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 »
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 »
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 »
Recently, at the end of September, 23andMe released a fairly big update to their genetic DNA results. The biggest changes seem to have come to the European section of the results, which have not been majorly updated for about ten years. So let’s take a look, focusing mostly on my European results! New European Percentages
A Puerto Rican Look at: Updated 23andme Results (2025) Read More »
Recently, FamilySearch released their “Full Text” search option as an official tool on their website. Initially, I was hesitant that it would be useful for Puerto Rican genealogy; however, I was proven wrong this past weekend! So let’s take a look at this tool and how it can be used for Puerto Rican research. Source:
A Puerto Rican Look At: Full Text Search Read More »
This is my last post in this three part series. Granted, I know there are other cultures that are involved in making up Puerto Ricans such as Corsicans, other Caribbean islands, countries in South America, etc., but I wanted to focus on the three main groups known to make up the Puerto Rican culture –
A Puerto Rican Look At: Researching Your African Ancestors (Part III) Read More »