Finding out what it means to be Boricua through a genetic & genealogical journey through my family history
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 »
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, it was announced that there has been some more movement towards construction a memorial in the memory of the enslaved individuals who were freed from French slavery in 1848. This is very exciting because two of my ancestors are amongst those who were liberated. Let’s see what was announced and what we should expect!
A Memorial to Honor their Past 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 »
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 »
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 »