With the new year off to a start, I'd figure I set my new genealogical goals for this year. Similarly to last year, I'll write out 10 genealogical goals I have in mind and what I would like to accomplish through each one. Since I've delved deeper into why and how I want to get these accomplished, I decided to break them up into two posts so I don't ramble on forever. Here are my first five goals:
1. Test a male descendent for Y-DNA Avilés
This one is a goal from last year that I haven't gotten to accomplish yet. There's a few possibilities or candidates here for gathering a Y-DNA Avilés cousin - most of them though to seem to be in Lares, Puerto Rico where my branches have lived for about 128+ years. My goal would be to add them via 23andme, this way I: A) also have some autosomal DNA to compare to other people such as my own family members and help to establish hopefully more connections to Mallorcan cousins and B) Find out which group my "Avilés" should be "Magraner" cousins carry as a haplogroup. I know that I should also add them to FtDNA where many people test for Y-DNA but right now I'll have to think that over. Especially if money is tight, and since I have a goal with adding DNA to FtDNA anyways, as you can see below.
2. Add on my Rivera and Correa lines to FtDNA
This one I'm surprised actually I haven't done it before. My goal here would be to add my own direct paternal line to FtDNA as well as my mother's line. Both of these lines have been in Puerto Rico since the early 1700s and I haven't been able to trace out of Puerto Rico. One, my own, points to origins in Europe (most likely Spain and that region) while the Correa family is tied to either Arab/Jewish populations (I would guess though also most likely from Spain but leading back to the times of the Inquisition or earlier). I know my haplogroup thanks to 23andme however I haven't been able to connect with other Rivera men who descend from the same branch as me. I transferred over some basic results from a now defunct Y-DNA company over to FtDNA but at the low SNPs I have, I can't really deduce anything or find connections. So my goal would be to go up in SNPs and go for a "higher resolution" of my own haplogroup while also adding my Correa family. It would be interesting to see who I match with and learn more about the exact line I descend from. I'm not sure if I should just wait for a possible sale in April or just get started on this as soon as possible.
3. Continue to learn about my Correa family
This one continues from last year as well, before the year was out I reflected on how I was stuck searching for the Correa family. As any genealogists knows, it's never fun to be at a standstill when it comes to unraveling family mysteries and discovering new lines, but sometimes I think it's necessary. It allows us to focus on other branches, learn new tactics for discovering ancestors, and ultimately lead us back to these lines as more seasoned genealogists. For example, since I haven't been able to discover anything on my Correa family yet I've begun exploring a Carcaño family that lived in San Juan during the time my own María Eugenia Carcaño would have been predicted to have been born/lived there. I'm not sure if I'm barking up the wrong tree or actually on a lead, but having this experience will allow me to rule out future families/connections I might try to establish later on. However, of course, I'm hoping that this family's origin is brought to light sooner rather that later.
4. Visit the Archivo Diocesano and AGPR to attain testamentos and dispensas de matrimonio
These two places I have actually visited before, and digging through my past posts I was surprised by how time flies. The archivo diocesano I visited back in the summer of 2013, which proved to be helpful in learning more about the marriage of my 3rd great-grandparents Valentín González and Feliciana Mojica. The Archivo General de Puerto Rico (AGPR) I visited back in the summer of 2011, the same year I decided to start my blog. Back in 2011 I was 21 and still pretty new to the whole "researching outside of the census" game, I knew there were other records out there but it was the first time I was interacting with state records in person. Since then, I've traveled to Mallorca, used more microfilms, and have learned from other searches into countries such as Sweden, Czech Republic (Czechia), etc.
My goal this time around is to search for some wills that my family left behind on my paternal grandmother's side of the family, this family back in the 1800s had owned slaves and most likely property so I'm interested in learning about what they left behind and glancing into their lives at the time. I'm not sure if their wills are in good condition or even if they are readily available to search but I'm hoping I can get to see them while I'm there in March. Meanwhile at the archivo diocesano my hope is to find the marriage dispensation for my 4th great-grandmother who in her second marriage in 1860 apparently married a cousin and received permission from the church to do so. This is hopefully a post to come in the near future!
5. Begin to interview family members
This goal is pretty straight forward, I want to start recording some of the voices of my living family members not only to have information recorded for future references but to also save their voices. This is one of the things I wish I would have done when my great-grandfather was around before he passed, who was born in 1922. Unfortunately, since he lived in Puerto Rico and I in the United States, we didn't get to see him often and by the time I was older, wiser, and able to travel alone he was already getting sick and didn't talk much. However, there are a good number of his children still alive, my grandmother included, who can help fill in some of those gaps of information and talk about their own lives and his. There are also great-grandmothers I never got a chance to meet that also live on through the memories and stories of their children. I have a sheet with guiding questions for these types of interviews that I'll have to translate into Spanish and I scour the internet for some more questions as well. This is a goal that I feel like is never too early to start anyways, the better their memories, the clearer the stories will be as well!
Make sure to check out my second set of genealogical goals (linked here!)
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