A Marriage Where You Least Expect It

Recently, I was taking a look again at my "Rivera" line. This is my direct line going back to the early 1700s in Toa Alta. Besides my father and my grandfather, every male ancestor (4 in total so far) have been born in Toa Alta. Though 4 may seem insignificant, that's a total of close to 300 years of my family living in this one town. This post is going to be about discovering some new information about my 4th great grandparents!

Setting the Stage

My Rivera family was one of my catalysts for wanting to research my ancestry when I was younger. I wanted to know where my Rivera family was from and wanted to know where potentially in Spain they were from. Though initially it was difficult to find out about this family, I was fortunate to find out that they were from Toa Alta, Puerto Rico which led me to using the Civil Registry and the church records in order to push my ancestors back to the early 1800s. My earliest ancestors were José de Rivera and Gertrudis Román. José passed away sometime between 1824-1844 and Gertrudis passed in 1844, but besides that I had no idea of their parents' names. The "Rivera Román" children were all born during a time grandparents weren't added into baptism entries so I had no idea of their parents' names. I also had no siblings for José and Gertrudis to help with my search for parents or potential origins outside of Toa Alta.

Toa Alta [Google Images]

One day however, while looking through the records for Guaynabo I came across a "Rivera Belén" marriage entry in 1773. The reason this was important was because José was written as "Rivera Belén" in one of his son's baptism record. However, in neither of the other 8 baptism records does José appear as "Rivera Belén". Not wanting to lose the record I attached it to José as a possible brother and moved on.

Recently, I took a look at other marriages in Guaynabo to see if I could find any other "Rivera Belén" siblings and found a new record that completely shocked me!

A New Record

José de Rivera & Gertrudis Román - Marriage [FamilySearch]

José de Rivera & Gertrudis Román - Marriage [FamilySearch]

Searching my way up from the 1770s I bumped into a record that made me gasp - it was a marriage record for a José Rivera and Gertrudis Román. Could these be my ancestors?! The marriage took place on the 2nd of March 1802 and my ancestor's first registered child was in 1806 in Toa Alta so it was possible... So I took a closer look at the record:

José de Rivera was widowed of María Feliz and the legitimate son of Pedro and María Morales, resident of Toa Alta and Gertrudis Román legitimate daughter of Manuel and Margarita Ayala, all pardos libres.

So here we had some new information, José was widowed before he married Gertrudis and now we had the names of both of their parents, interestingly enough José named a son Pedro so having a father with the same name wasn't surprising.

With this I was able to go back into the marriage records of Guaynabo and find José's first marriage to María Feliz in 1791, stating again that he was a native of Toa Alta. Gertrudis herself was probably from Guaynabo seeing as she had other siblings born there, I have yet to find a baptism record for her there though.

At first I was hesitant to believe these were my ancestors, but the lack of a marriage in Toa Alta, the fact it mentions José was a native of that town, and Gertrudis Román's fairly uncommon name was enough to convince me that these were my 4th great-grandparents. The question remains though why José de Rivera lived in Guaynabo for a while and then ultimately decided to move back.

Something else that's interesting is the use of "Belén" in that one baptismal record. Could there be a connection to the Rivera Belén family somehow still?

I recently heard a genealogist say "solving one mystery, means adding two" (sorry I can't remember where I read it, if I find who I'll add credit here!), and this is absolutely true! Having a new generation of the Rivera family is amazing because hopefully I can research some more into these lines and find out more about them. I also have to learn more about Guaynabo, its history, and find out more about the Román Ayala presence there. 

52 Ancestors – #15 Joseph de Rivera

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 young when I really started my searches), there were a few goals I had in mind. I wanted to: 1) Find out my families ethnic backgrounds, 2) Find ancestors that traced back to Spain, and 3) Find the origins of my last name. I don't know if every genealogist goes through this or if it's more common amongst the male genealogists, but I wanted to know where my Rivera last name came from. Especially since I could and hopefully one day will pass this surname to my children, I wanted to know what it meant to be a Rivera descendant. The surname I carry everyday and identify myself with - the surname I sign on all my documents.

Don't get me wrong, I love both of my parents' surnames and definitely revere my mother's, but being born in the USA and only carrying one instead of both made me think a lot more about Rivera. When I started my search, it was definitely hard. Rivera is one, if not the #1, of the most common surnames in Puerto Rico. I had absolutely no idea where the name came from within Puerto Rico and only knew that my grandfather was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. One genealogy-altering conversation with my aunt revealed to me that my great grandfather was born in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico and from there the family would begin to unravel itself.

Toa Alta, Puerto Rico [Google]

My Rivera ancestors have been in Toa Alta for about 150 years from what my research has shown. My great-aunt herself was born in Toa Alta and I imagine we still have distant cousins and family members there. With the help of the Toa Alta Civil Registry records as well as church records, I have been able to trace my surname back to a Joseph de Rivera. Equally, my Toa Alta family has lived through most of the municipality in the barrios of Río Lajas, Quebrada Arenas, Galateo and Quebrada Cruz (all on the Western side of Toa Alta).

Iglesia San Fernando Rey, Toa Alta, Puerto Rico [Geonorte Blog]

Joseph de Rivera (also written as José de Rivera), was probably born in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico himself. Based on the age of his earliest born child, Francisco Rivera Román born in 1806, it is likely that Joseph was born about the late 1770-mid 1780s. I have been able to find the baptism records for 9 of Joseph's children, and I'm pretty sure that's all of them. Joseph's wife was named Getrudis Román, also probably a native of Toa Alta. Since I haven't been able to find a death certificate for Joseph I can't tell whether he would have been categorized as blanco or mulato/pardo.

Gertrudis on the other hand passed away on the 29th of December 1844 and was written down as parda libre on her death record. Parda libre from my understanding was a term used for mixed people who were never enslaved in Puerto Rico. This would mean that Gertrudis was born and lived free while in Toa Alta; however there is some debate to what the actual mix of "pardo/parda" really is. Some argue that a person labeled as pardo/parda would have been mixed between Spanish and native Taíno, yet some argue that the term was synonymous with mulato/mulata and would have meant the mix of a Taíno and an African. Since many people at this time were all about keeping lines as pure as possible (not all families were of course), I tend to lean towards the first meaning of pardo. I imagine that Gertrudis could have been a mixed Puerto Rican for at least 2-3 generations if her parents arrived on the earliest boats to the island.

Toa Alta for me now means a lot. Growing up I had never heard of the town, despite it being so close to San Juan, I had no idea what "Toa Alta" was. I knew of towns such as Yabucoa, Lares, Manatí, and Vega Baja because we had family who had recently moved from these areas into San Juan. Yet because I didn't know my grandfather or his family I had no idea that we had ancestors from Toa Alta and from Corozal (a neighboring town of Toa Alta). Who knew that I had ancestors living in this town for close to 150 years and potentially some of the first settlers in this town as well.

Flag of Toa Alta, Puerto Rico [Google]

Emblem of Toa Alta "Non Deserit Alta" [Google]

I really hope to one day visit Toa Alta! In all the times I have been to Puerto Rico I have never visited this town - I have however been to Toa Baja which isn't too far off. The town is one of the oldest coastal towns of Puerto Rico being founded in 1751 and the church began its construction in 1752, who knows if Joseph or a brother/sister or maybe even parent was one of the first of their family to be baptized or married in this church. I also wonder how my Rivera family made its way into Toa Alta, being that they stayed on the western side of Toa Alta could they have moved in from Vega Alta or down from Dorado?


Like I previously mentioned, I don't know if Joseph de Rivera would have been categorized as blanco or pardo but with the help of my Y-DNA I can definitely take a guess as to which category he would fit into. When I took the 23andme test for myself, these were one of the results I was most excited for - the haplogroup of my paternal lineage. I would get a genetic glimpse into the origins of my paternal line, predating many current borders and even surname traditions. I was able to discover that my paternal haplogroup is a European group known as I2a1* commonly found in parts of Eastern and Southern Europe which definitely surprised me. But my specific group, I2a1*, has a bit of a different place of origin- up in the Pyrenees between present-day Spain and France.

Haplogroup I2a1* [23andme]

Origins of the branch I2a1 [23andme]

It is interesting to think that potentially Joseph de Rivera's father, grandfather or even great grandfather could have immigrated from this area and my guess most likely Spain. The origin of the surname "Rivera" is apparently a person who has lived by the riverbank, could that possibly be how we got our surname in Spain? It is very exciting being connected to a man born about 200 years before me who passed down his surname and haplogroup to me. I can't wait to discover more about Joseph and his origins, maybe I'll be able to trace my Riveras to a town/place outside of Puerto Rico!