Finding out what it means to be Boricua through a genetic & genealogical journey through my family history
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 »
With Father’s Day being today in the United States, I figured I would provide an update to my direct paternal haplogroup which I updated through the Big Y test through FamilyTreeDNA. It took a few months to get the results earlier this year, and I did a new haplogroup assignment. I wanted to go over
An Update to Y-DNA: A look at the Rivera line 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 »
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 »
Many times in Puerto Rican genealogy, we stick to what we know when researching. This means that we heavily rely on four sources of our genealogical searches. These include: Registro Demográfico – created in 1931 Registro Civil – created in 1885 Registros Parroquiales – created individually by their parish United States records (censuses, WWI/WWII registration
Using Lesser known Sources 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 »
In the blink of an eye, here we are closing out another year! It is a bit surreal to think that 2024 is coming to a close and that 2025 is just around the corner. As I do every year, I want to close out the year by reflection on my genealogical goals I set
Reflecting On My Genealogical Resolutions Of 2024! Read More »