Finding out what it means to be Boricua through a genetic & genealogical journey through my family history
One of my goals this year is to learn more about Puerto Rican history and to create a timeline to help me better understand events that occurred throughout the lifetime of my ancestors. I have not really thought about how I want to go about this – whether creating just one big timeline or different mini […]
Puerto Rican Resource: Notas para su historia Read More »
About five years ago, I learned that my Román Ayala branch originated in the town of Arecibo but made their way to Guaynabo. This was very interesting to me because the Román branch married the Rivera branch of Toa Alta and for some long I had no idea they were from a town outside of
A Slave Owning Family: de Ayala 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 »
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 »
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 »
Two weeks ago I headed to Puerto Rico for a quick long weekend visit for my grandmother’s birthday. So I decided to quickly stop by the Archivo General de Puerto Rico (AGPR). I hadn’t been here since 2019 (pre-pandemic) when I was on spring break and decided to search for my 5th great-grandmother’s last will
A Quick Visit to the Archivo General de Puerto Rico Read More »