GenealogyForum.com Hispanic Genealogy

[ Read Responses | Return to the Index (Use 'Back' if from a search list) ]
[ Previous | Previous in Thread | Next ]

Atiles Family & Origin

Posted by lisette atiles <lizzywizzy007@hotmail.com> on Fri, 23 Oct 2009, in response to Artiles Family origin, posted by Frank Artiles on Tue, 18 Jan 2005

There is certainly a lot of speculation and fascination with regard to the origin of our last name, "Atiles." According to a family Genealogist, also an Atiles, who currently resides in Puerto Rico, our original decendents were from Spain, and then the Canary Islands.

Recently I decided to do some research of my own in order to learn more about the Canary Islands and discovered that most of the information listed on the genealogical research document written by my relative was pretty true.

Considerable evidence shows that the first wave of Spaniards to haved settled in the Canary Islands (not sure which of the seven islands), occured during the 14th Century (the first Atiles settler(s)were presumably amongst them). However, during the 1840s and 1850s, several emigrated due to stringent economical cicumstances. Approximately 40,000 dwellers are said to have emigrated to the Americas, namely Puerto Rico, Cuba & Venezuela.

Nonethless, I have chosen to center my research on Puerto Rico. I find that those who settled in Puerto Rico stayed Camuy, Arrecibo, Hatillo, and a few others. To find that Camuy is one of them is compelling, primarily because this is from where my father originates.

Now that I have discovered this part of the story, new questions have risen.

For one, during my research, I discovered that the Canary Islands are about 200KM west of North Africa and that original native inhabitants were the extinct Guanchos and their native descendents the Berbers, who are presumed to be the ancesters of North African inhabitants living west of the Nile, i.e. Morocco and Algeria (striking similarities in language, numerical system, and DNA support this). I also read that during the existance of these so called Berbers, the Carthinians, amongst several other primitive natives, were also prevalent and traveled to and from the Canary Islands. The Carthinians were at war with the Romans, led by General Marcus Atilius Regulus.

Before I proceed with what I am about to posit, I would like to share that during my research I also discovered that historically, surnames followed the tradition of Toponym (name applied to person based upon their dwelling region) or Patronym (name based upon specific person or quality of prominence, such as industry, class, nobilty and etc).

Surnames ending with "ez-oz-iz-es" are generally considered of Patronymic origin. These forms are said to have be derived from the Latin suffix, "icius" or from the Teutonic genitive suffix "e."

Overall, there seems to be speculation with regard to Atiles being of an origin other than that of Spain. Since the general's middle name "Atilius" very much resembles "Atiles," and given the geographical proximity of the Roman/Carthinian war in North Africa during 129 BC, I wonder if Atiles somehow evolved or crossed cultures.

Lisette Atiles

Display message for printing | Print Entire Thread

The GenealogyForum.com Hispanic Genealogy is maintained by GenealogyForum@aol.com, using GenBBS 1.14.

CPU seconds used 0.009998