My 200th Post- 8 Years of Blogging, 15 Years of Genealogy

July 4th, 2019 marks 8 exact years since I began blogging. It all started when I was 21 years old and home from college over the summer. I was inspired by Cece Moore who runs Your Genetic Genealogist and has become a common name in the genealogist household with all the work she has done with DNA, adoptees, and even working on "Finding Your Roots". In June of 2011, she herself had completed her first year of blogging and so I decided to trace my own family via a blog as well. Who would have thought that 8 years and 200 blog posts later, I'd still be on this journey!

Though I don't have many official followers for my blog (as I haven't dedicated myself full-time to running it/putting it out there), I really started doing this for two reasons:

1) Personal Motives - To keep track of my own progress, hurdles, difficulties, breakthroughs, and as of recently analyzing my DNA in conjunction with my paper trail/genealogical searches. In a sense it would serve as a digital journey for which I could refer to and keep track of my finds and brick walls.

2) Visibility - While initially researching my family, I hadn't found too many blogs that covered a wide range of Puerto Rican topics in regards to genetics and genealogy and I ultimately wanted to be a contributor in order to make Puerto Rican Genealogy more visible. There is a big misconception that genealogical records from Puerto Rico have been burned, lost, or destroyed by hurricanes and people give up without even realizing all of the amazing resources available for Puerto Rican research there are out there.

5 years ago, I posted my Post #100 and I actually really liked the style I wrote in so I think I'm going to mimic it for Post #200! Feel free to read post #100 to compare and contrast now that I have 100 more posts and 5 more years added!

What I've Learned

My first blogpost was titled "What Started it all - Part I", where I write about the typical Puerto Rican love story of a "Spanish man" and a "Taíno woman" who had fallen in love in Lares, Puerto Rico - my 2nd great-grandparents. By the time I had written that post I had about 7 years of genealogical research under my belt but I had only just begun to scratch the surface of research. There were many doubts about my tree and definitely many, many ancestors' names yet to be discovered. When I began at the age of 14 there were no known (to me) family trees out there, none created by my grandparents, uncles/aunts, parents, or cousins. All I knew at the time when I began my tree were 2 out of 2 parents, 4 out of 4 grandparents, 6 out of 8 grandparents, and 7 out of 16 great-grandparents - though it's a little, it's also a lot compared to what some people start out with.

My First Blog Post - July 4th, 2011 [Personal Photo]

I've been very fortunate that since I started my research and blog I have come pretty far with my pedigree, which I am both fortunate and blessed to have. Various of my lines reach the early 1700s with a few reaching the 1600-1500s and very few the late 1400s when they came over from Spain. A few lines stop at the 1800s due to the lack of records for slaves - these being my lines from Martinique and Guadeloupe. However, "Rome wasn't built in a day"! It's been 15 long years of painstaking research where I have put in literally thousands of hours to search for my ancestors. I have been blessed to be able to travel to Puerto Rico to continue my searches various times, as well as traveling to Mallorca to research my ancestors. I have also been able to visit towns in Spain where my ancestors lived/were from before heading to the New World. Recently, I have been able to continue to test various family members with DNA and across various companies to help triangulate and find new information about who we are on a genetic level.

I've linked above and below various posts to the different themes I've discussed over the years! 

Advances in Genetic Testing

There have been many advances in genetic testing since I first started researching my family, to believe when I first tested with 23andme back in 2010 the cost was somewhere near $600 for one single DNA test! Nowadays, genetic DNA testing has become much cheaper and fairly accessible to many, not only here in the US but in various other countries. Here are some of the more recent posts that highlight these advancements throughout the years. 

• Exploring my X-Chromosome
• Establishing an African-American Connection via Chromosome 7
• Deeper analysis of European Ancestry
• Deeper analysis of African Ancestry
• Using DNA Painter Tool to narrow down DNA inheritance

My Favorite Discoveries

Since 2014, there have definitely been some exciting finds! These discoveries are a combination of things: from DNA testing, finding new genealogical documents, to discussing/receiving help from other genealogists. There were a wide range of discoveries made, from very intimate ones to discovering my Dávila line's origin in Spain in the 1700s. Listed below are some of the recent discoveries I've been able to make! 

• How a RAOK (Random Act of Kindness) helped me learn more about my 5th great-grandfather, Jean-Charles Gustave
• Learning via 23andMe that my dad had a half-brother we had no idea about
• Tracing my Dávila line back to Spain via genealogical records
• Finding out I was related to another genealogist I had met in Spain with ties to Sóller, Mallorca

Words of Advice

I would tell myself keep doing what you're doing! I have come a long way since my initial searches and there is still a lot to find out! Researching my family has brought me much closer to Puerto Rico and my identity as a first generation mainland American born citizen. To those of you budding genealogists - it's never too late! Ask family members questions, document what they have to say, and search online to see what you can find. If you're interested in genetic genealogy - test those family members (with permission, of course!) who might be willing to help you learn more about your family's past.

Hopes, Dreams & Aspirations

Reading my post from 2014 it was interesting to see where I was amongst my hopes and dreams for genealogy. There are some I have been able to check off and some that are still on my genealogical "bucket list". For example, being able to travel to Puerto Rico and go around the island to discover the towns, barrios my ancestors lived in, and the churches my ancestors would have married in. I have been fortunate to travel to distinct parts of the island and as of recently meet cousins in Lares, Puerto Rico. I have also been able to travel to Mallorca which was amazing. I still haven't become a professional genealogist, though I'm sure there is still plenty of time and I also haven't been able to travel to Martinique and Guadeloupe yet. I haven't brushed up on my French though hopefully that is in the works and I am still interested in bringing genealogy to my everyday life and profession.

I still dream about connecting Eglantine Lautin to a certain country/tribe in Africa and it would be amazing to have DNA cousins that confirm my ancestors are connected to Martinique and Guadeloupe (I have one potential lead with a cousin but nothing solid yet!). I also want to continue collecting stories and record them to have a digital audio database of stories from my current living family members that I could look back on years from now and listen to. A genealogist's work is never done as you can see!

Here's to 2024 when I complete 20 years of genealogy! Let's see what's in store! 

Testing, Testing...

DNA tests ready to go! [Personal Photo]

Just like that I'm back home from my spring break trip to Puerto Rico! Though it was a quick trip I was able to get a lot of genealogical work done, among one of those tasks was fulfilling my goal to get DNA testing done from various companies (FtDNA, 23andMe, and AncestryDNA) from various relatives. These test are in line with my genealogical New Year's Resolutions of getting my Avilés and Correa line Y-DNA tested and adding more autosomal cousins to the mix of relatives currently tested. Here's the breakdown of the testing I got done while in Puerto Rico.

AncestryDNA

This DNA test was only one and it was an autosomal test for my maternal grandfather. I wanted to add him to AncestryDNA since they also have an African breakdown that I would like to see how he scores in and also to widen the pool of genetic cousins I receive. Though AncestryDNA isn't my first choice for autosomal DNA testing since you don't get the maternal/paternal haplogroup(s) or chromosome segments, I decided to add him anyways. 

23andMe

For this one, I got two autosomal DNA tests done. I brought an extra DNA test just in case I came across another cousin but I decided to test two Avilés cousins from Lares, Puerto Rico since I was already there and could benefit from having two cousins from this line. One test was for my 1st cousin 2x removed, his father was my great-grandmother's full brother, and he's a male descendant from the Magraner line - having him tested will help separate out my DNA from my 2nd great-grandparents in DNA Painter. I also tested my 2nd great-uncle, son of my 2nd great-grandfather and from his second wife. I'm hoping that by testing another generation closer to my 2nd great-grandfather connections to Spain will be stronger. Interestingly enough, my 2nd great-uncle's mother, though not my 2nd great-grandmother is my 2nd cousin, 4x removed - her paternal grandfather is my 5th great-uncle via a line that came from Yauco to Lares, Puerto Rico... that'll be interesting to see how it interferes with the DNA segments we match together!   

FtDNA (Y-DNA 67)

Y-DNA Test [Personal Photo]

This was my first time getting a Y-DNA test done in recent years, I had tested a Gustave/Charles cousin a few years back and so far I don't have any super helpful/relevant matches, besides the fact that it's a European line that matches men from the UK/Ireland/Scotland area. It was, however, the first time I administered a Y-DNA test myself. I tested two men on this trip - my 1st cousin, 2x removed and my maternal grandfather. Some people aren't very interested in haplogroup testing but for me these two tests will help shine some light into two very mysterious lines. My Avilés line which is supposed to be Magraner from Sóller, Mallorca and my Correa line which I'm not sure where it's from and 23andMe says the line is commonly found amongst Arabs/Jews. Hopefully these tests will help better understand those lines in my family. 

Cheek swaps ready to go! [Personal Photo]

Once my DNA results appear for these various tests I'll update with some posts my findings. I'm glad I was able to get this done and excited as well to learn more about my family!

A DNA Connection to Sóller, Mallorca

My journey to discover more about my Mallorcan roots has been a long one! It started with a simple story about an ancestor from Spain (Part I & II), learning about the surname Magraner, going to the archives in Puerto Rico to learn about a man named Damián Magraner and ultimately traveling to Mallorca to learn more about his life. All links above are to old blog posts throughout the years with different forms of research I have completed to learn more about this family branch.

My first time to Mallorca was back in 2015 where I visited Sóller for the first time. Two summers ago I traveled again to Mallorca to complete some more research into this branch. I spent a little over a week in Palma pouring over records from Damián's family in Sóller from the 1800s-1700s. The rest of my time in Mallorca was spent traveling around the island getting to know other towns such as: Fornalutx, Manacor, Pollença, Sineu, and of course Sóller.

Completing research through microfilms [Personal Photo]

Traveling around the island - Fornalutx, Mallorca [Personal Photo]

On Facebook I am a part of a group of people who have ancestry from Sóller and there are ton of people from different parts of the world - but mainly there are a bunch of people from different parts of France whose ancestors from Sóller immigrated over. In asking for advice about research and records, I began chatting with someone who like me had ancestry on the island and like me was a young researcher - his name is Jérôme. Since Jérôme had been living in Madrid at the time and I was completing research over the summer, we decided to meet up for some drinks and chat about Sóller. While in Madrid we chatted about our heritage; his a mix of European countries and mine a mélange of ethnicities found/brought to the New World. He had been interested in DNA testing to help with research and we chatted about that as well. That evening we parted ways but kept in contact about research, Sóller, and the prospects of traveling to Mallorca for more research. 

A few months later, Jérôme had told me that his brother had tested on 23andme and he was excited to receive his results, but little did I know that I would become excited about these results as well! 

Surprisingly, Jérôme's brother matched some of my profiles on 23andme! He matched my father, two of my paternal uncles, and my paternal great-uncle - all of them connected to my paternal grandmother who was a descendant from the Avilés Magraner line. I was shocked to see this connection! Jérôme's family is a mix of Italian, French, and Spanish ancestors but specifically his grandmother was from Sóller, Mallorca! So here was DNA proof that along my paternal grandmother's line there was a definite connection to Sóller, Mallorca confirmed through a match to Jérôme's family.

Comparing his brother to my dad, my paternal uncles, and my great-uncle you can see that all of that DNA shared overlaps on Chromosome 2!

DNA Match on 23andme [Personal Photo]

Jérôme and I chatted about our connection and our surnames, since we share such a small amount of DNA we imagine our connection is far back, probably somewhere in early 1700s. Sóller is a fairly small town (pop. 13,791 in 2016) and a lot of surnames repeat themselves in our family trees so we're fairly sure if we sit down and start tracing our lines to find this ancestor we would find them buried in our older branches.

Since the match is far back, my brothers and I did not inherit this piece of DNA but it seems to have made it all the way down to my dad's generation. I am wondering if I test other cousins who are related to the Avilés Magraner line, will they also have this piece of DNA? 

Interestingly, on AncestryDNA I did match Jérôme's family again and this time it was my paternal great-aunt, sister of my grandmother. If I had to take a wild guess, this set of 8.2 shared centimorgans would be found on Chromosome 2 as they were on 23andme. 

AncestryDNA Match [Personal Photo]

So here we see that the DNA was picked up by two separate companies - both 23andme and AncestryDNA. Again, though it is a small fragment of DNA the fact that four members of my family connect with two separate members of Jérôme's family I think it is much more than just a coincidence or statistical noise.

We were pretty surprised to see that we shared ancestry and the fact that we had decided to meet up in Madrid while our time overlapped and then months later found out that we were related was pretty funny! It's definitely a small world and technology has made it much smaller for genealogists. 

Moving forward my goal is to test other cousins on my paternal side, especially those along the Avilés Magraner line to see who else matches with Jérôme and potentially new matches in Sóller will appear as well. Hoping that one day I am able to establish a connection again with the Magraner line that returned to Mallorca. 

52 Ancestors – #52 María Inocencia Avilés (1876-1903)

Finally, ancestor #52! Took me a while to get here and I didn't finish how I had wanted to on time but I'm glad to be on this post none the less! This post seems like a full circle for me since the tale of this ancestress is what sparked and fueled my interest at the age of 14 when I began all of these genealogical searches. Therefore, this post will be dedicated to my 3rd great-grandmother, María Inocencia Avilés.

María Inocencia Avilés (from now on just Inocencia Avilés), was from the town of Lares, Puerto Rico where a branch of my paternal family resided for about 3-4 generations. Inocencia was born about 1876 probably in Río Prieto where her children would be born, and equally like her children, Inocencia was the product of a unwedded parents. So, we only know Inocencia's mother name which was María Avilés Hernández, native to the town of Añasco, Puerto Rico. Inocencia in our family lore was a pure Taíno women who had the son of a Spanish man who was visiting the island during the time of war. The story, which I'm still trying to pick apart and separate truth from fiction, could have some truths to it after all. From my research, José Avilés' father could be Damián Magraner Morell, a Spanish man who my ancestors worked for in the 1900s in Río Prieto, Lares, Puerto Rico. Only DNA can confirm this connection to the Magraner family and the tale of Inocencia being Taíno. So far we know that Inocencia had to be some type of mix, seeing as how her death record she was reported as 'blanca'. Of course, records are never always correct but DNA can definitely help point us in the right direction.

Recorded children for Inocencia currently stand at 5 children: José, María Isabel, Lorenzo, Isabel, and Juan; the first four possibly children of Damián while we have no idea who Juan's father was and Juan died as an infant, only 3 months old.

Unfortunately, I don't know too much about Inocencia's life since she died at a fairly young age, at about the age of 27, due to Anemia. If Inocencia's age is correct in her records, that would mean that she was about 14-15 years old when she had her first child, my 2nd great grandfather, José Avilés. Which is kind of crazy since she was a young, unwedded girl so I imagine there was stigma attached to her fairly quickly for what occurred. And if Damián really is the father to José then it paints a different picture for me of who he was as a man.

None the less, I would like to learn more about Inocencia, her life in the mountain town of Lares, her interaction with the Magraner family and what it might have been like for her during the Spanish-American War. She would have been fairly young when Spain gave over the island to the USA and it would be interesting to see what a young person at the time would have thought about this change.

I'm happy to have done the 52 Ancestors Challenge since it gave me a chance to revisit certain ancestors I hadn't looked into in a while, and learn more about who they might have been as people during their respective time periods. 

52 Ancestors – #6 José Avilés Magraner (1891-1990?)

My 2nd great grandfather, José Avilés Magraner, has been to me the quintessential Puerto Rican ancestor. Growing up I had always heard José Avilés was tall, white and had blue eyes. Stories were passed down to me about him that turned out to be typical myths heard in stories passed throughout the generations in Puerto Rico (but with him there might be some truths to it). The same way Americans in the United States have stories about European settlers marrying native "Indians", we too in Puerto Rico have similar stories.

José Avilés Magraner [Personal Family Photo]

In Puerto Rico, many Puerto Ricans are told that so-and-so in their family was from Spain and the story of how they came to Puerto Rico, fell in love with a Taíno woman and stayed on the island and had many children. I have heard and seen this story commonly told not only between my own family members but from other Puerto Ricans that I have met. Of course, it is not their fault that they believe these stories. They have been told these stories sometimes from childhood, and who wants to imagine that their mother/father/grandmother is telling them false stories? But these stories are beginning to irk me because they are wrongly telling Puerto Ricans to believe that their ancestors are only from Spain (I too believed these stories growing up and ate them up thinking they were true). Through research I have learned that Puerto Rico is much more than just a place filled with "Spanish" ancestors.

I was told José Avilés came to Puerto Rico during the Spanish American War where he settled in Lares and met a Taíno woman, fell in love with her and had my great grandmother. This was one of the main stories that propelled me into genealogy, wanting to know the truth and wanting to find out more. Knowing that José Avilés lived in Río Prieto, Lares, Puerto Rico where I still have distant cousins I turned to the census records to find him.

The first census record I found was the 1930 census that listed my 2nd great grandfather with his daughter, my great grandmother Rosalia and her brother Pedro. After some initial confusion I found out that his wife at the time Ramona López was actually his second wife and not my 2nd great grandmother, Dionisia González Padilla, who died from Influenza in 1918.

1930 Census- Río Prieto, Lares, Puerto Rico [Ancestry]

I also noticed that my José Avilés had a weird named attached "Magraner". In Puerto Rico, usually the first surname belongs to the father while the second surname to the mother. Therefore, Avilés would technically be his father's and Magraner his mother's. When I asked my great-aunt about her grandfather and brought up the name "Magraner", she told me that the family was actually supposed to be "Magraner Avilés" and that Magraner was the surname of the father. She also told me that his father was from Spain and had come to Puerto Rico during the time of war. So the story was an intergenerational hodgepodge of information. I just needed to find out what was right and what was wrong.

Finding out about the Civil Registry of Puerto Rico in 2010 I was able to search the Lares records for José's birth record. Would it mention his father with the surname Magraner? Now I could strike out one part of the tale, that José was originally from Spain. I was able to find José Avilés' birth record in Río Prieto, Lares, Puerto Rico, where he was born on the 8th of May 1891 and was reported to be born out of wedlock to a woman named María Inocencia Avilés a native of Lares. Nowhere in the record did it mention she was Taíno (and for good reasons because by the 1800s the Taíno population had been integrated pretty well in Puerto Rican society). No father was listed for José and the according to the record the witnesses were Salvador Ferrer and Clemente Millán. 

What's interesting is that by the 1910 Census I can not find a Magraner male to be the potential father of my 2nd great grandfather. Interestingly, the 1920 Census listed my recently widowed 2nd great grandfather living with his brother Lorenzo Avilés and both listed their father's place of birth lists "Spain". Could they have known their father and known of his identity? 

1920 Census- Río Prieto Lares, Puerto Rico [Ancestry]

With research that I did a couple of summers ago in the AGPR in San Juan, Puerto Rico, so far I have lowered the search down to a man named Damián Magraner Morell originally from Sóller, Mallorca. He appears to be living in Río Prieto, Lares, Puerto Rico at the time of José's birth but then seems to have moved back to Sóller during the time of the Spanish-American war. Could the story in my family have changed, instead of coming to Puerto Rico he left it? Interestingly, in a recent conversation with my great-aunt she mentioned that José's father was a married man at the time of his birth. Damián does appear to be married, my guess to a woman back in Spain, in the record I found of him. Both Damián and Lorenzo in their WWI Registration Cards mention working with a "Ramón Magraner" yet there is no man found either in the 1910 or 1920 census records with that name at all. 

No one apparently knows the name of José's father, but maybe it's buried in someone's memory waiting to be dug up. My 2nd great grandfather and his brother Lorenzo both named a son "Damián", could it simply be a coincidence? I have learned that many-a-times, coincidences do happen in genealogy but sometimes things are done conscientiously by our ancestors. 

I have no real way of telling if Damián is Jose's father, or maybe a brother of his seeing as he was one of four brothers to venture off to Puerto Rico. Hopefully I'll be able to test a Y-DNA male descendant and it will tie and trace back to the Magraner family from Sóller. Or maybe more records from Lares will give me some new clues. Much it still to be learned about my 2nd great grandfather. 

José Avilés Magraner [Personal Family Photo]

A New Year- New Genealogical Resolutions

A New Year Is Here!!

As the new year rang in, I thought about all the things I want accomplished in my life throughout 2013. But I also thought about the genealogical resolutions I would make for this upcoming year. So I decided to come up with some resolutions and wishes (in no particular order) for my genealogical adventure this year! I came up with 13 resolutions +1 for good luck, just in case :)

Resolutions for 2013:

• Discover more about Jean Charles Gustave (Juan Carlos Gustavo), like whether he was from Martinique or Guadeloupe, his parents' names, his background, etc. 
• Extend my branches in Puerto Rico further back. 
• Learn more about my ancestors from Martinique and their lives. 
• Speak to more relatives and collect more stories about my ancestors. 
• Discover more about myself and my family through DNA. 
• Connect with more genetic cousins on 23andme and AncestryDNA.
• Find out more about my 2nd great grandmother Amalia Rivera Rodríguez (Masantini). 
• Find out more about José Avilés and whether his father really was Damià Magraner from Sóller, Mallorca. 
• Look through more Puerto Ricans records at the LDS Family Center. 
• Learn more about my Correa family and their J1/J1e paternal ancestry. 
• Try and figure out my parents' family connection to one another. 
• Find out more about Jewish genetic connections in my family. 
• Read more about the history of Puerto Rico and Spain and their contributing cultures . 
• Discover a new set of ancestors from outside of Puerto Rico. 

Hopefully these resolutions will inspire you to find something new, discover more about yourself or to dig deeper in your family tree and genealogy! There are still 363 days for you to get started :)

PS- Thank you to everyone that has viewed my blog, so far 3000+ views! Hopefully I've helped answer questions or spark interests in your own genealogy! Happy 2013!!