Origin of Ulloa

Most of the lineages whose antiquity goes back to very past times present evident difficulties (insurmountable in most cases) to describe their origin and establish their primitive founder, due to the contradictions incurred by historians and genealogists who tried to achieve such a problematic clarification. It is logical that this is the case. Dense obscurities surround what the passage of centuries and centuries has left behind, and especially when what is being tried to clarify are not historical facts of marked importance, but those that, due to their limited interest and peculiar character, did not have resonances that would make their history last. memory.

This surname of Ulloa, due to its great antiquity, could not be immune to the difficulties indicated, and hence the different opinions that are found about its origin and primitive development, some of them obviously fabulous.

In ancient chronicles it is read that this lineage descends from the Kings of Troy and that their house was founded, no less, than in the year 1161 before Jesus Christ. The Bishop of Ourense, D. Servando, who flourished at the end of the 7th century and beginning of the 8th, says in his work "Summarium de antiquis nobilibus gallacie familiis" that the Ulloa site was the palace of the Infanta Ulia, brother of Laomedonte, King of Troy, who upon arriving defeated in Galicia founded Castro Ilión together with Iria Flavia, which is now Compostela.

Other genealogists affirm that it comes from the ancient counties of Trava and Tratamara, in Galicia, and that it took its name from the Ulla river that runs at the foot of an eminence, where the state and house of Villamayor de Ulloa were later created.< /p>

And others, among them Mr. José Pellicer, specify such ancestry in greater detail, stating that the first Lord of Ulloa and the first so-called, was Lope Ruiz de Ulloa, son of Rodrigo Frolaz or Fernández, and grandson of Fruela or Fernando Pérez, Count of Trava, who died in the unfortunate battle of Santoren, year 1071, together with his father Pedro Fruela, who also had the dignity of Count and was Ayo del Rey D. García de Galicia. The aforementioned Lope Ruiz de Ulloa married Mrs. Teresa Fernández de Trava (called by some Gontroda Pérez de Trava), descending from both husbands the Ulloas.

The truth is that this lineage, very important and widespread throughout Galicia, had several lots in that region, being considered the most important called Villamayor de Ulloa, although the authors who mention it do not take care to establish the region Galician in which he settled. Because there are four parishes in Galicia called Villamayor; two in the province of Lugo, one in Orense and another in La Coruña, but none with the addition of Ulloa. On the other hand, there is another parish, belonging to the Town Hall of Palos del Rey and judicial district of Chantada (Lugo), with the single name Ulloa, whose close relationship with that of the lineage seems very probable.

There is nothing else we can add to what has been mentioned about the problematic origin and name of this surname. The contradictory and fabulous judgments of the authors who tried to clarify such interesting extremes do not provide much insight, nor do we know of other treatise writers who have managed to approach the historical truth with more reasonable and convincing grounds. And without going into new considerations, which we consider unnecessary, we will present some genealogical data of the oldest ancestors of the Ulloa, starting from the times in which they appear to be living, and from those of their successors who founded the most important branches of the lineage.

From a Galician line of this surname was Mrs. Francisca de Ulloa y Lemos, second wife of Antonio de Lemos de Cardórniga, Lord of the house of Lemos in Ferreira (Lugo), from whom she had Lope de Ulloa y Lemos, that he passed the Indies and settled in the Viceroyalty of New Spain in 1595. He was General Commissioner of the conquest expedition of New Mexico; General of the ships of the Philippine race in 1597; Protector of indigenous people of New Spain; Lieutenant of the Viceroy Conde de Monterrey; General of the South Sea and Viceroy of Peru, the aforementioned Count, with whom he went to said country in 1604, and President and Governor of Chile. He had married Mrs. Francisca Lucero in Lima. He died in Concepción on December 8, 1620, being provisionally buried there until 1621 when he was transferred to Lima.

It is, therefore, an illustrious lineage that inspired the eminent writer, Mrs. Emilia Pardo Bazán, reason to write the famous work "Los Pazos de Ulloa".

He proved his nobility numerous times in the Orders of Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara, Montesa, Carlos III and Malta, as well as in the Royal Chancellery of Valladolid and the Royal Guard CompanyMarinas.