Friday, March 17, 2006

Prezelski: Deeper genealogy dig may uncover Irish relatives

CARMEN VILLA PREZELSKI

Tucson Citizen

In case all the "Kiss Me I'm Irish" buttons didn't clue you in, I should tell you that today is St. Patrick's Day.

It turns out that Tucson has a lot of reasons to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, because there are a lot of Tucson-Irish and Mexico-Irish connections.

The most obvious of these was Hugo O'Conor, the fiery, red-headed expatriate in the pay of the Spanish crown who scouted the area and chose the site for the presidio of Tucson.

But there were also many others who left the oppression of life under English rule for the hope of a better life in Catholic Mexico. Thousands of Irish farmers, soldiers, miners and merchants resettled in Mexico in the 18th and 19th centuries.

A schoolteacher and sometime tour guide I met in Alamos, Son., once told me that the origin of the surname Obregon, as in Alvaro Obregon, elected president of Mexico in 1920, was actually O'Brien. Well, it sounded far-fetched to me, too, but don't ask me. The next time you're in Alamos, take it up with Memo.

Irish origins or not, that Mexican election had some interesting Tucson connections. Obregon's opponent was Ignacio Bonillas, who was one of Tucson's first teachers and who served as secretary to Anson Safford, Arizona territorial governor from 1869 to 1877. Both Bonillas and Safford have Tucson schools named after them. Bonillas left Tucson for Mexico and went on to serve as that nation's ambassador to the United States.

Mama always insisted that even she could claim Irish roots. Yes, she who could whip up what I think were easily the world's best tamales and tortillas often told us that somewhere in her background was a great-grandmother from Ireland.

Just recently I began investigating our family's genealogy. There's an irony in this because years ago I used to work in an office where people who were doing this type of work would come in to use our research tools. Frankly, I thought some of them had gone around the bend.

I have only started to scratch the surface, but I can see how the pursuit of the family history can become an obsession for some people.

On Mama's side of the family, I have traced her earliest ancestors in southern Arizona to Guevavi (north of Nogales) in 1825. The surnames include Tapia, Orozco, Sandoval, Martinez and Balderrama.

But not a single last name strikes me as having come from the old sod. I guess I'll just have to keep searching for my Irish relatives.

Carmen Villa Prezelski is a native Tucsonan who writes about the Hispanic heritage of Tucson and the Southwest. Write to her at the Tucson Citizen, P.O. Box 26767, Tucson, AZ 85726. Fax: 573-4569.