With Fathers’ Day being this weekend, I decided to recreate a post from last year where I traced a haplogroup back as far as I can go through paper trail. The post I hyperlinked in the previous sentence focused on my father’s maternal haplogroup L2a1, which took me back to the 1600-1700s in Yauco, Puerto Rico to an ancestor named Ana del Espíritu Santo. This time, I want to focus on my own paternal haplogroup (inherited via my dad, of course) and trace it as far back as I could go.
My Y-DNA/Paternal Haplogroup is I-F12956 and as you can see above, it is not very common amongst 23andMe members that have a tested paternal haplogroup. I will talk a bit more later about this group but I will focus now on the direct line of men through which I inherited this group and how far I can trace this lineage.
Generation 1
Felipe Rivera Ortiz
Though I was not raised with my paternal grandfather, he passed down the surname Rivera, and ultimately my Y-DNA group, to me. So though I was not socially connected to him, without him, me or my line would not be here. My paternal grandfather was my oldest grandparent as he was born in 1936, which means that he was alive for both the 1940 and 1950 census records – as you can see I come from a fairly young family.
My grandfather was born the 27th August 1936 in San Juan, Puerto Rico – the first generation to be born outside of Toa Alta since at least since the 1700s. Felipe was the son of Alejandro Rivera and Mercedes Ortiz, the baptism below mentions Alejandro was from San Juan (but in fact he was baptized in Toa Alta) and Mercedes as being from Corozal. His grandparents are listed as Jesús Rivera and Lauriana [sic] González (paternal) and Martín Ortiz and Antonia Marrero (maternal).
Just in this record we can see three different generations – my grandfather, my great-grandparents, and my 2nd great-grandparents. This is one of the benefits of Puerto Rican records, they usually include various generations!
Generation 2
Alejandro Rivera González
My great-grandfather Alejandro Rivera González was born in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico the 9th December 1883 and baptized the following year on the 1st June 1884. His baptism lists him as “Leandro” but given everything I know about him, this is highly likely to be his baptism record. His parents Jesús Rivera and Laureana González were residents of Quebrada Arenas, one of the barrios of Toa Alta. Here, Alejandro’s grandparents are listed as Pedro [Rivera] and Basilia Díaz (paternal) and Valentín [González] and Feliciana Mogica. Jesús’ baptism record will show us that his mother was not Basilia, if not Eusebia.
Generation 3
Manuel de Jesús Rivera Díaz
Though my 2nd great-grandfather went by “Jesús” for what seems like most of the latter portion of his life, he was actually born as (and married as) “Manuel de Jesús”. Unfortunately, the ink is very heavy and makes the document a bit harder to read but luckily it is still possible!
Manuel de Jesús was born the 1st January 1855 and baptized the same year on the 3rd March. He was the son of Pedro Rivera and Eusebia Díaz. No grandparents are listed in this record but you can see that his parents and himself are listed as “pardo” – a category of mixed-race identity on the island.
Generation 4
Pedro Rivera Román
Pedro Rivera Román is my 3rd great-grandfather, he was born in Toa Alta the 1st August 1821 to his parents José (Joseph) de Rivera and Gertrudis Román. Equally, no grandparents are listed for him on his baptism record, for this time period it was not super common or standard to include the grandparents in the birth records.
Generation 5
José de Rivera Morales
For a long time I did not know much about my 4th great-grandfather. I knew that his name was José de Rivera and that he had married Gertrudis Román, but besides that I had no type of record for him, neither baptism, marriage, or death. By chance, while looking at records in Guaynabo, I was able to find his marriage to Gertrudis Román, something I would have never expected!
In the marriage that took place the 2nd March 1802 it mentions that José de Rivera was a widower of María Felis and the legitimate son of Pedro [Rivera] and María Morales from the neighborhood of Toa Alta. José’s first marriage to María Felis offers the same information about his parents and his place of origin.
We do not know when José was born but given his marriages it is possible that José was born and baptized around the 1770s.
Generation 6
Pedro de Rivera
Currently my research ends with Pedro de Rivera, my 5th great-grandfather. Likely he was also from Toa Alta and with the information I have he was also likely born in the mid-1700s.
The town of Toa Alta was founded in the year 1751, so likely Pedro’s parents were from another area before settling in Toa Alta and it is also possible that Pedro could have been baptized there depending on his birth year. Nonetheless, it is amazing to see that my Rivera branch lived in Toa Alta for almost 200 years. I have yet to meet another Rivera from Toa Alta that overlaps with me via genealogy but I imagine there are many descendants out there.
Pedro de Rivera would be my oldest ancestor carrying my haplogroup I-F12956.
Haplogroup I-F12956
This group is European in origin and seems to be more common towards the east versus the west. On ftDNA the country frequency is high in Sardinia (Italy), however the line originated around 4200BCE so it has definitely had enough time to spread around Europe and now to the New World. I would have to test with Big-Y to see if there is a more recent group for my haplogroup. I do not have any matches that are close in relation and the few I have do not carry the surname Rivera, but given that they are not close relations this is not odd.
Ideally I would find another Rivera that is related to me a few generations back to compare our haplogroup. It’s interesting that I have not come across another descendant especially since Rivera is a fairly common surname on the island but I guess my branch did not spread or move around the island as much.
It is pretty cool though to have a glimpse into the far past of my haplogroup and hopefully I will keep finding documents about my family that will give me an idea as to where they were from before Toa Alta, and potentially even in Europe!
Cover Photo Source: “Paternal Haplogroup”, 23andme (https://www.23andme.com/ : accessed 14 June 2023). Username and password of Jose Rivera privately held by Luis Rivera.