Finding out what it means to be Boricua through a genetic & genealogical journey through my family history
Following the post on how to trace your Spanish ancestors, I wanted to spend some time talking about tracing your indigenous ancestry. The main takeaway is that this research is hard! Since Puerto Rico became fairly mixed, fairly quickly, it is quite difficult to find your ancestors on paper listed as Taíno. With that in […]
A Puerto Rican Look At: Researching Your Indigenous Ancestors (Part II) Read More »
As a Puerto Rican genealogist, this is probably one of (if not) the question I get asked most often… How do I find my Spanish ancestor? This question gets asked for a variety of reasons such as family stories, DNA results, dual citizenship purposes, and/or hints from genealogical research where an ancestor was listed as
A Puerto Rican Look At: Researching Your Spanish Ancestors (Part I) Read More »
Recently, I decided to add three of my grandmother’s siblings to 23andMe. Though 23andMe does not feel as strong of a genealogical community as it did in the past, it still remains, in my opinion, to be one of the best ethnicity predictors out there. My main wish is that they bring back the chromosome
A Puerto Rican Look at Genetic Communities: Delmarva Peninsula African Americans Read More »
One of my goals for this year was to create a chart for all of the descendants that I could find for Eglantine Lautin, my 5th great-grandmother. My hope is that by knowing which lines left female descendants, I would be able to find a modern-day descendant who would be able to test for the
Using LucidChart to Trace the Descendants of Eglantine Lautin Read More »
Last week I took a look at the Lares municipal census of 1878 where I was able to find my 4th great-grandfather and learn some new details about him. So I continued to explore the new records of FamilySearch and saw that Vega Baja had some records online as well. I totally forgot that my
Vega Baja Municipal Census 1841 Read More »
Last month, I had a great opportunity where I was able to speak about Puerto Rican genealogy (in both English and Spanish!) to the New York City area. The session was presented online and so I was able to pre-record my presentations in both languages, create the handouts, and share them with the community from
Preserving Your New York Story: Tracing Your Puerto Rican Roots. Read More »
In Puerto Rican genealogy the year 1885 can be a fairly crucial year. This is because before this date, vital events such as birth, marriage, and death were recorded by the churches… and with that came a lot of variation! For example, some church records are available online while others were not digitized and remain
Lares Municipal Census 1878 Read More »
TW: Suicide, death. This blog entry contains an article which speaks about suicide. If you find this to be a sensitive topic, please feel free to skip this post. This week I came to learn that the Puerto Rican newspaper El Imparcial had been placed online. Last time this happened, it occurred with the newspaper El Mundo where I
Puerto Rican Newspaper: El Imparcial Read More »
Recently, I decided to upgrade my 23andme test after having left it to the wayside for so many years (it was previously on the V2 chip). It is not that I did not care about my results, it just that for so long I focused on adding other family members to my list that I
A DNA Update: 15 Years Later Read More »
Last year for Veterans Day, I posted about my maternal grandfather and his time in Georgia during the Vietnam War. Though I explored a bit of my grandfather’s life during that time through some of the memorabilia, photos and records that I had inherited of his, there was much left to learn about his time
Remembering my Grandfather Read More »