Baamonde Web Site

My name is Rick and I am the Evil Dictator over this project. Fear my wrath or I'll only use bad pictures of you in your profile! Disclaimer: This site is not meant to upset anyone. The title is Baamonde, and I can't fix that now that it is done, but if I figure out how, I will certainly change it to Ba(h)amonde - Colom Website. That's really what this is. An "homage(?)" to the lineage of Francisco Franco y Bahamonde and Christopher Columbus.   That statement is clearly (partially) tongue in cheek. Grandpa Buddy (Placido) used to say that Franco was his uncle all the time. Grandpa Peter (Pedro) told us that his father was from Barcelona, Spain, where Colom is the common spelling for Columbus, there is a giant statue honoring him, and where a huge debate rages over whether or not Columbus was really Genovese, Catalan, or Portugese.From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_theories_of_Christopher_Columbus Throughout Columbus' life, he referred to himself as Christobal Colom; his contemporaries and family also referred to him as such. Columbus wrote almost exclusively in Spanish, and he used the language, with Portugese or Catalan phonetics, even when writing personal notes to himself, to his brother, Italian friends, and to the Bank of Genoa.There is also a great article on Columbus' origins here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/us/08columbus.html?ex=1349496000&en=0b5a8da0c266bb76&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss(See, Chris...you weren't that far off when you got lost as a little boy at Bear Mountain and told the guards your name was Christopher Columbus!) Regarding the Franco y Bahamonde side, it is well known that our family had a difficult time with Americans pronouncing the "h" in Bahamonde, so they changed it to Baamonde, which is another commonly seen spelling (along with Vaamonde, but, oddly, not Vahamonde) and the name of a town in northern Spain. Along those lines, Porto Colom is a town in Spain too, on the Island of Majorca. A somewhat creepy tale is when the wife of a Captain (Prieto) I worked with in 1981, who grew up in northern Spain, literally gasped when she first met me. She claimed that every summer Franco would visit the beach in her town and the Guardia Civil would cordon off the beach, only allowing little children to bathe with the dicator. She said she sat on Franco's lap during several visits and that I was the spitting image of Franco as a young man. Personally, I don't see the resemblance, but it did make me take Grandpa Buddy's comment more seriously. All this intrigues me, I'll admit. Regardless of your personal views regarding these controversial men, they certainly changed the world as we know it. Despite his early behavior, Franco undoubtedly left Spain in great shape and did not join the other Facist countries in WW II, which helped shorten that war, and ultimately helped Spain.  Everyone knows what Columbus did, and, unless you are a native American, I suspect that you are glad he searched for another route to India.If this site is a problem for you, I probably won't understand, so please feel free to build your own, and we'll link them together when you are ready. Both sides of the family, or related families, should feel free to steal from here if you plan to do your own. I think my wife has already started her own.Humble request: PLEASE SEND ME STUFF that you might have so that I might fill in all the names, dates, locations, and profiles for our extended family. The older and rarer the photos and information, the better. I am particularly interested in data relating to our families before they immigrated, as far back as possible.If you have a favorite picture of yourself, that you want to be your main photo, please let me know. (Don't expect to see too many recent pictures of me on here. There's not enough memory for that!) Do not send me dog pictures unless you have one of Queenie first. (If you don't know, then you don't know...) If you have any comments or feedback about this site, please click here to contact me. I don't care how much this grows or how many family trees extend off of it, going back to Cheetah and Eve in the Garden of Evolution. Just send stuff and I'll keep the tree watered...Warm regards,-Rick(That's an order...)