The Moulia Basque Emigrants

My father, Thomas Armand Moulia, pulled the Ellis Island passenger manifests from 1913 documenting when his grandfather, Armand Moulia, came to the states. Armand was ten years old at the time and travelling in the care of his fourteen year old sister, Julie. My father was trying to trace Armand and Julie’s origins, however the records of origin and destination are phonetically misspelled, likely because they were young and only spoke Basque. To figure out where old Armand Senior came from, we’ve been trying to decipher them.

The Passenger Manifest

The documents below, pulled from the Ellis Island records, show that Armand and Julie arrived in the US in April 1913 aboard the S.S. France, sailing from Le Havre.

Armand and Julie’s race (Basque) and occupation (student and servant girl, respectively) are written clearly, while physical description is nearly illegible. My best guess is that Armand was 5'2", Julie 5'4" and both had a fair complexion, dark hair and brown eyes, matching what my father remembers. Their destination was 233 Waller St. in San Francisco, where they had relatives who’d blazed the trail in the previous decade.

Place of birth and departure location are difficult to trace, not simply because of the quality of the handwriting, but because it seems to have been misspelled. Their place of birth is listed as “Lick”, which likely was a misunderstanding of Licq, short for Licq-Athérey, a Basque commune. Armand and Julie’s last residence is the most difficult to decipher, but I would guess it’s Saint-Esteben, a smaller commune close to their birthplace and similarly in the French Basque Soule region of the Pyrénées.

Armand Senior lived from 1902 and died in San Francisco at 68 years old in 1971. As for what old Armand was like, only family lore remains but it’s certainly evocative. Before coming to the US he was a Basque shepherd. The family joke is that he must have loved his sheep, because rather than coming over with an earlier batch of family emigrants he hid, resulting in him taking a later boat with his young sister Julie. Legend among the family holds that he worked various jobs in San Francisco, playing some role in the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, and brewing basement moonshine during prohibition. Armand Senior was separated from his wife, Helen, and his son, Armand Junior, recalls being raised in a house of women. Still, Armand Senior and Helen remained close.

Etymology of Moulia as Miller

Birth and marriage registries gave a different perspective on our origins. The surname Moulia, first surfacing in registries during the 17th centuries, is likely derived from Basque-Bearnaise speakers borrowing Southwest France’s Gascon Moliar / Moliau. In turn, Moliar was descends from the Latin mōlītor, meaning Miller. For a quick American memory cue, think Moulin Rouge, or the Red Mill.

My family’s patrilineal documentation goes back only a century, four generations, to the shepherding communes of the Béarn–Basque valleys. Perhaps, if you trace the line back, beyond any surviving ledgers, you’d find a miller at their grindstone.

Catherine Moulia and the Lusitania

Interesting side note: other Ellis Island records identified Catherine Moulia, Armand’s aunt, as emigrating to the US in 1911 aboard the Lusitania, four years before its torpedoing precipitated US involvement in WWI.