Juan Hilario "Eladio" Bermúdez Ruíz

One thing I’ve learned while researching my genealogy is that sometimes you uncover things about your ancestors that may come as a surprise. I haven’t uncovered anything earth shattering yet, like say, an ancestor whose committed treason or murder (yikes). I hope I never do (knock on wood).

While researching my paternal grandfather Juan Hilario “Eladio” Bermúdez Ruíz’ I discovered that he was born out of wedlock. I know that nowadays that isn’t such a big deal, but back in the late 1800’s it was a very big deal.

I remember sitting in front of a microfilm viewer at the Woodside Family History Center and going through hundreds of demographic records looking for Eladio and Juana's marriage record with no luck whatsoever. Since I wasn't having any luck finding it under his name, I started looking under her name and finally found it. But to my surprise it stated she was married to Eladio Ruíz and “Bermúdez” appeared nowhere on the document. The marriage record also said that Eladio Ruíz was “hijo ilegitmo” or illegitimate son of Ignacia Ruiz, not Margarita Ruiz, like I had always been told.

Hmmm. Needless to say, I was intrigued.

According to my research my great-grandfather Amador “Amante” Bermúdez Cortéz (b. 21 Jun 1860, Utuado, d. abt. 1936, Utuado) was married to Margarita Ruíz Cortéz (6 Oct 1866, Utuado, d. abt. 1894) on Oct. 27 1884 and with her had 7 children the last born being Jose Bartolomé. Margarita died shortly after giving birth to Bartolomé, then a few months later her sister Ignacia Ruíz Cortéz (b. 30 Aug 1870, Utuado, d. abt. 1923) became pregnant with my grandfather Eladio. Ignacia had one more child with Amante, Juan Julio (1 Oct 1900, Utuado). After that I'm not sure what happened to Ignacia. Amante remarried in 1905 with Josefa Hernandez Melendez and with Josefa had 6 children.

Amante never legally recognized my grandfather Eladio, but according to the census records Eladio lived with his father, his step-mother and his 6 half brothers and sisters.

It wasn’t until 1956 that my grandfather, while in Puerto Rico, filed a petition in court to get his last name corrected. He was able to do this by taking his surviving half-siblings to testify on his behalf and vouch that he was indeed the son of Amador Bermúdez Cortéz.

I want to point out the error in some of the documents that state “Rios” instead of “Ruíz.” It first shows up in Eladio’s birth record and again in the court documents. I mentioned this to a worker at the San Juan Demographic Registry and she told me that it happened a lot back then, that a name or last name was heard incorrectly, recorded incorrectly and the mistake repeated many times thereafter.