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 could be an important (possibly?) to unlocking more information about my Rivera branch. So let’s see what this clue is!
José Rivera Morales
Marriage
My direct 4th great-grandfather was José Rivera Morales, son of Pedro Rivera and María Morales. This was an ancestor who I only recently was able to learn more about when I found his marriage to my 4th great-grandmother Gertrudis Román unexpectedly in the church archives of Guaynabo.
Above, you can see that José Rivera and Gertrudis married on the 2nd March 1802 in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, though the record did state that José de Rivera was from Toa Alta. Gertrudis’ family I would also learn was actually from Arecibo with older roots in San Juan.
I have posted before about both of these discoveries in my blog and have linked those posts above.
It seems that though José and Gertrudis married in Guaynabo, they likely spent most of their lives in Toa Alta. I am not sure when José Rivera died, sometime likely between 1824-1844 while Gertrudis Román Ayala died the 29 December 1844 in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico. In her death she was listed as the widow of José de Rivera so we know his death occurred before hers, though currently I have not been able to find any death record for him.
1st child - María Rivera Román
Their first children from their marriage produced María Rivera Román, baptized the 21 October 1802 in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. Her godparents were listed as Andrés Díaz and Antonia Ayala (unsure if there is a connection with Gertrudis’ maternal family). Both José and Gertrudis were listed as pardos libres (free people of color) and it mentions that they were residents of Guaynabo.
José Rivera Belén
Here is where it gets interesting. 20 years later in 1824 José and Gertrudis had a son named “Evaristo Rivera Román” who was baptized the 20 November 1824. Evaristo was the eleventh child born out of this relationship to his parents.
In his baptism above you can clearly see José written as “Joseph de Rivera Belén”. José/Joseph were interchangeable spellings at that time so there is no doubt that this was the same couple in question.
However, where did the Belén come from?! At first I ignored it thinking it was nothing but then I thought, “Could this be a double barreled surname? Could the surname have been de “Rivera Belén”? There were various names in Puerto Rico like this such as the Ramírez de Aponte, Ortiz de Renta, Pérez de la Cruz just to name a few.
What’s weird is that it appeared 20 years after their marriage. So it was likely a fluke… right? Except not so fast! 20 more years into the future and it happened again, except this time with my own 3rd great-grandfather, Pedro Rivera Román!
Pedro Rivera Román
Another generation
Above we have the baptism for José Isabel Rivera Díaz, son of Pedro Rivera and Eusebia Díaz (my 3rd great-grandparents). I am not sure when they married since I have not been able to locate their marriage record yet. Likely it would have occurred before José Isabel’s baptism since he appears as hijo legítimo meaning that in the eyes of the church, he was a legitimate child born to parents married in the church. I have checked the marriages in Toa Alta for that time period and I wonder if I have another situation of a couple moving towns to marry and then returning to their hometown.
Nonetheless, we can see that my 3rd great-grandfather was registered as “Pedro de Rivera Belén” – just like how his father was in 1824.
To me this repeated use is more than just a coincidence. If it had only appeared on one record I might have thought it was just a mistake, but seeing it repeated across another generation makes this an interesting case for a potential clue!
Other Rivera Belén
Guaynabo
In Guaynabo I came across this marriage in 1773 between Rafael de Rivera and Rafaela González. Rafael was listed as being a native of Toa Alta, Puerto Rico, the son of Pablo de Rivera and Feliciana Belén.
Not sure if there is a connection but I found the time frame and place both an interesting overlap. Supposedly my José Rivera Morales was the son of Pedro Rivera and María Morales. Could Pedro Rivera have been originally “Pedro de Rivera Belén”?
Since José used it on documents when they recorded just one surname for the person in question, it makes me wonder if it was a nombre compuesto where it was inherited together as “Rivera Belén” and Belén was ultimately dropped like many surnames with two components.
Arecibo
Looking at some records for Arecibo I found a marriage between Faustino de Santiago and María Candelaria de Rivera. Faustino married María Candelaria in 1803, Faustino was raised by Don Baltazar de Santiago (likely abandoned as a child) and María Candelaria de Rivera was the daughter of José Belén de Rivera (deceased) and Rosa Maldonado.
Here again we see the surname except this time as “Belén de Rivera”. Could my family be connected to these Belén de Rivera present in Arecibo in the 18th century? Especially seeing as how Gertrudis Román herself was from Arecibo, this is an interesting hypothesis.
Could my Rivera branch have originally started there as well?
Rivera DNA
My Y-DNA group is current I-F12956 going back to my earliest ancestor on paper Pedro de Rivera. I do not have any close Rivera relatives with whom I match on FtDNA so I have no leads as to where my line was from or with what other potential surnames it might originate from on the island. Another option is to test with Big-Y to get a closer SNP in time and to try and find more Rivera men to test in order to better understand my line.
Potential Clues?
Much of this information and investigation was discovered and done in 2011. Which means that 13 years have passed since that time. I would have been 21 years old when discovering those names and though I was a bit of a seasoned genealogist by then, I was not paying attention to all of the details on a record like I should have. It was not until later that I learned about the FAN (Family, Associates, and Neighbors) method of trying to learn more about someone’s ancestry via the connections and ties formed with others around them.
Finding a connection to another branch not from Toa Alta might also be the reason why I do not match other Rivera clans from the area. It is possible that my branch moved in and settled in Toa Alta, and since Rivera is such a common name on the island just blended in with the other branches already there.
Hopefully I will be able to solve this Belén mystery once and for all in the near future! This will take revisiting my Rivera branch and noting all appearances of the surname combined with Belén and seeing if there is some sort of rhyme of reason to it!
Cover Image: Iglesia Católica San Fernando (Toa Alta, Puerto Rico), “ Lº 7 Bautismos 1819-1834,” pg. 96 verso, last entry, Evaristo Rivera, baptism, 20 November 1824; accessed as “Registros Parroquiales, 1854-1942,” browsable images, FamilySearch, (https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1807092 : accessed 7 April 2024).