Finding out what it means to be Boricua through a genetic & genealogical journey through my family history
With the official indexed release of the 1940 Census, I’ve been searching endlessly for my ancestors hidden within these documents. Only one of my grandparents was born by 1940 and so I’ve only be able to locate all my great grandparents and some great great parents- those that were still alive. The 1940 Census doesn’t …
So with college graduation and a break between my summer job I’ve decided to start a short series that I’ll add to sporadically and will depend on how much I have to post on here. I’ve titled it “Series I” because I don’t know how many I’ll actually end up doing- hopefully I’ll do more …
Series I, Part I: An Ancestor’s Story Through Records Read More »
I usually post about a Finding Your Roots episode after it comes out but I’m SUPER excited for this one! This Sunday will feature both Michelle Rodriguez and Adrian Grenier. I’m excited to see Michelle’s family tree because one of her sides is Puerto Rican!! I can’t wait to see what they discover, where her …
This past Sunday there was another great episode on Finding Your Roots featuring John Legend and Wanda Sykes! (All of the episodes have been awesome though!) This episode was particularly interesting because it was able to trace their family back to free people of color that were able to break their families from slavery before the …
This was probably one of my favorite episodes from the Finding Your Roots series so far! Mostly because it helped three African Americans find some roots in certain Africa tribes. Granted, some could have other mixtures from other African slaves brought to the US which married into the family through other lines, seeing as how …
Finding Your Roots: Samuel L. Jackson, Condoleezza Rice, and Ruth Simmons Read More »
There’s a pair of 4rd great grandparents that have been the topic of a few of these posts and the point of some of my frustrations with searching for their information. They are Juan Carlos Gustavo and Julia/Balbina Lotten (and all their many alternations/alter-egos included) who according to documents immigrated from either Guadeloupe or Martinique …
So this post was inspired by my grandfather’s results from 23andme and my conversation with him while I had him taking the test. During Spring Break, I visited my grandfather in Puerto Rico who I rarely see and built up the courage to ask him to take the DNA test. I had to semi-explain (and I …
Puerto Rico’s history is very interesting because a lot of the inhabitants that have been on the island for a long time (like my ancestors) probably have ancestors that were slaves, and/or ancestors that owned slaves. So far I haven’t found any slaves in my family but I do have ancestors that are written down …
Early I posted about how my dad’s cousin found me online through this blog (technology is awesome!). She was able to provide me with pictures, stories and more information about my dad’s side which I had no previous knowledge about. It’s so crazy to think that just 2 years I had no idea about my …
Okay, so at first I wasn’t too happy about the 1940 Census. It wasn’t really available on ancestry.com because they’re downloading it now instead of it being available right away since they only got the records at midnight, which is totally understandable. I just want it to see now that next to Puerto Rico it …