Finding out what it means to be Boricua through a genetic & genealogical journey through my family history
Seven years ago, I wrote about the marriage that occurred between my 4th great-grandmother, Dorotea Ramos Martínez, and her husband Manuel Ruiz Soto on 19 July 1860 in Maunabo, Puerto Rico. I was not a descendant from Manuel, but from her first husband Tomás Ruiz. Nonetheless, I found this marriage interesting because there was a […]
Revisiting a Consanguineous Marriage Read More »
When I first began researching my ancestors from Guadeloupe and Martinique, one of the most interesting things that I kept coming across various records was that they were actually from St. Thomas; however, I never understood why this story existed. Even when I met a cousin that grew up knowing the Charles family, she mentioned
A Puerto Rican Look at: Danish West Indies Passenger Records Read More »
Puerto Rican genealogy typically entails the use of two main resources when it comes to Puerto Rican-produced vital records: (1) the Puerto Rican Civil Registry, and (2) Parish records from the Catholic church. However, as mentioned in various other posts in the past – there are definitely other records out there! I have written about
A Puerto Rican Look at: Applications for Seaman’s Protection Certificates Read More »
Happy New Year! It is that time of the year where I get to set up new genealogical goals for the new year. Last year, I had good success with completing a lot of the resolutions I had set out for 2025. I am hoping I have similar luck and perseverance to complete my goals.
Genealogical Resolutions for 2026! Read More »
Before 2025 closes out, I want to reflect on my goals for the year and where I am with them. It has been quite a busy year (when isn’t it?) but I am always glad and grateful that I set some goals at the beginning of the year and then aim to get through them
Reflecting On My Genealogical Resolutions of 2025! Read More »
Originally, I had planned to post about my Ayala family with origins in Arecibo who later appeared in Guaynabo and Toa Alta where my family ultimately settled for close to 300 years; however, in search for more information on the Ayala family I stumbled across a record I had been searching for and had never
When an Indexed Record is Wrong Read More »
Earlier in the year, I had used LucidChart to chart out the female descendants of Eglantine Lautin – my 5th great-grandmother. This was done in hopes of identifying which female lines left no female descendants and which ones could provide me with a potential daughter, still alive today, who would be the carrier of Eglantine’s
Mapping Out the “de Rivera” Male Descendants Read More »
Recently, an email was sent out informing its members that there had been another update on 23andme. I was pleasantly surprised, especially since this had to do with genetic groups in Africa! I was excited to see if any of my own DNA (or that of my family) would be categorized into new African groups,
A Puerto Rican Look at: 23andme’s New African Groups Read More »
Sometimes in our genealogical research, we come across an individual who had the same name as our ancestor and we have to decide – is this the same person or someone else? We therefore have to ask ourselves: How can we use records to help us deduce whether there is an overlap in identity or
Separating Same-named Individuals Read More »
It is that time of the year where the DNA results get updated again! It seems like just yesterday that AncestryDNA released an update, and yet, here we are again a year later! Let’s take a look at my updated AncestryDNA results and see how I feel about them. There are some new features and
A Puerto Rican Look at: AncestryDNA Update 2025 Read More »