Finding out what it means to be Boricua through a genetic & genealogical journey through my family history
Continuing on the topic of surnames, I want to focus today on the surname “Rivera”, my direct paternal line stretching back into Toa Alta’s history for at least 300 years. Continuing this line further back in time has been a tough cookie to crack and so I want to focus on a potential clue that …
With Fathers’ Day being this weekend, I decided to recreate a post from last year where I traced a haplogroup back as far as I can go through paper trail. The post I hyperlinked in the previous sentence focused on my father’s maternal haplogroup L2a1, which took me back to the 1600-1700s in Yauco, Puerto Rico …
One of the biggest difficulties with Puerto Rican families when it comes to genealogy is the idea of consanguinity – when you share the same ancestors across a few of your branches. This is a common occurence on the island since many lines have been present in Puerto Rico for various generations and many date …
Growing up in New York City, I was fairly removed from my Rivera side of the family. I knew the name of my grandfather, Felipe Rivera Ortiz, but that was about it. I had no real idea who his siblings were (I did know there was a brother who had lived in New York), but …
Investigating Issues of Fertility: Rivera-Ortiz Women of the 20th Century Read More »
Post #50! Almost at the end of the 52 Ancestor Challenge! This post will be about my 2nd great grandfather from the town of Toa Alta, where all my ancestors seem to be from haha. Manuel de Jesús was born in Toa Alta on the 1st of January in 1855 and baptized on the 3rd …
52 Ancestors – #50 Manuel de Jesús Rivera Díaz (1855-1932) Read More »
I write today about my oldest male ancestor from whom I inherited the surname Rivera, my 4th great grandfather. I don’t know too much about him, so I’ll just add what I do know and see where it goes from there! When I first began my research at the age of 14 (yup, I was that …
Post #5! I’ll dedicate this post to a man I knew soooo little about until recently. Literally, growing up I only knew his name and that was about it. Yet now with how much I know about him, I feel a strange connection to this ancestor. I wish I would have meet him, but unfortunately …
52 Ancestors – #5 Manuel Correa Rivera (1920-1993) Read More »
Okay, so at first I wasn’t too happy about the 1940 Census. It wasn’t really available on ancestry.com because they’re downloading it now instead of it being available right away since they only got the records at midnight, which is totally understandable. I just want it to see now that next to Puerto Rico it …
So a couple of months ago there was a sale at GeneTree and so I decided to test my Y-DNA to see if I could get closer matches to try and figure out where my Rivera line comes from. Also, I wanted to see where they would place me being that with 23andme my paternal …
Being a part of 23andme I have been able to read wonderful stories about adoptees finding their families and long lost relatives and distant family members finding one another and sharing their stories and photos. A year ago, scratch that- a day before it happened, I wouldn’t have imagined what joy I would be receiving …