Finding out what it means to be Boricua through a genetic & genealogical journey through my family history
On Monday, November 11, Veterans Day was celebrated in the United States. This day focuses on honoring military veterans that were/are a part of the United States Armed Forces. One of the important differences between Veterans Day and Memorial Day is that Memorial Day (observed in May) focuses on veterans who died during military service. …
There has been a lot of buzz this week around AncestryDNA’s recent update with their DNA percentages. A lot of people have logged in and either been pleasantly surprised, utterly shocked, and somewhere in between. I wanted to share how my percentages have changed and my take on it. Caveat: I am no DNA expert …
Last month I had the pleasure of visiting Báguena, Spain for a day after spending some time in Zaragoza. Báguena, however, is a very small town and one that even Spaniards are bound to not know. How did I end up here and why did I visit this quaint town? Well, of course genealogy brought …
Today I want to focus on something I have not seen quite often in Puerto Rican genealogy (at least on my end while researching), which are adoption and or orphaned children. Interestingly enough, my own great-grandfather was orphaned by the age of 13, having lost his father at 9 years old and his mother at …
Last week on May 23rd, I was able to attend an event in Paris just two days shy before leaving France. I had been living abroad teaching English the last eight months and my last wish was to attend this event hosted by CM98 (Comité Marche du 23 Mai 1998), a genealogical group I am …
I was driven to do some investigative research on my 3rd great-grandfather and his siblings after a discussion on a Facebook post about the term “raza india” appearing as a racial category on Puerto Rican records. I had discovered my 3rd great-grandfather’s race labeled as “india” on his death record some time ago, but besides …
Race among the “Ortiz Rivera” siblings of Corozal Read More »
In late spring/early summer, I got two emails regarding the same thing – a updated new resource that could prove fruitful for my research! Both David Quénéhervé and Mickaël Mange, who have helped in different ways throughout my Afro-French Caribbean research, reached out to me to mention this website. Mickaël mentioned the website was fairly …
Archives Départementales de la Guadeloupe – An Updated Resource! Read More »
To be quite honest, I had the idea of this post a long time ago and then I put it off from writing it for a long time as well. Mostly for two reasons: 1) the post seemed rather morbid and 2) I wasn’t sure if I was releasing information I didn’t want out there. …
I wanted to share this record I found while searching the Toa Alta baptism records again. In all my years of researching, I have rarely come across an entry this detailed for a slave’s baptism. Four years ago, I posted “Whispers of the Past” where certain entries for slaves in the Registry of 1872 contained …
With the new year comes change and excitement for what’s to come! For me, not only do I focus on life goals and resolutions for the entering year but I also try to create some resolutions based around genealogy. I spend quite a bit of time (read: a lot) doing genealogy on the day to …