Alvelda coat of arms
Armas de AlveldaLa Rioja · Argentina · United States
البيضاء

Alvelda

The Basque family of “The White”
Named for its cliff-side origin.

Before it was a surname it was a place. The Arabic al-bayḍā' named the white cliffs of the Iregua valley. There, in 859, Christian kings took a Banu Qasi fortress. In 924 a monastery was founded there, and in 976 its monks finished one of the great codices of Iberia.

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Evocation · AI rendering
Evocation: Andalusi horseshoe arch with zellij tilework

The housesOne entry per house and branch

Alvelda coat of arms
The White · 859

Alvelda · Albelda

A name spelled both ways in the records (b and v sound the same in Spanish), carried from Mendoza to Paraná, Buenos Aires and Atlanta. It shares its name with a Riojan village whose monastery made one of the great books of medieval Spain.

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Arms of the name Hamilton, as recorded in the Journal of the Ex Libris Society, 1898
The Iron Kings

Hamilton

Sara Anne Hamilton descends from Alexander and Eliza Hamilton through their son John Church Hamilton. A longer traced chain runs back through the Carolingian emperors to the kings of the Lombards. Separately, her family reaches the Mayflower.

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Arms of the name Holleys (Holly), as recorded in Burke’s General Armory, 1884
Holly · DAR · Tudor

Holly · Tudor

The families of Dorothy Kathryn Holly: Irish Hollys who reached Brooklyn by 1854; a DAR-certified descent from a Revolutionary patriot; and the Tudors of Virginia and North Carolina.

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Arms of the name O’Donnell (Tyrconnell), as recorded in Burke’s General Armory, 1884
Tír Conaill · under investigation

O’Donnell

Phillip’s maternal O’Donnell line, documented to Severo O’Donnell of Uruguay. The link to the O’Donnells of Tír Conaill is under investigation.

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Arms of the name Belausteguigoitia, as recorded in heraldicadeapellidos.com (surname armorial), accessed 2026
Biscayan hidalguía

The Basque Line

Belausteguigoitia and Careaga: farmhouse surnames from the hills of Lea-Artibai in Bizkaia, carried to Buenos Aires around 1900. This page also answers the question of royalty honestly.

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Documented primary record or certified lineage
Tree-recorded in the family tree export, record not yet re-checked here
Tradition / consensus historian consensus or family tradition, proof thin
Unproven claimed or plausible, not demonstrated
Gap we do not have it, so it isn't shown

The pages of this site

  1. IIHistoryThe Codex Ancestral: the name, the battle of 859, the monastery and the codex, and the line in the record.
  2. II · aThe Codex AlbeldensisThe book made at Albelda in 976: its makers, its pages, its journey to El Escorial, and a gallery of its folios.
  3. IIIArmsThe Alvelda arms, read element by element, with the blazon and its sources.
  4. IVWhite CliffsThe Nordic telling: the cliffs of the Iregua, the timeline from 859 to today, and the family story.
  5. VThe JosephsThe Joseph line: Cornwall, London and Buenos Aires, Henry Joseph and the Templo Libertad, and the link to the Alvelda family.
  6. VIHamiltonThe Hamilton house.
  7. VIIHolly & TudorThe Holly and Tudor houses.
  8. VIIIO’DonnellThe O’Donnell house.
  9. IXBasqueThe Basque house.
  10. XFamily treeThe interactive family tree.