A Death Record To Confuse Them All

Recently, while searching the Adjuntas church records where I was able to distinguish and clarify the relationship between a set of couples (siblings marrying siblings) I also bumped coincidentally into another death record for a 6th great grandfather of mine. This death record belonged to Francisco Pérez de la Cruz, my ancestor along my father's side of the family.

The reason I title this blog post "A death record to confuse them all" is because somehow on all the online public trees I've seen on Ancestry, the parents for Francisco Pérez are completely different. Hesitant to add his parents, having learned from previous experiences, I held off until I could find information to either disprove or prove the relationship of these "parents" to Francisco Pérez de la Cruz. So I'll jump a little into this record and what I was able to find out.

Who was Francisco Pérez de la Cruz

My 6th great grandfather was said to be from the town of "El Pepino" which is currently today known as San Sebastián, Puerto Rico. This town lies toward the northwestern part of Puerto Rico and near towns such as Quebradillas, Lares, and Utuado were I have other ancestors from other ancestors of in tree. My father's family, specifically through my grandmother, can be found in this part of the island.

San Sebastián, Puerto Rico [Google Maps]

Before finding his death record I had no clear idea when Francisco was born, but based off his childrens' baptism years I knew that he would have been born in the mid to early 1700s. If Francisco was originally from San Sebastián as most records state, he would have been born around the founding of the town which was found in 1752 by townsmen of areas such as Aguada. This would mean that Francisco's parents could have been from another town in the area having moved into San Sebastián once the town was officially founded.

Francisco Pérez de la Cruz around the late 1700s would have married Ana Narcisa Sánchez, my 6th great-grandmother and with her would have various children, so far I have:

• María Manuela Pérez de la Cruz Sánchez
• María de la Paz Pérez de la Cruz Sánchez
• María de los Reyes Pérez de la Cruz Sánchez
• Bernardino Pérez de la Cruz Sánchez
• Narcisa Pérez de la Cruz Sánchez
• José Valerio Pérez de la Cruz Sánchez
• Toribio de Jesús Pérez de la Cruz Sánchez

From this relationship, I descend from María de los Reyes Pérez and her husband Gerónimo Vélez Rodríguez. From Francisco's children, various of them, my 5th great grandmother included moved into Adjuntas a town more into the mountains and found just two towns over from San Sebastián. Adjuntas was founded in 1815 so my family has practically been in this town since its founding. 

Migration to Adjuntas, Puerto Rico [Google Maps]

Little did I know that not only did Francisco's children move into Adjuntas but Francisco did himself.

Note: I don't know where else to post this but I'll just drop this here. Notice that Francisco's surname is "Pérez de la Cruz", this is a compound name being that he inherited this surname solely from his father. The children used Pérez de la Cruz/Pérez off and on and ultimately the name was just dropped to Pérez like most compound surnames. 

Documentation

While searching in Adjuntas, I came across Francisco's death and was pleasantly surprised! This whole time I had believed he had passed in San Sebastián, and due to their lack of church records on FamilySearch I settled with not finding any more information on him for the time being. But glancing through the pages I saw "Francisco Pérez de la Cruz" written on the top corner of the page and I was glad I stopped to read what it said.

Francisco Pérez de la Cruz, Año 1828, Nº 182, Folio 48vt [FamilySearch]

The main information from this death record is that on the 28th of June 1828 was buried, Don Francisco Pérez de la Cruz of 65 years of age, first married to Ana Narciso Sánchez and now married to Asención de Castro was the son of Don Simón Pérez de la Cruz and Doña María de Santiago, both deceased, he a native of El Pepino (San Sebastián) and a resident of this one (Adjuntas). He did not leave a testament. 

Establishing New Information

As you can see from the record above a lot of the information matches what I had, he was a native of San Sebastián, born around the 1750-1760s. But I also learned some new information as well, he was married for a second time to a "Asención de Castro" and was the son of Simón Pérez de la Cruz and María de Santiago. Having this new information, I realized that many of the trees on Ancestry had completely different parents and none of them even had the combination of "Pérez de la Cruz Santiago" for Francisco. It could be that the death record is wrong (which does happen) but until further notice these to me are the parents for Francisco Pérez de la Cruz. If there is another document out there to refute this information, please let me know so I can update my tree!

Funny enough by changing the information on Francisco, I'm not getting the old trees that used to pop up with his name. By searching his name on the public trees on Ancestry I was able to find various examples of what used to pop up on my tree.

[Ancestry Public Trees]

[Ancestry Public Trees]

Here are two examples of Francisco listed with different parents of what I found on the death record in Adjuntas. The spouse and the children are the same of Ana Narcisa Sánchez and children I listed above, but I have yet to find a public tree with a Simón Pérez de la Cruz and María de Santiago as the parents of Francisco. I'm not sure where this original information came from and if whether there is depth to the connection, but so far they are not matching up.

Whether or not Simón, like his son Francisco, was one of the first to settle in Adjuntas, I'll have to continue my research to see if he stayed in San Sebastián or made his way into Adjuntas as well. Given that he was born in the early 1700s and Adjuntas wasn't founded in 1815, I would imagine that he passed away in San Sebastián or another town nearby that was around founded (you can never be too sure!). 

Nonetheless, I'm happy to be able to add another generation to another ancestor and almost pushing into the 1600s on this line! Hoping to discover more along the way! 

A Family's Move Through Paper Trail

Recently, I've been taking a dive into the Puerto Rican Church Records again on FamilySearch. By chance and funny enough, by looking to one branch of my family I bumped into a completely different one. Finding children being born in towns nearby (and not so nearby) and parents appearing as godparents has allowed me to track my family's movement across the island. This is pretty important in genealogy since movement from town to town means that there might be other branches to your tree that stayed behind and distant cousins are probably there. This could also mean that your ancestors might have been married before arriving to the town you knew they were from and if there is no death record in the town they resided most of their lives, they might have moved back or moved over to a neighboring town where another of their children lived.

This post will be about one specific couple who I have been able to trace through documents moving across the island. The couple's names is: Bartolomé Dávila & María Cándida Rodríguez. They are my 5th great-grandparents on my maternal side of the family.


Bartolomé Dávila & Cándida Rodríguez

From the information I have so far I know that Bartolomé Dávila (sometimes written as Dávila Cantos) and his wife María Cándida Rodríguez were born in the mid 1700s based of the baptism dates of their children. Originally when I discovered this pair, I knew that they had lived in Maunabo where part of my maternal ancestors had lived. My 2nd great-grandfather Pedro Dávila Ruiz was either born in Yabucoa or Maunabo but for sure his parents and grandparents lived their lives in Maunabo.

It wasn't until recently that I was searching the town of Coamo for my Correa families that I surprisingly bumped into Bartolomé and Cándida. At first I was confused because I knew they lived in Maunabo, but seeing the surname Dávila Cantos and seeing as how they weren't having children in Maunabo at that time, I am pretty sure that these are my ancestors living in Coamo before moving into Maunabo. Now, there is always the possibility that this is just a coincidence. That there was another pair with the same names living in Coamo but given the time frame (early 1800s) and the set of names, I'm fairly certain there's are my ancestors. The lack of births in the those years in Maunabo also help to build the case that they are one and the same instead of two separate pairs.

Here are the children and the towns they were born in that I have so far for Bartolomé Dávila and Cándida Rodríguez:

• Luciana Dávila Rodríguez (1808) - Coamo 
• Juan Estanislao Dávila Rodríguez (1809) - Coamo 
• Rafael Dávila Rodríguez (1810) - Coamo 
• José Laureano Dávila Rodríguez (1814) - Maunabo 
• Juliana Dávila Rodríguez (1816) - Maunabo 
• José Manuel Dávila Rodríguez (1818) - Maunabo 
• María Feliciana Dávila Rodríguez (1820) - Maunabo 
• Francisca Dávila Rodríguez (1821) - Maunbo 
• Manuel Dávila Rodríguez (1826) - Maunabo 

I wonder if the gap between 1821-1826 means that the family temporarily moved somewhere else and then returned to Maunabo seeing as how they were having children every 1-2 years. 

Tracking Movement
Here's a map showing the years they were living in the respective towns. Notice that Coamo isn't "right next door" like how the other two towns are. I wonder what made the family move from Coamo into Maunabo and where their origins are, hopefully by digging a bit more into the Coamo church records I will able to trace the Dávila Cantos surname and learn more about their origins.

Moving around the island - Coamo, Maunabo, and Patillas [Google Maps]

As you can see, they were in Coamo around 1808-1810 living there by proof of their children's baptism records which I'll paste some of them down below. The family then moves into Maunabo around the 1811-1813 because by 1814 they are baptizing children there. Notice also that in 1819 the couple appears in Patillas, here they are appearing as godparents. Since Patillas and Maunabo are neighoring towns it is very possible that they just jumped over into Patillas to serve as godparents for a family they knew but continued their residence in Maunabo. Their last child I have is born in 1826 in Maunabo, from there I don't know what happened to them. Since Maunabo's death records aren't uploaded to FamilySearch I'm not sure if they died there or in another town. My guess is that they stayed in Maunabo, but at this rate as you can see it isn't a given that they died where they lived.

Documentation

As you can see below the first baptism was in 1808 of their daughter Luciana Dávila Rodríguez, interestingly enough the father's surnames are listed as "Cantos Dávila" and the godparents are Bernardino Ramos & Marcelina Cantos Dávila. I imagine that Marcelina is a potential sister to Bartolomé and I have to continue my searches in Coamo for this family to see what else I can find. Potentially, there are other branches here left that did not move into Maunabo.

Luciana Dávila Rodríguez, Año 1808, Folio 190 [FamilySearch] 

Here you can see (barely) that Bartolomé Dávila and María Cándida Rodríguez are serving as godparents in Patillas to Juana Feliciana Rodríguez, the natural daughter of María Rodríguez. Could María and Cándida be sisters?

Juana Feliciana Rodríguez, Año 1819, Folio 155 [FamilySearch]

Lastily, the record below is of a final baptism from Manuel Dávila Rodríguez born in Maunabo in 1826. The godparents are Don José Ortiz and Lorenza Rivera, no known relationship yet to my ancestors but possibly a family they were very close with in Maunabo. 

Manuel Dávila Rodríguez, Año 1826, Nº 568, Folio 80 [FamilySearch]

By the time Manuel was born the parents were probably in their early 40s which I would imagine that Manuel would have been one of their last children. If I remember correctly, I could not find any other children being born in Maunabo passed 1826 for the couple.

Conclusion

As you can see, the family made a big jump from Coamo to Maunabo. Nowadays, this probably isn't much but I can imagine in those times that move across various towns wasn't easy. The gap of 1811-1813 is probably when they moved and I wonder if any children were born along the way in one of the towns along the route, the only way to know is to check any available church records for those towns. I also have to check the Coamo records for any possible siblings or ties to the Dávila Cantos and Rodríguez family. I haven't come across "Cantos" really in my searches so I'm interested in seeing where they were from.

So lesson learned! Check neighboring towns and having an idea of the town's founding and history which will hopefully give you a better understanding to your family's past and history there! If you can't find records for your family, check towns in the surrounding area and always keep your eyes open for your ancestors as they might pop up anywhere (within reason)!

A Puerto Rican Look at: Geno 2.0

Earlier this year, I took the National Geographic (Geno 2.0) test. It was one of the ones I had wanted to take a while back when I first heard about genetic genealogical testing, but it was still pretty pricey. With a recent drop in prices around Christmas time, I decided to get a Geno 2.0 and after a few months of waiting, I ended up getting my results. The results did take a bit to come back and with the idea of a "deep analysis" I sat down and waited... and waited... but finally the results came in! So here's a glimpse into the various different information provided to me by Geno 2.0. All in all, everything was pretty straight forward and similar to other DNA exams. Only one part was interesting which I'll get to in a bit.

There are various parts into the results: your genius matches, regional ancestry, deep ancestry, and Hominin ancestry. I'll quickly go through genius matches and Hominin ancestry before covering regional and deep ancestry. I'm placing the images below however how they show up on the website.

Genius Matches [Geno 2.0]

Regional Ancestry [Geno 2.0]

Deep Ancestry [Geno 2.0]

Hominin Ancestry [Geno 2.0]

Genius Matches

This feature is actually pretty cool because I haven't really come across it on other DNA websites, 23andme had a version of this but dunno where it is now... haven't seen it on the haplogroups part of the website in a while. Though it's cool to look at and explore, it doesn't really hold much genealogical value. Most of these people are probably related through off branches of your haplogroup and as you can see the ranges of years are pretty high. Nonetheless, it was a cool first thing to see when I logged into Geno 2.0. Here are two of my matches, Nikola Tesla and Martin Luther! 

Nikola Tesla [Geno 2.0]

Martin Luther [Geno 2.0]

Hominin Ancestry

This is another feature that's cool to look at but again, to me, it doesn't hold much genealogical value. As you can see below I score a 1.2% on my Neanderthal ancestry, which is a tiny bit lower than the average which is 2.1%. Truth be told, I didn't really explore this much but again, just posting it here because it's part of the analysis. 

Hominin Ancestry [Geno 2.0]

Regional Ancestry

Here is the most interesting part of the Geno 2.0 analysis, the regional and deep ancestry! First, you get a heat map of sorts that shows you the different parts of the globe where your regional ancestry can be found. By clicking on the map you are able to see the different percentages of your ancestry, which are also provided below the map. Equally, there is a continents break down as well! Check it out below!  

Map View [Geno 2.0]

Continental Average [Geno 2.0]

Regional Ancestry [Geno 2.0]

Most of the results match what I have seen on other sites, with a few variations here and there. For example, "Eastern Europe" is at 15% and "Jewish Diaspora" at 9% which I think is the highest I've seen it on any site. What's cool is that each region provides an explanation as well. I've screen shotted some of the explanations, check them out! I've provided some for "Western Africa", "Jewish Diaspora", "Eastern Europe", "South America & Amazon", and "North America & Andes".

West Africa [Geno 2.0]

Jewish Diaspora [Geno 2.0]

Eastern Europe [Geno 2.0]

South America & Andes [Geno 2.0]

North America & Amazon [Geno 2.0]

One thing that is kind of tripping me up is the low value I have in "South America & Amazon" and higher percentage in "North America & Andes". Mainly because in the description is says that South America & Amazon consists of the Taíno and Caribs which should be the main groups in my ancestry seeing as how my family is from Puerto Rico where these two tribes could be found. I have not compared with other Puerto Ricans, so I'm not sure if this is common/typical in the results or if I am a sort of outlier from the group. Being that I've done a ton of research into my family and know that we've been on the island since at least the early 1600-1700s through paper trial and obviously even earlier, there is no doubt in my mind that my ancestry is made up of native Caribbean tribes but it does make me wonder!

What's also interesting that they provide you with reference populations which are close to you. My first reference population was actually Colombian and my second, ironically, Puerto Rican. Maybe my high percentage of "North American & Andes" makes Geno 2.0 think that I'm potentially Colombian since they average at about 9% which the Puerto Rican reference population has a lower 3%. Despite having Colombia first, I know that I'm Puerto Rican 😉. I was also pretty surprised that I didn't get any northern African here, which I usually always score a bit of. Interesting seeing the similarities and differences between their reference population and my own results. 

Deep Ancestry

Lastly, there is the deep ancestry part which is basically the paternal and maternal haplogroups. As you saw above these two groups for me are C1b4 (Maternal), and I-F1295 (Paternal). This is the first time I've gotten a deeper "subclade" (if you can call it that) of my paternal haplogroup. For many years I knew it only as 12a1* and recently on 23andme it has gone to I-M26, I imagine I-F1295 is the same but I will have to do some more research into this group. There is also an explanation of the group provided, a timeline throughout the years to its current grouping, and a heat map of where it can be found around the world today. Interestingly enough my paternal haplogroup still seems to be under investigation as it hasn't really been directly pinpointed geographically as my maternal haplogroup. It is however good to see that it can be found in Portugal and Spain which is where I would imagine it to go back to due to my ancestry.

Deep Ancestry [Geno 2.0]

C1b4 Heat Map [Geno 2.0]

C1b Branch Explanation [Geno 2.0]

I-F1295 [Geno 2.0]

I-M26 Branch Explanation [Geno 2.0]

Conclusion

Overall, I think it was interesting having this DNA test done. I don't think I would recommend it to anyone who wants to do more genealogical and genetic work with their testing as there is no chromosome browser or relative finder you can use to continue working on your tree, but it is nice to have it to compare to other DNA test out there. 

I'll have to keep exploring my DNA and especially my paternal branch. My goal is to hopefully have it one day traced back to a town in Europe (probably Spain) where it originated from. Being Rivera/de Rivera/de Ribera I imagine is a pretty common name and probably not tied to a region in Spain like how other surnames are. Therefore, the search continues! 

Genealogical Spring Cleaning! Clearing up the "Vélez Pérez" branch

Recently, I've been going back into my family tree and trying to attach FamilySearch links to all of the documents that I have previously found in the past for my family through the church records of Puerto Rico. Though at first it had been sporadic, adding documents here and there whenever I remembered, this past week I dedicated myself to fixing up a mistake I caught on my tree and have seen MANY, MANY times on other trees as well. So here I'll set straight the mystery around the couples of: Gerónimo Vélez Rodríguez & María de los Reyes Pérez Sánchez AND Germán Vélez Rodríguez & María de la Paz Pérez Sánchez.

Background

I don't remember exactly how I came to confuse the two branches and believe they were all one but I feel like the similarity in names and seeing other public trees led me to believe that they were both one and the same. Plus without access to the Adjuntas church records from home, I didn't really have time to confirm or refute these lines easily. Most of the trees online list the couple with the names all as if variants of the same name and ultimately I did too.

Ancestry Public Trees 

How'd I get to these lines in the first place? Well, my great grandfather Félix Vélez Mercado was a descendant of Gerónimo Vélez Rodríguez via his son José María Vélez Pérez. I've been able to confirm these lines with the help of baptism, marriage, and death records available through the Civil Registry and Church Records of Puerto Rico.

Gerónimo Vélez Rodríguez, my 5th great grandfather

As I happily updated and added new lines to my tree, I got caught up in assuming Gerónimo and Germán were the same man and that María de los Reyes and María de la Paz were the same woman. But then taking a dive into the Adjuntas church death records began to raise some doubts. 

Searching for Records: María de los Reyes & María de la Paz

I had María de la Paz Pérez (originally Pérez de la Cruz) Sánchez's death record, I knew she passed away in June 1890 in Adjuntas Puerto Rico, the daughter of Francisco Pérez and Narcisa Sánchez, the widow of Manuel Germán Vélez. Everything seems to check off correctly, the 6th great grandparents were right, the town the same, and I assumed like others that she was María de los Reyes Pérez. 

But then as I searched I came across another record, except this one from 1838 listing the death of an actual María de los Reyes Pérez -- so it couldn't be that the "same woman" lived one life with two deaths. I started digging further. María de los Reyes actually had a testament done when she passed and part of that information is available on her death record (I imagine there was some small wealth in the family as "testamentos" weren't too common amongst working class/farming families). In her death record she states that she is the daughter of Francisco Pérez and Narcisa Sánchez (check!) and the wife of Gerónimo Vélez (check!) and lists off her children, José María being one of them (check!). 

María de los Reyes Pérez Sánchez, Año 1838, Nº 500, Folio 93vt [FamilySearch]

María de los Reyes Pérez Sánchez, Año 1838, Nº 500, Folio 94 [FamilySearch]

As I went down the line confirming all the of the children between María de los Reyes and Gerónimo, at no point do their names cross over into Germán or María de la Paz on their children's baptism or marriage records and I even found one very promising baptism record to also help set the record straight. Germán and Gerónimo couldn't be the same man if Germán appears as a godfather to one of Gerónimo's children! 

Juan Manuel Vélez Pérez, Año 1847, Nº42, Folio 11 [FamilySearch]

Caveat: It seems that at some point after María de los Reyes' death in 1838, Gernónimo took a second wife, Baltazara Pérez Alancastro, daughter of Bernardino Pérez Sánchez (brother of María de los Reyes). Confusing right? I have yet to attempt to find a matrimony record between them two but other records help to prove so far that these two Gerónimo men are the same. 

So I was still curious, what about Gerónimo? Was there still another way to prove that he was not the same "Germán". Could I find both of their death records? 

Searching for Records: Gerónimo Vélez & Germán Vélez

Equally, like María de la Paz, I had had Gernónimo's death record already in my possession. In his death record he mentions his wife as "Bartazara Pérez" and as the son of Diego Vélez and Juana Rodríguez. By the time he dies in March 1855, there is nothing to declare on his part so "no ortogó" or he didn't leave a testament. This could in part be because María de los Reyes had already left to her children the wealth of the family which easily could have been inherited from her side. 

So my hunt was for a death record for a Manuel Vélez married to María de la Paz, who could prove that their relationship was not of one and the same, if not of potential brothers. Lo and behold, I was able to find a death record for a Manuel Vélez Rodríguez on February 1854 a full year before Gerónimo Vélez. 

Germán Vélez Rodríguez, Año 1854, Nº 1356, Folio 263 [FamilySearch]

Germán Vélez Rodríguez, Año 1854, Nº 1356, Folio 263vt [FamilySearch]

Highlighted above, though hard to pick out for the untrained eye, are some of the key details of Germán Vélez. It mentions his name in green "Germán Vélez", in yellow we see his wife's name "María de la Paz Pérez" and in blue on the next page you can find his parents' names "Diego Vélez & Juana Rodríguez". 

Conclusions

Quite honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if someone has already come to this conclusion before me and found these records as well, but the reason I write this post is to hopefully clear up and air out the confusion of these two sets of siblings that married each other. All of the public trees I come across on Ancestry, like me, had the names of each of the couples intertwined to one another. And for amateur genealogists who are unaware of the errors of said trees, they'll happily add these names together. Though they ultimately lead back to the same set of ancestors, Diego Vélez and Juana Rodriguez as well as Francisco Pérez and Narcisa Sánchez, it's important to acknowledge which branch is yours as for example the siblings to my 4th great grandfather are not the same children from Germán and María de la Paz. 

Also, I don't mean this post to chastise anyone as I am guilty myself of quickly and excitedly adding names as we can see from this post, yet it's definitely important to also corroborate your findings with direct paperwork from church records or civil registries and not from other trees. So hopefully this has helped others fix and untangle their Gerónimo Vélez/ Germán Vélez and María de los Reyes/ María de la Paz lines that have been intertwined together for some time now! 

Stay tune for another post, solely about Francisco Pérez father of María de la Paz and María de los Reyes who has also been intertwined it seems as well! 

When Tragedy Strikes…

Genealogy can be a lot of fun, discovering your ancestors, their stories, and new information that can tell you more about your past. But there is a darker side to genealogy and that is death. It isn't an easy topic to stomach and as humans we have to deal with this throughout our lives; but as genealogists we have to sort of harden ourselves around the topic of death as it is heavily linked to our hobby/profession. As you dig deeper into your past you begin to uncover the deaths in your family and the different circumstances that may have affected someone's life. Though morbid, I do think it's an important topic to talk about since it does give a glimpse into why certain things might have changed during a person's lifetime. So I want to focus on some things I have discovered myself that have definitely changed the way I have looked at my family.

Losing a parent/spouse

One of the main deaths you see in genealogy is the lose of a spouse or a parent. These events commonly occur and for various reasons, whether it be disease, sickness or accidents. It is never easy losing one but losing both spouse and parent can be especially difficult. I came across this situation with my 6th great grandmother Catalina de Madera Troche.

Catalina lived most of her life in Yauco and potentialy was from Yauco herself or a nearby town. Catalina married Cosme Santana Velázquez around the 1780s-90s. By the early 1800s, Catalina and Cosme had various children from their marriage: Faustino, Anastasia, Benita (5th great grandmother), and Ramona. 1810 is the year Catalina's life would change, specifically the month of June.

On the 13th of June 1810, Catalina would lose her mother Ambrosia Troche del Espíritu Santo, her mother was about 80s year old living a rather long life for the time. Ambrosia was married to Vicente Madera and both were potentially from San Germán, Puerto Rico. I can imagine though Ambrosia had lived long, it was difficult for Catatalina... and three days later the situation would be no easier.

Catalina's husband Cosme Santana passed on the 16th of June 1810. Cosme himself was in his 60s and was the son of Juan Santana and Francisca Velázquez. No cause of death is mentioned on the records so I am not sure what was that caused both of their deaths that year. Equally, Catalina had lost a sister in 1807 and later another sister in 1809. To make matters worse Catalina lost two children in 1813 and 1814. So in the span of of 7 years Catalina lost: two sisters, her mother, her husband, and two children - 6 people in total.

I can only imagine that this was neither easy for Catalina or the family. It makes me wonder how the family was able to deal with these deaths and how they were able to bury the deceased and what kind of financial and economic burden this might have caused the family. Many of my ancestors died and left no will behind to their children or spouses. Which means that each death was a costly or difficult event to swallow financially. I'm not sure how much the cost was back in the 19th century but I can imagine that burying 6 people in the span of 7 years was no easy feat. Catalina herself would go on to pass away in 1822, around the age of 60 in Yauco, Puerto Rico. One can only imagine what type of life Catalina lead towards the end of her own and how these circumstances might have changed the way she interacted with others and just her general outlook.

Infant deaths

Growing up my parents said, "no parent should ever have to bury their children", and this quote comes to mind a lot when I come across infants on deaths records. It seems to be pretty common in the early history of the island and some of the main causes was due to lack of nutrition and/or something as simple as diarrhea. One has to remember that at times like these, access to basic healthcare was difficult when people lived in remote areas of the island such as up in mountains and in smaller towns where maybe a doctor who could help would not be seen until days later when it was too late.

One specific infant death that specifically caught my attention occurred while I was searching through the Salinas records searching for any mention of my Correa ancestors. I came across a death record for a child of Inocencio (also sometimes known as Ignacio) Correa Rodríguez, my 5th great grand-uncle, and his wife Cándida Gómez. What caught my attention was that in 1862 they had lost a child... and another... and another. So at first, I figured that due to lack of nutrition various children of various ages passed. But when I took a closer look I realized that they were actually a set of triplets! I was actually fairly shocked since I had never come across triplets, that I know of, in any of my searches for my family or any others. This makes me wonder how often these kinds of births occurred on the island and how long they lived to adulthood. 

These triplets were:

• Demetrio, deceased, 23rd of December 1862, one day old. 
• Juana, deceased, 25th of December 1862, three days old. 
• Blaviana, deceased, 26th of December 1862, four days old. 

Demetrio Correa Gómez - Defunción 1862 [FamilySearch]

Juana Correa Gómez - Defunción 1862 [FamilySearch]

Blaviana Correa Gómez - Defunción 1862 [FamilySearch]

As you can see each child passed a different day across the span of three days. It makes me wonder what was running through the couple's mind as they went through this tragic event. Were they aware of the situation prior to the deaths? Did they think it would affect all three of their children? How would they have felt in this situation? Out of the 8 children I found for this couple, I can confirm through records that 6 did not make it passed the age of 9 - one child even passed a year later in 1863 after Inocencio and Cándida had lost the triplets. This must have been very difficult for the family and I can't imagine what they had gone through at this time and how it changed their outlook of their marriage and life.

Accidents

This story I knew fairly well growing up because it had to do with my 2nd great grandfather, Pedro Dávila Ruiz, my own grandmother's grandfather. She was alive when this occurred and so the story was passed down to me directly from her. My 2nd great grandfather was out with his grandson when all of a sudden he heard a screech coming down the street as if a car was dragging a piece of metal, apparently the driver had already hit a fence as he came down the street and was already on the sidewalk. Pedro acted quickly and pushed his grandson out of the way but he himself was hit, the injuries from the hit would ultimately cause his death. He was about 79 years old at the time and passed away in San Juan, Puerto Rico, though Pedro Dávila was originally from Maunabo, Puerto Rico.

As you can see from his death certificate below it mentions that he had trama to his brain and that his death was an accident caused on the street. The description mentions that he was hit/run over by a car, which matches what my grandmother had told me. It occurred at 11:45AM which means that Pedro and his grandson were probably out for a stroll or on the way to get something for lunch, given the time. My grandmother had always lived with her grandfather when she was a girl and has stories of how he was a devoted Catholic and how he was able to tell the time from just looking at the position of the shadows cast by the sun on the ground. My grandmother was only 16 when she lost her grandfather and I can imagine it took a toll on her because this was an accident and not a death that was expected.

Pedro Dávila Ruiz - Defunción [FamilySearch]

Taking one's own life

This topic can be fairly heavy and so if it is something that you are sensitive towards I would skip entirely over this section. This form of death does not come up too often in my tree (this might be the only case that I can remember) and so when I found it I was fairly surprised. This has to do with a direct ancestor of mine, my own 2nd great-grandfather José Miranda Santos, who took his own life. For whatever reason, this happened at the age of 52 having been married at the time and having 7 out of 8 children alive. José Miranda and his wife Ramona Rivera would have been in Orocovis at the time with their children. I wasn't raised around this side of the family so I'm not sure what the circumstances were, my mother however was aware that this was how her great-grandfather had passed. Below you can see that in his death record, he was marked has having been asphyxiated by a rope, it was also marked as suicide and not as an accident or homicide.

José Miranda Santos- Defunción 1938 [FamilySearch]

I know this was probably one of if not the heaviest post I have written but I think to discuss these events, if not it's like trying to ignore the elephant in the room in genealogy. I think it's important to see these kinds of events and interpret how they might have influenced or changed someone's life. Unfortunately we have to go through this quite often and each time it changes our lives. So to look back and see how these deaths changed our ancestors, it can give us a better understand of certain generationally beliefs or certain outlooks obtained by older family members as they went through these deaths. 

A Puerto Rican Look at : A Generational Exploration of African Ancestry

Recently, I bought a few AncestryDNA test during their Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale. With those tests I was able to add 3 new members of my family to the site: my father, my mother, and my maternal grandmother. I still have one more test left and I'm hoping to test my maternal grandfather, but I'd have to travel to Puerto Rico to personally test him myself. After a few weeks of waiting for their results to process, I finally received them. Wanting to extract the most information as possible from their results, I decided to do some research ahead of time to have a better idea and understanding of what I was looking at.

Thanks to FonteFelipe's blog on Tracing African Roots I was able to specifically read about "Puerto Rican Results". Amongst his other posts, there are many that are directly tied to Caribbean and Diaspora African DNA results. There is definitely a lot of information there and much to explore about population genetics and the various tribes and countries involved in the Transatlantic slave trade. Since one of my New Year goals this year to learn more about my African roots, FonteFelipe's blog amongst some of the books I have in mind to purchase will definitely help me reach that goal.

My Results

Here is a quick look at my own personal AncestryDNA results taken about 1-2 years ago:

AncestryDNA [Personal Photo]

As you can see, my regions in Africa range from: Mali, African Southeastern Bantu, Africa North, Cameroon/Congo, and Senegal. I was rather surprised when I saw that I had 12% Mali as it is a fairly high number and a big chunk of my African DNA.

Based off what I know about my family, I know that there is mixed ancestry amongst many of my lines in Puerto Rico across various towns, but I have yet been able to pinpoint any slave ancestors inside of the island itself throughout my years of research, and I have traced many lines to the early 1800s late-1700s which will be important later on when discussing African DNA inheritance. The 'People of Color' mixes in my research so far range from "trigueño", "mulato", "pardo", and the occasional "negro" for my ancestors from Salinas. My research shows that those ancestors from Salinas, the Gustave and Lautin lines, came to Puerto Rico respectively from Guadeloupe and Martinique. These lines do carry African genes as both of these 4th great grandparents were slaves themselves on those islands. I'm hoping that by getting my grandfather tested and having both my mother's and grandmother's DNA I'll be able to have a better grasp into the possible regions of Africa (most likely in the western region) that my Guadeloupean and Martinican ancestors' African DNA point back to. 

One important thing to point out is that I am not going to talk much about the "Africa North" segments of my ancestry. The main reason being because most of these genetic leftovers in my and my family's DNA probably point more towards a Southern Spanish influence. There is the possibility of a genetic geneflow from northern African countries down into the Western area of Africa but for now, knowing what we know about Moorish Spain and my ancestors' presence in Andalucía and the Canary Islands we'll stick to the former theory. 

Some Prior Research

In FonteFelipe's blog post about Puerto Rico, he goes into depth using various Puerto Rican AncestryDNA results and textual sources on the Transatlantic slave trade to begin breaking down and analyzing their various results. Using his blog as a jumping point, I was able to look at my family's results through a different lens and begin to better understand slave trading patterns of the Caribbean and Puerto Rico. Here are some main points I learned from his post and I hope I am not oversimplifying and/or overstating some of the points (if so, let me know!): 

• It seems that on average, Senegal, N. Africa, and Mali were high and/or main ancestral contributions to the DNA gene pool for African DNA in Puerto Ricans. 
• Senegal and Mali specifically create an "Upper Guinea" Founder effect in Puerto Rico, where the genes were entered into the families' genetic pool early on and kept passing down through the various generations. 
• South-central Hunter-Gatherers can be from an ancient geneflow from the Pygmy/San people into the Bantu areas. 
• These higher Senegal and SE Bantu results can be from the 1500-1600s, again causing a Founder Effect. 
• "Mali" in the AncestryDNA categories is a hard category to fit into a box. From the colonial period, "Mali" DNA can be from Guinea Conakry and Sierra Leone. Some of the slaves from the region were known as "Bambara" and others as "Zape" (these mainly the Temne from Sierra Leone) and there was definitely a presence of these peoples throughout the slave trade in Puerto Rico. 
• There are three main regions that FonteFelipe works with when looking at the African DNA break down in AncestryDNA, these are: 
• A) Upper Guinea: Senegal, Mali 
• B) Lower Guinea: Ghana/Ivory Coast, Benin/Togo, Nigeria
• C) Central Africa: Cameroon/Congo, SE Bantu, Pygmy/San (South-Central Hunter-Gatherers) 

To have an idea of the regions and the various countries involved* in the Transatlantic slave trade, see below.
*When I say "involved", please take into consideration this does not mean that these countries willingly and purposefully took part. Remember that there are many elements at play such as: colonial powers, brute force, unequal trading, false beliefs, etc.

Having this knowledge in hand I went forward to look into my own family's African results. 

West African Countries/Regions [Wikipedia]

Generational Puerto Rican African DNA Results

In this snapshot of my family's African DNA there are four members shown: Myself, my father, my mother, and my maternal grandmother. I was born in the US and the rest of these members in Puerto Rico, however we are all "Puerto Rican" through Ancestry. I have talked extensively about my family in this blog but TL;DR - my family's results are quiet mixed: European (mainly an influence from Spain and potential countries such as France); Native (Taíno from Borinquen with a potential smidge of Carib/other), Jewish/North African (most likely a remainder of the Sephardic Jews of Spain and the Arab influence in southern Spain), and an west African mix most likely all introduced via slavery. Dividing these last results into the 3 categories mentioned above of "Upper Guinea", "Lower Guinea", and "Central Africa" this is how our results fair: 

African AncestryDNA [Personal Photo]

As you can see our African DNA is sprinkled into each of the three regions but mainly distributes itself into Upper Guinea first and then Lower Guinea, which goes along with what is mentioned in the blog. Interestingly enough I do not inherit any "Lower Guinea" DNA but my dad has only 2% Ghana/Ivory Coast while my mother and maternal grandmother have DNA from each of those regions.

Something important to mention is the odd disproportion of Mali DNA in my genes vs that of my parents. I inherited 12% while my parents only show 2% and 1% and my maternal grandmother herself at 2%. This makes me question my 12%, could there have been an error in that calculation? When you click on "Mali" for my ancestry my range is given as 4%-18%, could there have been an oversight there? I wonder how much of that "12% Mali" might be genetically attributed to other countries nearby. Nonetheless, the presence of the Senegal and Mali like mentioned in the blog might be a result of the Founder Effect of slaves brought onto the island early on. As I've mentioned in this blog and on this post, most of my family has been on the island since the early 1700s and some branches reach the 1600s, so whichever ancestors carry African DNA have yet to be identified as "esclavo" (slave) or even "negro libre" (free black - a term used for descendants of free black persons) in documents. More digging into the church records over time will hopefully begin to divide my ancestors further into more accurate categories. 

Mali Results [Personal Photo]

Looking at the other results, you can see where certain parts of my African DNA are inherited from. For example: it seems that my mother passed on segments of her Cameroon/Congo and SE Bantu genes to me. Something important to also consider is that lower numbers such as 1%, 2%, or 3% may be found in the "trace regions" of the DNA, which means that this might not mean direct ancestry from that country if not a mix already present in Africa before arriving to the New World.

Looking at the results, this makes it interesting to look at my parents' ancestry and their potential slave narratives in their family trees. For example, my father only has about 11% of African DNA on Ancestry (a bit higher than in 23andme). 7% of his 11% is found in the Upper Guinea region and 2% in Ghana/Ivory Coast. (The 1% of Pygmy/San again might be an ancient geneflow influence). Most of my father's families can be found in the mountains of Puerto Rican in areas such as Lares, Adjuntas, Utuado, and Yauco while his paternal branch mainly hovers around Toa Alta and Corozal. This Upper Guinea DNA was probably introduce early on and integrated fairly quickly into the branches of my paternal tree. Both sides of my paternal branches from my grandmother and grandfather carry African DNA so probably various groups from Senegal, Mali, and Ghana/Ivory Coast were introduced to various branches which ultimately gave my dad his 7%. It's also important to note that my father carries an African maternal haplogroup as well, which so far I have traced on paper to the early 1700s in Yauco, Puerto Rico to a woman named "Ana del Espíritu Santo".

Looking towards my mother's side I can make some guesses as to what my maternal grandfather might have contributed. It seems she definitely received some Ghana/Ivory Coast from him and some SE Bantu. No doubt there are probably influences from Senegal and Mali in her DNA from him as well. I'm itching to get him tested because he is my highest African DNA family member. My mother on AncestryDNA has about 35% African DNA and based off his 23andme results I wouldn't be surprised if his AncestryDNA results bring him into the 40% range!

Conclusions/Take Aways

With this type of research, it's very difficult to really come to conclusions! Ultimately, it's important to see how my African DNA is distributed amongst my parents and what that means for me as their child. Having read FonteFelipe's blog (which I definitely need to go back and read much more of!) there are interesting patterns that are important to take into consideration when thinking of my African DNA and the history behind it. There's a segment in his blog where FonteFelipe talks about Puerto Ricans whose results fall under "African>25%" and "African<35%" and how the "African<35%" seem to have a closer chronological input of African DNA in their genetic pool. This seems to hold true with my own family as my mother who is 36% and her father surely over 35% as well have a genetic African influence from Martinique and Guadeloupe that was introduced into the family in 1895 with the birth of my 2nd great grandfather, Julio Correa Gustavo (50% Puerto Rican, 25% Martinican, 25% Guadeloupean). Meanwhile, my father falls into the "African<25%" groups and his African input seems to be chronologically much older.

There is still much to learn about, research about, and inquire about in my family tree. I hope that as time continues, the African DNA on both 23andme and AncestryDNA become much clearer as it is an important piece for those of us who do not know where our African ancestors come from. Luckily, I think a better picture has begun to be painted in regards to my family's African ancestry with the help of genetic testing and with the help of texts such as books and blogs and primary sources such as the Civil Registry and Puerto Rican church records, thus allowing me to be able to put together a more cohesive picture and story of our past. Excited for what the future holds when it comes to African DNA!