March 2, 2012
Okay, maybe not Day One in research but Day One in documenting my research. There will be a lot of babble, putting thoughts down, thinking of how to best present my ohana.
Where do I begin?
I have thought about doing this for quite some time. Now it's much more important to get it done before the elders are all gone and no one will be able to tell me their recollection first hand.
I have been told that I was adopted. That my parents divorced and when I was born I was already a Gregorio, at least that's what it says on my birth certificate. I have three brothers ahead of me, then after the divorce my mom had two more kids, and my dad had six more. My grandparents adopted me and for the longest time I thought my mother was my aunty. Technically I was my mother's sister. I had fun telling people that. As for my adoption, I will have to see if there were really adoption papers that legally said that Papa and Mama adopted me. They are both long gone but I do think about them every now and then.
What really got me started on researching my history was the story my Aunty Angela (Sister Angelina Gregorio who is a nun at St. Patrick's in Kaimuki) told me. My son, Jesse, and I picked her up one day so many years ago and took her to lunch at a restaurant in Kaimuki. We asked her if she knew our ancestors beyond Papa. She said that a Spanish soldier came to the Philippines during the war (sometime in 1887) and met a lady who had his child. He went back to Spain though I'm not sure he knew he fathered a child. The lady gave birth to Papa but I guess she didn't or couldn't take care of him because he was left on a doorstep of a church or house. The village cared for him and gave him the name 'Gregorio'. Thus starts the Gregorio ohana. His first name: Faustino. He was from Iloilo City, Panay Island, P.I.
