Fakes & Frauds Abound in Early California History

As a local California historian and genealogist, I can't tell you how many times strangers have tried to usurp the family names and heritage of Yorba, Avila/Abila, Sepulveda, Pryor, and so forth.  It's a lovely and inviting legacy, but , really, you shouldn't try to lie your way into it, should you?

There are basically three types of unwanted interloper and heritage thieves.  There are those who "married in"; those who are "descendants of illegitimate children"; and those -- like the notorious Bruce Conde -- who simply call themselves what they are not.

If you married into a family and were divorced from that family, your children have "the bloodline" but you don't.  If you claim you are the descendant of an illegitimate offspring, let's do the DNA to determine how true your tale is.  If you're of the Bruce Conde-type, it's time for historians and members of historical societies to "de-legitimize" you.

Born -- so he claimed -- Bruce Chalmers in San Juan Capistrano about 1913, Bruce Conde also said he was orphaned very young and adopted.  Bruce said a lot of things that weren't true.  For example, that he was the heir to the Princedom of Conde (the line became extinct in the 1830s).  Conde is accurately described in David Holden's Farewell to Arabia: 'He was an odd and slightly pathetic figure, somewhat out of his time and depth. Nervous, even in full flow, he seemed to belong nowhere and to be yearning romantically for the impossible.'  Conde wrapped himself in lies -- including being a direct descendant of Hose Antonio Yorba, our family's California sire and pioneer.

But Conde did far more than lie about his ancestral ties.  He rooked historical societies and historical writers into his fantasies by claiming "authenticity".  His "research" is dubious to say the least and -- in the end -- comes down to hearsay, legend, and outright lie.

Conde later lied about military service,  He parlayed this into a generalship in Yemen while he continued to claim he should be a prince.  In 1980, Conde escaped Yemen and wound up in Morocco with no passport and no support.  Unable to leave the country, he died there in 1992 an unrepentant conman with delusions of grandeur.

Today, we might consider that Conde had some variety of Munchausen Syndrome in which lying and exaggeration of one's accomplishments for a better social acceptance seems natural.

So if you run across any historical materials that were generated by or referenced to "Alfonzo Yorba" beware.  "What you think is true in history...usually isn't."