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!