The Sorta Rican Mystery: The Boston Family, D.C., Santurce and The Search for an Origin
Family histories can be very complex and shrouded in a lot of mystery and conflicting information. Some family origin stories are embellished or misheard or misremembered. Some are purposely rewritten for one reason or another. We know how common it is for people to falsely claim indigenous American heritage, this happened in my family as well; despite having apparently some kind of genetic relationship with indigenous Americans, I have no well documented evidence of any indigenous North American ancestry and if I do have any, it was likely through some of the free people of color that I descend from.
One of the most intriguing journeys I've been on with my genealogical research is my paternal grandmother's family, particularly her biological father's family. As discussed in previous post, my grandmother Victoria was the daughter of Lawrence Santos Jr, a man of Cape Verdean and allegedly Afro-Puerto Rican descent. When I began doing my genealogical research a few years ago, I discovered that while my great grandfather was indeed "Portuguese", all documents regarding his mother, Myrtle Boston, pointed to her being an African-American from Philadelphia with familial ties to the DMV region. I could not find singular tie to Puerto Rico on paper and assumed that my grandmother may have misremembered her father's ethnicity. I also generated practically no significant DNA matches that were Puerto Rican, while I had many that were Cape Verdean, albeit somewhat distant but close enough and numerous enough to confirm that my family was from the country 4 generations ago. As a disclaimer this isn't to completely debunk the possibility of me potentially of being Afro-Puerto Rican descent, this is just based on the research I have done and what I personally find more likely theoretically.
When I reconnected my grandmother's paternal half-siblings, they also informed me that their father was Cape Verdean/Portuguese and Puerto Rican. At first this confused me but this was when they relayed to me the oral history that I detailed in a previous post: Myrtle and/or her parents originated in Santurce, Puerto Rico and emigrated to the United States in the late 1800s/early 1900s, assumed new names and falsified their records and assimilated into African-American culture, at least publicly. They allegedly continued to pass down Puerto Rican culture at home and Myrtle's actual name was "Myrta".
At first this seemed plausible to me but it still felt...off. I could imagine that falsifying records could play a role in the general mystery of the family history but there were other glaring holes in the story. I was also told that my great grandfather visited Puerto Rico often and described stories of his childhood visiting his grandparents in Puerto Rico. However, this contradicts that his grandparents had immigrated to the US and publicly dissociated themselves from being from the island. Another theory is that they were afraid to be deported back to Puerto Rico. While that was somewhat of a possibility, by the time my great grandfather was born in 1924, the Jones Act had been passed and all Puerto Ricans were granted United States citizenship which made traveling between the archipelago and the United States much smoother. I could see them wanting to be consistent to not cause any legal troubles but it still felt shaky theoretically speaking.
The stories of Santurce also feel less believable once I asked my aunt and uncle if they knew the names of any family we had in Puerto Rico and the answers were all "no." While it's possible they forgot, it's still odd that he wouldn't have dropped the names of any cousins or anything. He also never took them to Puerto Rico with them, which makes everything less plausible in my eyes. My great grandfather also did not bring them around Myrtle nor to Philadelphia very often so their memories of Myrtle are not vivid. There seems to be some dissent between my great grandfather's living children about the truth behind this story.
Another thing is the surname "Boston". This will be especially important later down the line of this article but the name Boston struck me as odd as well. Prior to meeting my family, it felt odd that a Puerto Rican family would have an English surname, while not that uncommon, it was still not adding up. After I was told they lived in Santurce, I thought it could be more plausible due to Santurce's history as a maroon community and sanctuary for runaway slaves from English speaking islands in the Caribbean. It wouldn't be unusual to have such a surname in that area. Allegedly, the last name was originally something along the lines of "Bastón" or "Bastan". With that information, I tried my best to link my family to anyone in Santurce or San Juan, who was Black with the surname. And while multiple families turned up, nothing formed a coherent story to work with. So with that, I decided to actually dig into the background of Myrtle's parents; George Washington Boston and Mary Ann Shade.
The Shade Family
Mary Ann Shade first appears on the census in 1870, around 10 years old, the presumed daughter of Harriett Schade (Shade). They are living in Washington, D.C. in the neighborhood of East Capitol Hill. A Freedman's Bureau document from around the same time displays a bank account application filed by Harriett, with her two daughters Mary Ann and Letitia Jane, as her dependents.
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| Harriett Shade's Freedman's Bureau bank account application |
I actually discovered all this information after reading a newspaper clipping of the obituary for Myrtle's sister Grace in 1945, where she was living with their cousin Hattie Henson (nee Coombs). Hattie was the daughter of Letitia Jane which led to me finding more information on Mary Ann and discovering their mother Harriett.
In 1880, they were again living in East Capitol Hill, several blocks away from George Washington Boston and his family. According to the birth certificates of her daughters, she was born in Charles County, Maryland though later documents hot potato this between Virginia, Maryland and D.C.
The Boston Family
Here's where things get very interesting, and complicated.
George Washington Boston, like Mary Ann Shade, had inconsistent locations listed for his birthplace. However all of the birth certificates of the children he fathered with Mary Shade list his birthplace as Prince George's County. Based on the 1870 and 1880 censuses, it appears that his parents were Philip and Jane Boston, both natives of Maryland. An 1868 Freedman's Bureau record show that Philip Boston and Jane Carter were married in Maryland in an unknown location, in May of 1860. Interestingly enough, there is a couple from the West Indies listed several columns down. It is possible that Philip Boston was a free person of color based on a few people with his name appearing on the 1840 and 1850 censuses in Maryland as free Black men. His marriage also predates the start of the Civil War by a year and the abolition of slavery in Maryland by 4 years. The war may have displaced the Boston family and the Freedman's Bureau may have helped them resettle.
When I first stumbled across this information, it seemed like the mystery had been likely solved. I went to my family tree on FamilySearch to update with information from Ancestry and the hints for Phillip Boston took me to a document, an essay and a website regarding a large family of Black people from Maryland's western shore. What immediately stood out to me is that this family sued their enslavers of the course of a century for their freedom, often successfully. Their claim to freedom being descendance from a Spanish woman named Lenah Boston.
The Boston Family resided in Anne Arundel County. Lenah was a woman born in the late 1680s and brought to Maryland as a young child with her mother Maria. Lenah's racialization is vaguely described as yellow. Her physical appearance was described as "yellow, with straight black hair like an Indian" and her ethnicity was described as a Spaniard or Portuguese. Her origins aren't exactly known with some sources claiming her mother to have been from Hispaniola and others claiming that she had came on a ship from Madagascar or a Guinea Ship, which was a more generic term for a slave ship from West Africa. Her status as free or enslaved was highly contested as she was said to be enslaved in an area known as The Swamp (which I now believe is called Shady Side) by Robert Lockwood. Either way, she had around 13 children with an enslaved Black man named Bacon Boston and their descendants populated various regions of Anne Arundel county such as South River, Annapolis and the surrounding areas.
For me this was a genuine bombshell. A lot of the pieces of the puzzle seemed to be coming together but I didn't want to assume that he was a descendant on name alone. Coincidentally there also was another Black man named Phillip Boston with a son named Washington that lived in Anne Arundel County at the same exact time. So for a while it felt like a long shot of a theory. This was until I went back to the 1880 census and re-examined Washington's household. He was then residing at 1315 A Street NE. Along side his parents and adopted brother Charles Barber, he was living with his son William who was 2 years old. He was also described as widowed. I searched for another marriage license for him which led to me discovering that he married a woman name Susan Ann Carroll in 1877. I eventually found the birth certificate for William from May 1878 which led to an interesting detail: Washington's birth place is listed as Prince George's County initially but is crossed out and corrected to South River, Maryland.
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| George Washington Boston and Susan Ann Carroll's marriage license, May 1877 |
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| William Henry Boston's birth certificate including George Washington Boston's birth location as South River, Maryland |
Susan unfortunately died in May 1880 of dropsy, several weeks before Washington was recorded on the 1880 census. In June of 1884, he married Mary Ann Shade and they had 2 daughters in D.C., the aforementioned Grace (1884-1945) and Elveda (1886-1970). They later moved to Philadelphia in the 1890s, leaving William with Phillip and Jane Boston, now residing at 1814 A Street NE. Jane eventually died in December of 1896 and Phillip in June of 1901*. At that point Washington had another daughter with Mary, Goldie/Golden (1898-1928) and a few years later, Myrtle (1904-1977). The reasons as to why Washington later defaulted to Prince George's County or Virginia as his birthplace in records are unknown though it was not uncommon for people to misremember their birthplaces as they aged.
*: update 1/1/2026; Philip Boston's death certificate has been discovered, he died on December 11, 1900. The probate for his estate happened 6 months after his death.
Philip Boston's death certificate from December 11, 1900.
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| Probate for Philip Boston's estate after his death in June 1901, with George acting as his heir. Evening Star, June 11 1901 |
On the 1910 census, the Bostons are living in South Philly with many other early Great Migration and immigrant families. In the column regarding marriage, there is an "M2" written in George's row, indicating that his marriage with Mary was his second which tracks with previous information discovered.
George does not appear on the 1920 census with his wife and daughters Goldie and Myrtle. In Mary's column regarding her marriage, it seems to be a mistake written that she was widowed but corrected to "married". I took this at face value initially that she was indeed widowed, however later on I came across George Washington Boston's death certificate from 1927. The age matches the estimations on previous records, his address is located in South Philadelphia, the informant is Mary Boston, his birthplace is listed as Virginia (this has appeared on multiple records as previously explained) and his father's name is Phillip Boston.
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| George Washington Boston's death certificate, 1927 |
Mary died ten years after her husband in April of 1937, her parents listed as Isaac Shade and Harriett Ford. Her daughter, Elveda, was the informant. And with that, I was able to find a decent paper trail for Myrtle Boston's parents.
What Now?
So what does this mean? That's a complicated question. Cultural identity is not genetic nor an easily quantifiable thing. The story I was told about my family could very be true in some way, as the Freedman's Bureau did seem to deal with Black people from other countries that had recently moved to the US. However, as a researcher and historian I have to give credence based on the information I have found, the sociopolitical and historical context of it and work with it to make sense of a coherent story or hypothesis.
While I think this story of a distant Spanish ancestor very may well have snow balled into a Puerto Rican identity, I have no way to completely verify this information. It'll probably be years before I have an answer, if ever. Somehow my great grandfather Lawrence Santos acquired a good grasp on Spanish and identified with Puerto Rican culture for at least the latter half of his life. It's my job as a historian and my personal interest as his direct descendant to decipher what actually happened. I hope to keep finding more information on this lineage of mine and I intend to go more in-depth about the history of the Boston Family of Maryland and the potential ties I have to it.
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