80and90medley.mp3
Researched by: Eng. Gavino Zabal Reloj
There is a town Zabal Spain near Pamplona (a place made famous by Ernest Hemingway)
Basque Origins
Zabaleta is a Basque surname of considerable antiquity. Students of Hispanic heraldry indicate that, though the antiquity of the name makes it impossible to document an exact temporal origin, the name has appeared prominently in Iberian history for at least the last twelve hundred years. Basque surnames "are quite distinctive and most are derived from the ancestral country home's name or other prominent geographic feature." The Basque surname is a word by which an extended family is described and located, and is determined by a technique typical of tribal peoples. A Basque surname, for example, may describe a people "who live at the top of the hill" or "the people who live by the river."
In his work on Basque surnames, Fernando González-Doria described the name's meaning: "Zabaleta has its origin in the Basque country and while we do not know in which century it appeared, we do know that it is an ancient Basque surname." In the Basque language, the surname Zabaleta refer to a wide flat area. Thus, Zabaleta describes the people who live by a flat place in the mountainous Pyrenees. Another version translates Zabaleta as "the people who live by the mountain pass." When the surname-root, "Zabal,"" meaning a wide place, is combined with the maximizing ending "eta," it becomes "a very-wide place." Hence Zabal-eta is, "un lugar muy ancho."
The Basque practice of associating place designators with extended families also allows us to know the exact location of the Zabaleta family in the Basque countryside, through an oral tradition which pre-dates written records, or at least to the eighth century CE (Contemporary Era). It stands to reason that, since the Basque language describes a people's location, there could be more than one founding family called Zabaleta. In fact, this research has located two families, one in the Basque Province of Navarre (Navarra) and the other in neighboring Guipúzcoa. The two families are related, and together they form the progenitor base for the extended Zabaleta family both in Spain and in the Americas.
It should be noted here that the Zabaleta surname spelled with a "b" and Zavaleta spelled with a "v" have the same origin. With the sixteenth century emigration of Zabaleta's to the New World, this Basque surname, along with many others, was changed from the Basque spelling using "b" to the Castilian spelling using "v." Etymologically there is no difference between Zabaleta and Zavaleta. In fact, this change allows us to easily differentiate between Zabaletas born in Spain and Zavaletas born in the Americas (beginning around 1500). Simply stated, all Zabaletas/Zavaletas are members of the same family, separated by generations and oceans. For the purpose of this article, when Zabaleta is spelled with a "b" it refers to a Spanish origin, and when spelled with a "v" it refer to an American origin.
Zabaleta Family Origins
Tracing family history through time, over generations, and across oceans is both time-consuming and expensive. It was not until the advent of the Internet that more than fifty years of study of Zavaleta family history and genealogy could be more fully facilitated by a few simple keystrokes, but travel to historic family locations and national archives is still essential. Old World family records are often sketchy and, in antiquity, mostly non-existent. However, the nature of the Basque population, their geographic area of origin, and the uniqueness of their surnames make the records and references available beyond the ordinary. It is when families have had illustrious histories, or have played important historical roles, that familial reconstruction is easiest. For the sake of this article, only family history with the surname Zabaleta/Zavaleta is considered. Documented family history now approximates two thousand years of direct descent. Special thanks to doctoral student and friend Michael Scott Van Wagenen, who has, in the interest of my work on family history and the origin of families in Northeastern Mexico, spent more than 100 hours in the, Family History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is important to note that in the Mormon archives, Michael found numerous Zavaleta ancestors in Northern Mexico whose surname was recorded with an "S." Therefore, the search for Savaleta and Sabaleta revealed many heretofore unknown family links and answered many questions that the family had held for many years. As a result of his work and that of Tony Zavaleta, Jr., the Zavaleta family genealogy has a documented direct line of descent that now exceeds 60 generations and is placed in time at the year zero CE. Two thousand years of direct family descent.
The earliest reference we have to the Basque family known as Zabaleta comes from the ancient accounts of the military campaigns of Charlemagne and of his defeat at the hands of the Basques at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass (French spelling) or Roncesvalles (Spanish spelling) in 778 CE. The ancient account of Charlemagne'
Los cronistas carolingios universalizaron Valcarlos englobandolo en un pedazo del "Pirineo de los Vascones," que no conoc¡an por si mismos, sino por relatos de supervivientes y, en mayor medida, de gentes que oyeron contar las historias de primera mano. Pero, como dudarlo, fueron enormemente precisos en las referencias topográficas.
Approximate translation: The Carolingian chroniclers spread the word of Valcarlos, locating it in a part of the "Pyrenees of the Basques," which they did not know personally, but had heard of in the stories of survivors and mainly from people that had heard the stories told first hand. However, how can one doubt it, as they were extremely precise in the topographic references..
The ancient account describes the battle in which Roland the nephew of Charlemagne was killed and provides a lyrical, even poetic, description of the home's country setting:
Con trazas de volver a pisar el trazado genuino, la senda gana la luz en otro claro del bosque, el a que forma un recoleto parado enmarcado entre gruesos castaños y dos caudalosos arroyos, conocido por Zabaleta (lugar ancho), un rincón cautivador por su sabor pastoral que preside una recia casona de piedra, hoy convertida en borda."
Approximate translation: With plans to return to walk along the actual layout, the footpath opens into the light in another clearing of the forest, one that forms a secluded stopping point, framed between thick chestnut trees and two mighty streams, known as Zavaleta (a wide space), a corner of the woods, captivating with its pastoral flavor that presides over a sturdy stone house, today converted into a cottage.
The Kingdom of Navarre and the Province of Guipúzcoa
It was not until the year 905 that Sancho Garcés I (a direct ancestor), organized the Basque region around a European-style regional dynasty. It became known as the Kingdom of Navarre. McAlister states that, "The Kingdom of Navarre was created in the tenth century by Romanized Basques in the western Pyrenees; and the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon were both formed in the first half of the eleventh century, Castile from the east of León, and Aragon from a county of Navarre in the central Pyrenees."
The principality of Navarre enjoyed independence for several hundred years, largely due to the fact that it had no threatening neighbors. While the eastern half of the Basque country was drawn more and more into the French realm, the western half, today located in Spain, included the regions of Navarre and Guipúzcoa, home of the Zabaleta family.
Payne suggests that by the twelfth century this region had been mostly Christianized and was comprised of farms with strong extended families. Slowly, Guipúzcoa and the entire Spanish Basque region became part of the Castilian world, and the Basques were poised to play a major role in the expansion of Castile in its colonization of the New World after 1492.
The Zabaleta family has its origin in Guipúzcoa and Navarre, and, as such, all Zabaletas in the Old World and Zavaletas in the New World herald from the same general location. Map searches indicate that the distance from the Zabaletas of Lesaca, Navarre, to those in Urretxu, Guipúzcoa, to be no more than 50km or 30 miles.
