I represent Desiderio Quina, a European man born in either Genoa or Bologna, Italy around 1775. My parents’ names are transcribed in my marriage record as Camilo and Dominga Gentling.
My 1817 request for a land grant from the Spanish Crown, says I served “…His Majesty for the Term of Fifteen Years, and reaching the grade of First Sergeant in the Infantry Regiment the Louisiana, from which [I] was granted a leave of absence for the purpose of marrying…” I married Margarita Bobe on September 27, 1813 at St. Michael’s in Pensacola and went to work for the Panton, Leslie, Forbes Co. as an apothecary.
At the time of the 1820 census of Pensacola, I was 45 years old and worked as a shopkeeper. Margarita and I had 3 children. Also in our household were my two brothers-in-law and a blanca teenager whose relationship to us is not clear.