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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »