My research started by asking my father, Jack, what he could remember of the family and one of the things he gave me was a copy of his parents' Marriage Certificate. This stated his father's name as Isaac Henry (although he was known as "Harry") and Isaac Henry's father's name as Jacob. The Certificate also states Jack's mother's name as Hannah Schroski, not Abrahams as she was known as - but that's another story!
I then started to search the index to civil registration of births for Jacob. I eventually found his entry and obtained a copy of his birth certificate. This gave me his the names of his parents as Samuel and Sarah Garcia (formerly Jacobs). Back to the index to search for Samuel's birth registration. I was lucky as he was born in 1839 and compulsory registration only started in 1837. Samuel's Birth Certificate gives the names of his parents as Isaac and Hannah Garcia (formerly Genese).
As Isaac's birth was before compulsory registration I had to pursue alternative sources and this led me to Bevis Marks. Records of births, circumcisions and marriages have been published and I have been able to borrow copies of these via my local library. I found the entry for Isaac and Hannah's marriage which took place on 26 Ab 5588 (I bought some computer software to translate the Hebrew dates and this became 6th August 1828). This was very interesting because the names are recorded as "Isaac de Abraham Haim Garcia" and "Hanah de Samuel Genese", the de denoting "son of" and "daughter of" respectively.
The Birth Register gives names in a similar way and I found Isaac's birth, together with his parents, Abraham and Abigail. The index to the Register is in alphabetical order of father's names and so I found Isaac's brothers and sisters grouped together. His eldest brother was also Isaac and so must have died young, however, the entry for the elder Isaac gives his father as Abraham de David Garcia. I could not, however, find any record of Abraham's birth, circumcision or marriage, possibly due to the many gaps in the records.
Throughout this research I have recorded the details of all the Garcias I have found and from this long list I discovered the marriage of a David de Daniel Garcia to Ester Mendes on the 26th June 1751.
There is also an entry in the Marriage Register for a Daniel Garsia (mis-spellings of names in the Registers are common) being married to Abigail Garcia on the 25th December 1728 and is annotated Vindos de Portugal - "arrived from Portugal". This indicates a re-marriage as detailed above.
Further, an entry in the Circumcision Register states that Daniel Garcia was circumcised on the 2nd May 1728. No father is listed for this circumcision which means that he was either a youth or an adult, and was the son of a person who was himself neither circumcised nor married with strict Jewish rites. Daniel had, therefore, no father in official Jewish eyes.
The fact that Daniel was circumcised and married in the same year also proves he was an immigrant refugee from Portugal, and, if the fifteen day rule mentioned above was strictly enforced, he arrived in England sometime between the 18th April and the 2nd May 1728. Interestingly, another marriage took place on the same day as David and Ester's, that of Esther Garcia and Ishac Mendes. As the parents are the same it appears as though a Garcia brother and sister married a Mendes sister and brother, possibly in a joint ceremony.
Although I have not yet been able to prove the connection between Abraham and Daniel conclusively, I am confident that, as I have not found any other Garcia's with similar dates, this is our family:
e-mail me at jerry@jerrygarcia.co.uk