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. 

Travel Tuesday - Lares, Puerto Rico

Late again on this Travel Tuesday and pretty late seeing as how I took this trip last March but I wanted to highlight my quick trip to Lares, Puerto Rico.

Last year in March 2016, for Spring Break, I took a trip to Puerto Rico where I spent time with my grandmother both searching records across the island and visiting various towns where my ancestors had lived. Though my maternal grandmother's family is not from this town she was more than happy to join me on this journey. The drive to Lares was a little over 1 1/2 hours which isn't too bad though most on the island might feel differently since travel is so subjective especially on such a small island.

Drive from San Juan to Lares, Puerto Rico [Google Maps]

Growing up I had heard a lot about Lares, it was the town of my grandmother's mother Rosalia Avilés González who I had the luck of meeting very young in Lares, though I didn't remember much about the trip except her face and taking pictures with her. This is also the town of José Avilés Magraner, one of my ancestors whose story started this genealogy journey. He was the ancestor who was said to be the product of a Spanish man and an indigenous woman, and 13 years on this journey has brought me to understand that his father was actually a Spanish man though his mother was most definitely a mix of typical Puerto Rican genes and not just a Taíno woman as family lore told.

So needless to say, I was very excited about visiting Lares.

My Journey to Lares

My Great Grandmother - Rosa Avilés [Personal Photo]

My journey to Lares started not from San Juan but actually in Utuado, since I was there searching for land records for Lares, I actually had to go to Utuado where the records where physically held. Luckily, I was able to find information about Jose's land in Lares and who it went to once he died. I spent most of the day in Utuado searching and then headed over to Lares for a quick stint and sadly didn't have enough time to go to Río Prieto where my distant family lives. Since it was late we didn't want to get caught climbing the various mountainous roads and hills in the dark especially since I wasn't an experienced driver on the roads of Puerto Rico. Most of the things on my trip were easy to find with the help of GPS, though I was told Río Prieto was a whole another beast to handle.

Center Plaza of Lares [Personal Photo]

Most of our time was spent downtown in Lares' center since we didn't want to venture too far off. We walked around the plaza named after El Grito de Lares also known as the Lares Revolt or Uprising which began in September of 1868. In the plaza you can see Lares' main catholic church, the one many of my ancestors were probably baptized and married at.

Parroquia San José [Personal Photo]

Lares' flag is very synonymous with the Grito de Lares and is very proudly displayed in many parts of the town. We ended up going to one of the heladerías near the main square since the main heladería that was popular for selling interesting flavors was shut down. We got some ice-cream and then walked around the little shops checking out souvenirs. I ended up buying a Lares flag and after chatting with the cashier, we found out that the lady who worked in the shop with her sister actually lived very close to where my grandmother lived in San Juan. 

Bandera de Lares [Puerto Rico]

Steep streets of Lares [Personal Photo]

After that we got in the car and headed back towards San Juan since we didn't want to be out too late and we had already spent most of the day sitting in an office checking old records. It was nice seeing the main part of Lares and my goal next time is to make it up to Río Prieto. We still have family members who live there and own land and they hold various events throughout the year, some around the Christmas/Three Kings' Day celebrations which I would love to be able to attend and actually get to meet many of them. 

It's definitely a town that our family goes back to constantly throughout the year and I'm always a bit jealous when I see my cousins or aunts/uncles head that way but here's to hopefully that I'll be able to join them sooner rather than later. 

52 Ancestors – #18 Dionisia González Padilla (1892-1918)

Today's ancestress, my 2nd great grandmother, Dionisia González Padilla is a very interesting ancestor because her death was very different than most of my other ancestors. Dionisia died fairly young at about the age of 26 and it was due to the 1918 Flu Pandemic.

Dionisia was born probably in the year 1892 in Lares, Puerto Rico where she lived the entirety of her life. Since she was actually born out of wedlock most of the times she just appears as "Dionisia González". Her parents never officially married and had been together for 19 years when the 1910 census was taken; her mother Antonia González passed on her surname while her father's surname José Padilla, became the second surname on the few documents she appears on.

Lares, Puerto Rico Flag [Google]

Dionisia lived in the barrio of Río Prieto with her parents and five siblings (three were full siblings, and two were half-siblings from her father). According to the census record they lived on rented land and the entire family was unable to read or write - none of the children were attending school as well.

Río Prieto, Lares, Puerto Rico [Google]

A year after the census was taken my 2nd great grandmother would marry José Avilés Magraner, also a resident of Río Prieto, Lares (and also a son born out of wedlock). They would marry on the 22nd of July 1911 in Lares, Puerto Rico. From their marriage, Dionisia would mother four children: Pedro, Rosalia, Pedro, and Natalia. The first Pedro Avilés González passed away at only three months old from bronquitis aguda [acute bronchitis]. 

Dionisia would shortly pass away on the 10th of December 1918 from Influenza. What is interesting is that during this time there was a pandemic occurring which infected more than 500 million people across the world making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. (Wikipedia) Something interesting that the Wikipedia articles states is that: 

"Most influenza outbreaks disproportionately kill juvenile, elderly, or already weakened patients; in contrast the 1918 pandemic predominantly killed previously healthy young adults. Modern research, using virus taken from the bodies of frozen victims, has concluded that the virus kills through a cytokine storm (overreaction of the body's immune system). The strong immune reactions of young adults ravaged the body, whereas the weaker immune systems of children and middle-aged adults resulted in fewer deaths among those groups." (Wikipedia). 

Affected Soldiers in Fort Riley, Kansas [Wikipedia]

I imagine that Dionisia was a part of the healthy young adult group, she would have been around the age of 26 and was raising four children, the youngest Natalia born in November of 1917. I wonder how Dionisia got the virus, who would she have caught it from? The Wikipage states that with the introduction of modern travel, the virus was easier to spread amongst people. Also, the movement of sailors, soldiers, and civilian travelers was a factor in the worldwide spread. It seems that Dionisia died from the second wave of Influenza (also known as the Spanish Flu) which began in August of 1918 and had mutated to a much deadlier form.  

It was possible to survive the influenza and I wonder if José had introduced the flu due to an interesting piece of information on Dionisia's death certificate. Throughout all of José's life he was listed as farmer or laborer on a farm, yet on Dionisia's death record he reported a different profession. The record listed José Avilés as a widower, of the military profession, native of Lares Puerto Rico, living on the street Camp. "Las Casas" in San Juan. 

Death Record 1918 - Dionisia González [FamilySearch]

There is no family lore of José serving in the military (there is however lore that his Spanish father was a soldier), the record even goes on to state that José: was twenty eight years old, white, widower, a soldier in the Company L. No. 374 Camp. "Las Casas"… When and why did José head to San Juan to become a soldier? What's so interesting is that there is a Company Number and everything! Did he temporary look for work as a soldier in San Juan, return to Lares because he was sick and ended up passing it onto his wife? Two years later he is living again in Río Prieto with his brother, sister-in-law, their children, and José's own children. He is employed on a coffee farm as a celador or "watchman/guard". Apparently Camp. Las Casas was the main training base of the "Porto Rican Regiment of Infantry".  I actually just found his name in a book titled "Historia de la guerra del Mundo" by Frank Herbert Simonds.

Company L, Regiment 374 [Google Books]

Looking at his 1917 WWI Draft Registration Card, it states that he has a wife, and a daughter (3 y/o) and son (1 y/o) who solely depend on him (thus if I am correct granting him exclusion from serving). Again he is listed as working on a farm this time with a Ramón Magraner (this name is driving me ABSOLUTELY insane since Magraner is his paternal surname yet no Ramón is recorded living in Lares in either the 1910 or 1920 censuses!!)

WWI Registration Card - José Avilés [Ancestry]

I don't know if José would have introduced the virus to his wife or if it was another person from the town. (Lares is a small mountain town towards the central-west and I don't know how much travel there would have been in 1918). I can't even imagine what José would have felt, he himself was about 27 years old when his wife died and was left with three small children all under the age of 5.

Since Dionisia passed away so early on I have no pictures of her. At that time the family was too poor to afford the luxury of getting photos taken or even affording a camera. It is always interesting to view the lives of my ancestors, but when things tie my ancestors to historical events it is so much more interesting. Digging through some old emails I found some information on the Regiment 374 which José would have been a part of: "In June 1918, the 373rd, 374th, and the 375th, were created. The Puerto Rico Regiment of Infantry provided the cadre for the three. The units were trained in Puerto Rico and ready for overseas deployment when the war ended. All were inactivated in January 1919." What if José would have stayed in Camp. Las Casas, what if he was drafted to war and served overseas? Would Dionisia have lived a longer life? Too many questions I can't even begin to answer from 96 years ago!