have a new member (#186448), a descendant of a CARRICO family
originally from
the municipality of Ourém, Portugal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our%C3%A9m_Municipality
Thanks to several generous donors, we are able to fund this
individual's testing
and bring him into the project.
Way to go!
Diana
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