I’ve been seeing these style of pedigrees online for a while now and decided I should give it a go! Thanks to Zalewski Family Genealogy blog I was able to use the template and create my very own pedigree. Because my family has been on the island of Puerto Rico for over 200+ years, I didn’t think it would have made sense to create a chart with just the same color over and over again to represent Puerto Rico. With this template I was able to include up to my 3rd great grandparents, which are 32 different ancestors! I was able to include their surnames on the side as well, giving you an idea where my family surnames originate from on the island. It was interesting seeing how diverse my family tree is in terms of locations. If you notice, it was only recently that my family came to the capital of San Juan with 3/4 of my grandparents being born there, though all of them spent their formative years growing up and living there. If you take a further look, my family has been present on the island for those 200+ years in almost all my branches, there is only one ancestor that made the cut for being from another place and that’s my 3rd great grandfather from Mallorca, Spain.
I definitely had a lot of fun doing this pedigree and there are so many other styles you could do as well! Though morbid, I’m thinking of creating a pedigree with family deaths to see if there are any recurring patterns and to have an idea of what is potentially passed down in my family. You could also even create a pedigree with signatures of your ancestors! Though I would love to create one, unfortunately most of my ancestors didn’t know how to write since they were all farmers and barely attended school past what we know as elementary/middle school.
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| Colorized Pedigree [Personal Photo] |
I’m not sure how common it is to move so much to different cities but if you notice my mother’s side of the family, they were notorious for making moves across the island. My father’s side on the other hand seems to stick more to certain towns. For example, we have been in the towns of Corozal, Lares, and Toa Alta for many many years on my dad’s side of the family. To give you an idea, here’s a list of all my family locations which include 20 different locations on the island, those being:
- Adjuntas, Puerto Rico
- Barranquitas, Puerto Rico
- Corozal, Puerto Rico
- Jayuya, Puerto Rico
- Lares, Puerto Rico
- Maunabo, Puerto Rico
- Manatí, Puerto Rico
- Morovis, Puerto Rico
- Patillas, Puerto Rico
- Quebradillas, Puerto Rico
- Salinas, Puerto Rico
- San Juan, Puerto Rico
- San Sebastián, Puerto Rico
- Toa Alta, Puerto Rico
- Utuado, Puerto Rico
- Vega Baja, Puerto Rico
- Vieques, Puerto Rico
- Yabucoa, Puerto Rico
- Yauco, Puerto Rico
- Mallorca, Spain
I recommend any genealogist who enjoys working with their tree to give this a go. It was super easy to create and could make a very cool poster for a wall! You could even include names and dates to give it more importance as well!