Gerri de la Sal is one of many towns in Catalonia that you must visit – and the birthplace of my Pubill lineage. At least as long as the genealogy search does not reveal a different origin. In the spectacular monastery of Santa Maria de Gerri, whose first stones date from the 9th century, a good group of my Pubills were baptized.
I wonder what my great-grandmother Pilar from Priorat, the one who cook a yummy chicken with anise and drank whiskey with passion, the one who lived until I was 21, would say if she could see this document. It was the year of the Lord 1790 when the grandparents of her great-grandparents, Pere Pubill and Rosa Batalla (“Rosa Pubill y Batalla”, according to the nomenclature back then), signed in Gerri “the sale of all that piece of meadow with ditch water, due to some urgent needs occuring”. Yes, the grandparents of great-grandmother Pilar’s great grandparents.
The sale price was “thirty-two Barcelona pounds between said sellers and buyer, amicably adjusted”. I don’t know if the amount allowed Rosa and Pere to cover those urgent needs. It must be assumed that it did. In any case, that doesn’t make them suffer anymore, for sure. Of course, that procedure and the story of the Pubill from Gerri de la Sal will also be part of the book.
Also Feliu will be there, a great-grandson of Pere and Rosa, and grandfather of Pilar. He settled in Gelida in 1864 with his wife Maria. This, however, is another chapter.
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For more information:
Gerri de la Sal and the monastery Santa Maria de Gerri in the Wikipedia. Also check the website of the Tourism Office of the region Pallars Sobirà – and the website of the Catalan Society of Genealogy on genealogical research purposes.