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The Monterola name

Monterola is a variation of the Basque surname Manterola. The name originated near the town of Aia (pronounced eye-a), a small village of less than 2000 people 30km west of San Sebastian and not far from the coastal town of Zarautz in Gizukpoa province, one of the four Basque provinces of northern Spain. "Ola" in Basque means "foundry", and so Basque surnames ending in "ola" generally denoted those who worked in metallurgy. A farmhouse called Manterola still exists near Aia, just off of the Aia Zarautz Road. The farmhouse is shown on district maps as being the former site of a forge, confirming the link between the Manterola family and metal working. Not far from the existing Manterola farmhouse is the old ruin of the original Manterola farmhouse, and it is from this small valley near Aia that the Manterola/ Monterola surname worldwide would have originated. [Google Maps]

Even today, the highest concentration of Manterola's in Spain is still around the towns of Zarautz, Orio, Aia, Irun and San Sebastian. In 2006, the Spanish phone book listed 119 Manterola families in Zarautz alone—a town of just 22,000 people!

In recent years, historical records from the Basque region have become freely available and easily searchable on the internet. Baptism records show that the Monterola and Manterola surnames tended to be completely interchangeable within the same families rather than being two distinct family lineages. Even within the same immediate family, baptism records often showed Manterola for some of the children and Monterola for others. Today, however, the Monterola name is rare in Spain while Manterola continues to flourish. It is interesting though that it is mainly the Monterola name that has thrived overseas—particularly in South America and the Philippines, and to a lesser extent in California and Australia.

Life on the Basque coast
The coastal villages of the Basque Country thrived on the fishing industry, which incldued whaling and deep-sea fishing. Whaling remained common amongst the Basques up until the early 20th Century, and according to renowned artist Iñigo Manterola from Orio the Manterola family had a close involvement with whaling. Both his grandfather and great-grandfather were whalers, and his recent painting, which he called Manterola, depicted his great-grandfather involved with harpooning one of the last whales in the waters off of Orio.

The three Carlist Wars in Spain between 1833 and 1876, which included intense fighting up around the Basque Country, would have been a major influence on the decisions of many Basques to flee to South Ameria and other parts of Asia and the Pacific during this period.

Australia bound
Augustine Monterola, a sailor and fisherman raised in the town of Bilbao, brought the Monterola name to Australia in May1875 when he arrived in Port Adelaide, South Australia, aboard the vessel Catalina. After working in Port Adelaide for 10 years as a stevedore, he then moved to the fledgling port town of Port Germein north of Adelaide in the mid-1880s, where he met Mary Janet Potts and had four children (see Augustine's story). Four generations of Augustine's descendents still live in Australia today, with surnames including Monterola, Clarke, Matthew, Brooker, Stephens and Maxwell.

Links to Spain
We have never been able to track down any of Augustine's relatives in Spain, although we have just recently made some breakthroughs with piecing together his family tree thanks to the online records now available for the Basque region. So if you are a Manterola and somewhere in your family tree you have an Augustine born in Bilbao in May 1836 who headed off to sea and was never seen again, then we would love to hear from you!

Records Search
irargi.org
Vizcaya Province (AHEB-BEHA)
San Sebastian
Araba Province
Basque Dept of Culture
Family Search
National Archives (Aust)

Basque Country
Basque History
Basque Encyclopedia
Basque Image Library
Basque Museum of Bilbao
Bilbao Maritime Museum
Basque Country Tourism
Gara newspaper (Bilbao)
Gipuzkoa.net
Interactive Map
Basques in Australia

Basque Language
Basque language (Euskara)
English-Basque Dictionary
Wikipedia

References
Wots My Genes - Best of Genealogy
Babel Fish Translation
Spanish Phone Books
Basque Encyclopedia
Spanish genealogy links
Dynamice

* Translated using Google