I started my final search for Don Constantino O’Neill, and what
I have found is not much, since there are so many O’Neill’s with the name Conn,
but not many in Spain, or what is now the Holland and Belgium once known as the
Spanish Netherlands. I found a few short excerpts from letters in the 1600’s
referring to Constantino O'Neill.
In another letter written this time by Don Eugenio (Owen Roe)
O’Neill he writes the following:
“He (that is Hugh Duff O’Neill) desires more particularly to witness to your excellency that I have seen the will of the late Earl of Tyrone, John O’Neill, and the father of the younger man that is lately dead here, after whom is also and another, Conn O’Neill, who is also dead, I can assure you excellency that this Hugh O’Neill that now calls himself Earl of Tyrone, is the third, and consequently, the head of the house.”
This John O’Neill mentioned was Don Juan O’Neill who died in
January of 1641 in the Battle of Montjuic in Catalonia. The Conn O’Neill
mentioned was the younger son of Don Hugh O’Neill, 2nd Earl of
Tyrone, he is said to have died in the tower of London.
In a letter written in April 12, 1642 on regard of a Don
Constantino O’Neill the letter has the following written:
“As to what you write touching Don Eugenio O’Neill, I apprehend no such danger; he is not disposed to claim more than his father enjoyed for he acknowledges that all immediate right to the earldom of Tyrone belongs to Don Constantino, who is in Spain. So long as he lives, Don Eugenio can claim nothing, as he publicly acknowledges, offering to serve no matter who – Don Felim, or another, in common cause of religion and realm.”
What is interesting is Don Eugenio (Owen Roe) O’Neill was asked,
if he was or would be the Earl of Tyrone, and he replied by saying the “True”
Earl of Tyrone was Constantino O’Neill at the time living in Spain. To my
knowledge I don’t believe anyone knows who this Constantino was , and it may
look like that I’m not the only one looking for a Don Constantino O’Neill, if
it’s the same one which I can no say he is or not at the moment.
What is known is that this Don Constantino in August of 1642
took to the sea from Rochelle with fifty soldiers in a ship laden with arms and
powder. La Rochelle is a city in Western France and was the largest seaport on
the Bay of Biscay, or the Atlantic coast of France.Where was this ship heading
to? And was this Don Constantino O’Neill who was raised in Galicia, Spain? What
is also known is that La Rochelle was a haven for French privateers, merchants,
and pirates. The Caribbean was well known to these men example are the maps of
the islands in the West Indies done in the early 1600’s. I have not found any
evidence that a Don Constantino O’Neill sailed to the Caribbean during the
mid-1600, and finding records of such a voyage is basically impossible for me
to do.
In 1641 around 300 Irish soldiers from Ireland arrived in
Galicia, Spain, the question is the progenitor of the O’Neill’s of Puerto Rico
among these men? It must not be forgotten that in August of 1653 the Spanish
crown declared a moratorium on all Irish soldiers arriving in Spain, and in
that same year many of the surviving soldiers, of the army, of Don Eugenio
(Owen Roe) O’Neill during the Irish Rebellion arrived in La Coruna, Galicia,
Spain. From 1641 to 1654 over 22,000Irish arrived in Spain.The last ship to
arrive in Galicia, Spain from Ireland was in 1654.
Was Don Constantino O’Neill among these men in Galicia? From
what I have been able to find is that Don Juan O’Neill was likely born in Spain
and not on the island of Puerto Rico, and there is a possibility that Don
Patricio O’Neill arrived with Don Alejandro “Bloody” O’Reilly in 1765 on the island,
yet I have not found any military records to confirm this theory. The general
theory is thatDon Juan O’Neill arrived with his two brothers circa the 1700’s
from Spain or possible other islands in the Caribbean. From 1686 to 1701 the
Spanish crown denied all Flemish and Irish families to settle in Puerto Rico.
What I have found and know is that this O’Neill family was
separate and very different from the others O’Neill’s, and it seems that they
did not intermingled with others for whatever their reasons. Another thing is
the lack of males in this family and this is shown by their y-dna Haplotype and
SNP that is not found among the O’Neill’s in Ireland. This has made the search
harder not that the O’Neill’s of Puerto Rico do not match any other O’Neill’s I
can careless for that but the fact that theydo not match anyone, as if all know
relatives have vanished from the face of the earth. Yet this is common among a
few families in the SNP L48 it seem that those within this SNP kept the male
gene pool limited. On the y-dna end I expect very little news outside new
results coming in when I test for some new subclades of the SNP L48. I don’t
expect any y-dna matches at all unless another O’Neill of Puerto Rico is brave
enough, or cares enough about his ancestry to take a y-dna test, and asking for
those to test is something I have given up on.
The big mystery is to
know in reality the true origin of the O’Neill’s in Spain, and the biggest one
being the progenitor of the O’Neill’s of Puerto Rico Don Constantino O’Neill.These
O’Neill’s kept many secrets one account that is puzzling is the father in law
of François-Henry O’Neill, who married one Herminie de la Ponce. NowFrançois-Henry’s,
father in law claimed that Brian O'Neill was not murdered as a schoolboy in
Brussels, but grew up to be killed at Barcelona in 1641. Now if this is true
then this Brian O’Neill, son of Don Hugo O’Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone
may have had children. Who knows what truly happened in this family and what they
did, I don’t care, if I descend from any of this men , but finding the origins
of the O’Neill’s of Puerto Rico is a the goal.
There is the letter and records that places a Don Constantino
O’Neill in La Rochelle, France circa 1642, and I have no idea of his age at
that time. Assuming this is the Don Constantino O’Neill I am in search of.
1642 – A Don Constantino O’Neillis in La Rochelle, France.
1670’s - Patrick O’Neill’s son James O’Neill (2nd Comte de
Tyrone) receives lands from the Compagnie des Iles d'Amérique or Company of the
American Islands, and settles on the island of Martinique.
1686 to 1701 - The Spanish crown denied all Flemish and Irish
families to settle in Puerto Rico.
Early 1700’s – Don Juan O’Neill is Born.
1761 - Colonel Don Tomas O’Daly, who served in the Ultonia
Regiment in 1744, and also was educated in Barcelona, by 1761 O’Daly, had a
thriving sugar plantation in Puerto Rico, and Don Tomas O'Daly had a brother
named Jaime O’Daly, who resided in Cadiz circa 1763.
1765 – Don Alejandro “Bloody” O’Reilly arrives in Puerto Rico.
1775 - Jaime O'Daly applied for a license to export goods from
Puerto Rico, and with the protection of his brother Colonel Don Tomas O’Daly,
he became a well-known sugar and tobacco merchant.
1778 - Don Patricio O'Neill Garcia married Anna Feliciano in in Guaynabo,
Puerto Rico.
From what we see is that those in the Ultonia Regiments already
had settled in Puerto Rico in the start of the 1760’s, or possibly even earlier.
Once more documents are found more will be known, and the records from the
Ultonia regiment are one component that is necessary to solve this mystery. I
have other leads that I will no talk about that will likely give me some
results, and I hope that in my spare time I’m able to find some clues.
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