I’d really appreciate serious researchers’ thoughts on this Sebastián Pérez question.

Having reviewed the reconstructed family trees, baptism and marriage dates, and the various dispensas, it has become increasingly apparent to me that Sebastián Pérez, husband of Isabel de Ávalos, and Sebastián Pérez, husband of Leanor Ruvalcaba, were likely the same individual.

A father-and-son relationship has been proposed for these two men, but the chronology makes that relationship difficult to accept. Based on the estimated birth dates of Sebastián Pérez's sisters, Ana Pérez and María Burgueño, both of whom appear to have been born before 1600 (having children born as early as 1615), the Sebastián Pérez who married Isabel de Ávalos would have been too young to have been the father of all three siblings if the two Sebastiáns were separate generations.

A more plausible explanation is that there was only one Sebastián Pérez. He first married Isabel de Ávalos and, following her death, subsequently married Leanor Ruvalcaba. This interpretation seems to fit the available facts and chronology considerably better.

It also makes more sense for the Sebastián Pérez who married Leanor Ruvalcaba to have been born closer to 1600 rather than in 1635. The 1635 birth date appears frequently online, but I have not been able to locate a primary record supporting it. More importantly, the dispensa associated with Leanor Ruvalcaba's later marriage to Juan Pérez de Ornelas provides chronological and familial context that seems difficult to reconcile with a Sebastián Pérez born as late as 1635.

Under this "single-person" interpretation, Sebastián Pérez does not die a relatively young man who is barely forty. Rather, he appears to have lived a long life, marrying twice and having families with both women. His marriage to Leanor Ruvalcaba would therefore have occurred later in his life, which is entirely plausible given the chronological evidence.

In my view, treating the two Sebastiáns as the same man who married first Isabel de Ávalos and later Leanor Ruvalcaba provides a much more coherent explanation of the reconstructed genealogy, the estimated birth dates of the children and siblings, and the evidence contained in the dispensas than the proposed father-and-son relationship.

Sebastián Pérez

Born: circa 1600-1605?
Died: c1675

1st wife: Isabel de Ávalos

Children:

2nd wife: Leanor de Ruvalcaba

Born: c1639
Died: 1697

Children:

Comment

I have long held the belief that Sebastián Pérez (born ~1600) married to Isabel de Ávalos and Sebastián Pérez married to Leonor González de Ruvalcaba are the same person. We know from various dispensas that the latter Sebastián's sisters were María Burgueño (b. ~1590) and Ana Pérez (b. ~1595) which would support the assumption that Sebastián married twice. Unfortunately, as you said, a supporting document has not yet been found to prove that they are the same person. Similarly, it seems reasonable that the parents of María Burgueño, Ana Pérez and Sebastián are Diego Pérez and Beatriz Burgueño, however, supporting documents have not yet been found to prove this.

Un cordial saludo,

Austin Pérez

Comment

Hello Austin,

I'm relatively new to Colonial genealogy and still make mistakes, so I appreciate your thoughts on this subject, and I agree with your take. 

In my own tree, I've merged the two Sebastians, with a note explaining that, while the circumstantial evidence for identifying them as the same person is quite strong, the identification has not been definitively proven.

I have particular interest in this family. We are descended from Juana Burgeño (married to Hernando Medel), Ana Pérez (married to Bartolomé Martín), and, of course, Sebastian Pérez. We also have other Pérez ancestors from Lagos during the same period (1620-1670), some of whom may be connected to the family of Diego Pérez.

 

Comment

Hello Austin, 

The craziest thing happened today...

I was scrolling through 1670s marriage records on FamilySearch when I stumbled upon the marriage record of my 7th great-grandmother. That discovery led to the identity of her parents—and then her grandparents: the infamous philanderer Sebastián Pérez and his wife, Josefa de Casteñeda!

It’s truly a small world (in the 1600s at least).

Thank you,

Travis

 

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Nice!

I too recently located additional information on Sebastián's second marriage to María Garcia, daughter of José García Rodríguez and Margarita Gutiérrez del Castillo.