Genealogical Goals of 2019 (Part II)

Continuing from my previous, genealogical goals of 2019 (Part I), here are the second set of goals for this new year!

6. Push all my lines into the 1700s
This one is a bit harder and will take some time, depending on the availability of records. I have been pretty fortunate to push many of my lines back to the early 1800s, though of course this is also thanks to a lot of dedicated hours and hard work on my behalf. A next step however would be to push my lines to the early 1700s and this type of work comes with its limitations. For example, lines that are products of illegitimate marriages and slaves are less than likely going to reach the 1700s, 1) because there was no listed father and with no clue to who he was I could search forever and 2) slaves were  sometimes not given surnames or clues to their origins. For these cases DNA is my next best bet, but again that also comes with limitations. The endogamy on the island plays a hard role in figuring out who matches me where, so it's not like I could test cousins on those lines that are not related to other lines in my family, because so far it almost seems like everyone is related!

Going down my tree, I can definitely identify lines in the 1700s for example: Rivera, Román, Díaz, Mojica (Múxica), Marrero, Vélez, Pérez, Sepúlveda, Román, Magraner, Morell, Padilla, Santana just to give you a quick insight into surnames (these only paternal) I've pushed back to the early 1700s. Yet there are other names such as Mercado, Cajigas, Cruz, Gerena, Ortiz, Vázquez (again, all paternal) that I can not push back due to lack of records currently available. On my mother's side it's also a mix, some lines are pushed back to the 1700s and some still wavering in the 1800s waiting to be discovered. For example, San Sebastián is currently a big block in my research since none of their records are readily available online like how other towns for Puerto Rico are. Hoping though that as more records become available, this task will be much easier. 

7. Continue reading books about genealogy 
This one is pretty straight forward, continue reading books that have to do with genealogy. Recently, I have been able to incorporate reading into my general everyday life again and so hopefully it'll stick and I'll be able to cycle through some genealogy books as well. There are some books I have on my shelf waiting for me to pick them up and read them and some on my Amazon wishlist waiting for me to buy them. A lot of these texts though can be historically factually heavy and thus makes me want to put them down pretty fast because it's too much to digest in one sitting. Hoping I get through some for the year though!

8. Take a genealogy course 
I have wanted to complete this goal for some time now but there are two things that always stop me: Time and Money. I think taking a genealogical course, especially if it offers some type of certification, would be an amazing "genealogy resumé" builder, but I also fear that taking the course won't help me much. Though there are some courses that are geared to the more general approach to genealogy, I have also seen some targeted to mainly North American research - which for someone who does basically all of their research in Puerto Rico, the course won't be very helpful. Boston University does offer an interesting course for genealogy which I think would be helpful but the course has a hefty price tag. Also, I always miss the deadline to actually sign up for the course which bums me out and then I totally forget. I think at some point, maybe in the fall, I would like to try and register for the course and actually take it. Taking it in the summer is difficult since I'm usually traveling or away from most of my genealogy books. I think it's definitely worth the investment especially if I want to later on get an actual certification as a professional genealogists.

9. Get savvier with the use of DNA results
I've always been hesitant to learn from my DNA in-depth because it can be a lot to take in. With testing other family members and tools such as DNA Painter, my goal is to hopefully continue learning more about my ancestors through DNA. Whether it's autosomal, haplogroups, mtDNA or YDNA, I'm hoping that I can take apart my results and what they hide. It's not easy with endogamy but bit by bit I can learn more about myself and my ancestors.

10. Build stories around my factual evidence
What I mean by this is that I want to learn more about what went on in the day-to-day on the island while my ancestors were living there. I know some key dates such as when slavery ended and the Spanish-American war occurred but for example, when were some of the major hurricanes to hit the island? The rebellions that occurred besides El Grito de Lares? What did the different societal classes look like? What other events pushed my ancestors from Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Spain to come to the New World as well. I think some of this information will come from reading more books but I'll have to check around the internet as well and see what else I can learn.

Here's to hoping that I can stick to my goals and before I know it, it'll be 2020 and I'll be reflecting on these goals as well. Make sure to set some genealogical goals for yourself as well! 

Genealogical Goals of 2019 (Part I)

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!)

A Puerto Rican Look at: 23andMe European Ancestry Reports

Updated 23andMe Ancestry Reports - Spanish & Portuguese DNA [Personal Photo]

Recently, after having a conversation with a friend about the new update to 23andme, he had figured out there were some new updated reports specifically to some of the populations - in this case the European Ancestry Reports. He realized that his Spanish & Portuguese report had indicated some new information about regions in Spain where his family was from. So I logged into my accounts to see the regions and it was very interesting! So in this post I will talk about the European update that I saw on my Ancestry Reports and how over generations it looks for my family from Puerto Rico. I have yet to really see other Puerto Rican results outside of my family members so I'm interesting in hearing from others of their reports.

How can I find my reports? 

When you log into your 23andMe account under the Ancestry tab you will see on the second line: "All Ancestry Reports". Click on this to access your reports.

All Ancestry Reports [Personal Photo - 23andMe]

You should be able to see your reports like below. These are updated results for 23andMe which I'll have to analyze deeper at another time, especially now that my African results have been broken down into more specific categories. For example, if you can click on "Spanish and Portuguese", in my case, I'll be able to see more in-depth results. This will vary depending in your ancestry and where your family is from. Despite having higher percentages of African results with certain members of my family, the results currently do not go anymore in-depth.

Ancestry Composition Reports [Personal Photo - 23andMe]

Below, you can see what my personal results look like, as you can read this isn't a perfected science... yet. The results will change since it's currently based on what people have reported their ancestry to be from. It states that "in the last 200 years, your ancestors may have lived in the following locations". 200 years ago was 1819, and a great majority of my ancestors were already living in Puerto Rico, besides my Mallorcan line which was introduced later in mid-1800s. However, you can see here that three regions are highlighted for me, these being: Andalucía, Canary Islands, and Cataluña. At first glance, my reaction was "this isn't surprising", knowing Caribbean/Puerto Rican history you know that most of the peoples that came to populate this region were from the southern parts of Spain and the Canary Islands. The pull to Cataluña I imagine is from my Mallorcan ancestor, especially since I imagine the people that went into the Balearic Islands were probably mostly from the regions of Valencia and Cataluña. My strongest region based off the colors seems to be Andalucía - again not too surprising. I've also traced some family lines to this region so my paper trail helps to confirm that as well. 

Spanish & Portuguese Report [Personal Photo - 23andMe]

European Reports Analysis

Taking these reports of Spanish & Portuguese I was able to compile the different regions my family are related to based off these ancestry reports. It's interesting seeing the similarities and differences between my family members, also seeing that some of my family members got results for Portugal was interesting as well. I compiled them into a chart showing the different family members, their percentages, the Spanish regions, Portuguese regions, and for one family member Italian regions.

Compiled European Ancestry Reports [Personal Photo]  

You can see that I start with myself, move into my parents' generations, and later the generation of my grandparents/great-aunts & one great-grandfather. I've placed their last names next to their generational name mostly for my sake to remember who exactly it was that showed these results. As you can see there are a lot of overlaps between regions mainly Andalucía and the Canary Islands. You can also see Galicia, Extremadura, Cataluña, Valencia, Madrid, and the Basque country amongst other regions in my family. Cataluña and Valencia as I theorize are regions that pull towards the Balearic Islands due to my ancestor in Sóller, Mallorca. Looking at the regions of one of my uncle's they hit the nail on the head with actually mentioning "Balearic Islands" as one of his region. Some of the regions mentioned, I have been able to find genealogical and paper trail evidence of family presence there. However, I don't have all of my lines traced back to Europe so I'm not sure where else my Spanish ancestors are from and this could definitely take time. 

With the Portuguese ancestry, only three family members show Portugal: two of my great-aunts and my maternal grandfather. My Rivera great-aunt shows Azores and Madeira which are regions I have found before amongst my matches in 23andMe, as does my Vélez great-aunt and Correa great-grandfather. Interestingly though, my Vélez great-aunt also shows Braga while my Correa grandfather shows Setubal and Brangança district. 

Braga is towards the north of Portugal which could be connected to Galicia and ancestors that lived in that area. 

Braga, Portugal [23andMe]

This next town (Setúbal) is closer to the south of Portugal and even had a Al-Andalusian Arabic name earlier on in its history. Could be tied to southern Spanish ancestors though this town is closer to the ocean on the left than closer to the Spanish border on the right.

Setubal, Portugal [23andMe]

This last region is more northern than Braga and closer to the Spanish border. Just like Braga, it could be tied to Galician ancestors. There's definitely more research I would have to do into these Portuguese regions!

Bragança, Portugal [23andMe]

Interestingly, my Vélez great-aunt shows two Italian regions, though she only has 2.5% of Italian DNA. It shows her tied to the regions of Lazio and Calabria in Italy which is interesting to see since I have no known Italian genealogy so far. Her Italian ancestry says to have been introduced into the family around 1710 and 1800 and anywhere from her 3rd to 6th great-grandparents. 

Lazio & Calabria, Italy [23andMe]

My Vélez great-uncle, brother to my great-aunt (both siblings of my grandmother) also shows Italian ancestry. His percentage is at 5.5% which is higher than my aunt and shows three regions, two of which they both share. The third region is Sicily which for my Vélez great-uncle shows up at region #1. Truly, I'm not sure how this ancestry has been introduced to my family. Whether through Mallorca, a Corsican ancestor that came to Puerto Rico, or another way. I've only been able to research a few branches to the early 1700s so there's definitely somewhere else they could be hidden along my pedigree. I also wonder however if other Puerto Ricans have this similar ancestry in their gene pool. 

Sicily, Lazio & Calabria, Italy [23andMe]

Conclusion

There is still much to learn from these new ancestry reports, some of them make a lot of sense like the various regions in Spain but I'm not sure how Portugal and Italy fall into play with my ancestry yet. My hope is that in a near future the regions will be more informative as well as the African regions being added to better distinguish the different tribes and countries. This is especially important for those of us with slave ancestry who might have no idea where in West Africa their ancestry is tied to. My goal is to analyze the recent updates for my African results as well... stay tuned! 

Senegambian & Guinean Ancestry [23andMe] 

A Marriage Where You Least Expect It

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

Setting the Stage

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

Toa Alta [Google Images]

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

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

A New Record

José de Rivera & Gertrudis Román - Marriage [FamilySearch]

José de Rivera & Gertrudis Román - Marriage [FamilySearch]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reflecting on my Genealogical Goals of 2018

Before the year is out I wanted to reflect on my goals which I created at the beginning of this year. My object for this post is to go through my 10 goals and update where I am with them. Mainly this is a self check-in for myself but also it's a way to see how far I've gotten in this one year with my genealogy. I'll categorize each one into either "Yes", "Some", "No" to know where I am with the goal. Maybe some will be extended into the new year!

1. Posting more on my blog - Some/Yes
Looking to how much I posted this year, so far I have 18 posts compared to my meager 9 posts from 2017. 18 is the most I've posted in the last 3 years but looking at 2014 I posted 64 times! Granted, that year I partook in the 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks challenge which forced me to post more. Since then I've discovered more ancestors but I'm not sure I know about their lives to post again for the 52 Ancestors Challenge. My goal moving forward is to continue cataloging the town church records in Puerto Rico that I began this past summer.

2. Test an Avilés male descendant for Y-DNA - No
This goal I haven't been able to accomplish yet but I'm hoping that by visiting Puerto Rico next year I'll be able to meet some Avilés cousins and get one or some of them to test.

3. Search more into my Yabucoa roots - Yes
This summer I spent a lot of time researching my Yabucoa roots. I haven't gotten to post yet about them but I have been fortunate enough to trace most of these branches out of Yabucoa and into nearby towns such as Las Piedras and Humacao. Luckily, Humacao also has church records on FamilySearch so I was able to continue researching them in those towns as well. With these records, my Yabucoa roots have been pushed back to the mid-early 1700s. There's one side of that family however, my Orozco/Santana line, which I've traced to Las Piedras but I haven't been able to find out much more about my 3rd great-grandfather Benito Orozco besides finding his baptism record.

4. Learn more about my Correa family - Some 
Ugh! If you've been reading my blog then you know my struggle with this family. I recently posted about this branch and the lack of motion I've gotten in researching them. I'm still stuck and ultimately I'm going to take a break and come up for some air since I haven't been able to find out anything new. However, I did realize in a few documents - whether by coincidence or not - that "Correa" wasn't written in the document and he was written just as "José (de) León" - his first and middle name. Coincidence? We'll hopefully see soon!

5. Read more books in relation to Genealogy, Genetics, Puerto Rico, etc. - Some
This summer I did get a chance to read more but I also tried to diversify my readings in order to not get stuck in the same genre. In terms of genealogy and related topics I got a chance to read: "Victoire" by Maryse Conde,  "Reunion" by Ryan Littrell, and "The Social Life of DNA" by Alondra Nelson. They were all pretty good books and from different realms of genealogy, "Victoire" dealt more with the story telling/learning about an ancestor and retelling their story. "Reunion" had a mix of story telling with discovering ancestors and making connections through DNA, while "The Social Life of DNA" was mainly based in DNA. My goal is to continue reading this year some more especially since I've purchased some new books recently!

6. Continue to help others discover their ancestors - Yes
This one I think just comes naturally to me since I love to work on genealogy. I've been able to help fellow Puerto Ricans extend their lines and helped out with some American research that goes back to countries such as Ireland, Germany, and Iceland to name a few. This is always rewarding because I can see the happiness and awe of people who are learning about their family without having known much about their roots prior to research. Being able to give them names, towns, or even ship manifest information about their ancestors has been pretty cool.

7. Find an ancestor from Spain - Yes
I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to answer "yes" to this goal! Going in, I knew that this goal was going to definitely be a tough one and honestly speaking I would have guessed the Correa goal to be much easier than this one... but alas, I was able to get this checked off the list! Recently (in October) I posted about my Dávila Cantos family who I was able to trace out of Puerto Rico to a town in southern Spain - San Juan del Puerto. It took a bit of sleuthing and with the help of some indexed records I was able to use what I knew about the family and find their origin. Hoping that 2019 brings more ancestors' origins to light and more names of towns and villages outside of Puerto Rico!

8. Continue researching the Puerto Rican church records - Yes
This one is tied to a few goals above, but luckily during my summer break I was able to do some more research into the church records that have been placed online and have been able to crack some walls. For example, I was able to clear up a confusion between siblings and learn the names of my 7th great grandparents through the death record of Francisco Pérez de la Cruz. This all thanks to the records from FamilySearch and I know there is more out there to research as well!  

9. Begin planning a trip to Martinique and Guadeloupe - No
I'm not too mad about this one haha. This is definitely a long term goal that will go on for some years but I should definitely start an excel with places/towns I want to visit along with monuments, museums, etc. I love planning travels so this is definitely something I'll look forward to but I have some other things I want to get down first before I go, for example practicing and learning some more French!

10. Research more into my African/Taíno roots - Some/Yes
This is something that though I haven't been able to read about, I know I have learned more about through research. For example, learning that many of my ancestors were labeled pardo libre is interesting and eye-opening, especially for a fairly light-skinned Puerto Rican who gets weird stares sometimes when I say I'm Puerto Rican. I was able to breakdown my African percentages based off my parents' and some family members' results on AncestryDNA, but I still would love to learn the name of some of the countries in Africa my slave ancestors came from, but again, this is something that will take time. However, with learning more about my Yabucoa roots I have been able to trace my direct maternal line to an ancestress that lived in the early 1700s and she carried my current haplogroup which is an indigenous group found in the Caribbean. So this is something that though I have been able to accomplish I hope to continue learning more about through my research.

Overall, I think it's been a pretty good genealogical year! There have been other things that have occurred this year that don't fit into my goals but have been good milestones nonetheless. Using new tools to learn about my ancestry such as DNA Painter and Geno 2.0, as well as connecting with a genetic cousin (and friend!) with roots in Sóller, Mallorca (Magraner line) have been pretty memorable things from this year as well. I'm thinking of creating some new goals for this upcoming year to help guide me for what I want to get accomplished. What did you get to accomplish genealogically this year? 

A Puerto Rican Look at: DNA Painter

This summer I began to play with a tool called "DNA Painter" but with school starting up I didn't get a chance to write a blog post about it. Now that I'm on winter break, I can take sometime to talk about the tool and how as a Puerto Rican it has worked for me so far.

What is DNA Painter? 

DNA Painter is a tool currently in beta that allows you to take a look at your chromosomes with a bit of a more "microscopic" view into your exact segments and who you match with, also known as chromosome mapping. The tool was created by Jonny Perl and the application won the DNA Innovation Contest for 2018 at RootsTech. Take a look at this video about how he came into creating the tool and its uses!

DNA Painter Homepage [DNA Painter]

Taking a look into the homepage you can see what it does, breaks down your DNA into various segments matched to certain ancestors. You have to register for an account in order to use the tool and as always make sure the read the terms and agreements before you create your account.

Also, take a look at Blaine Bettinger's DNA Painter Video about how to use the tool as well.

How does it work? 

After creating an account you have to create a profile for yourself (or whomever you will be chromosome mapping for) and that is where you can keep track of your matching segments and cousins. You can create various profiles if you'd like and it has actually been interesting creating ones for my brothers and seeing where they match with certain people and the genes they inherited that I might not have.

You may use your genetic matches from various companies such as 23andme, Gedmatch (transferred results), and/or FamilyTreeDNA to name a few. Unfortunately, if you have AncestryDNA you can not use your segment data unless you have transferred them into Gedmatch and you'd have to hope (or convince that person) to transfer their results as well to see on which chromosome you match. This is important because this is how you begin to establish connections with those cousins and which ancestor(s) in your tree they match. Without the knowledge of the segment, you'd be lost as to where they match you and others.

Seeing as I have mainly used my 23andme information, this is what I'll mostly be referring to when it comes creating matches on DNA Painter.

If you take a look at how my grandfather and I match you can see that of course there are fairly large chunks. All of these segments below I got from him, so when I map these segments on my DNA Painter profile I can attribute them to him using his name or the name of his parents, my great-grandparents. Remember, these genes can be from any of his parents, so you'd have to use both of their names when you set the segments.

Me vs. My Maternal Grandfather [Personal 23andMe]

Under your DNA Painter, every time you want to set new segments or matches you have to click on "Paint a New Match". There, you can use the start position and end position of each chromosome you match on and upload that into the box (look below).

"Painting a New Match" [Personal Screenshot] 

The box will look something like this! Depending on how many times you match that person across various segments you can continue to pile on the segments on new lines in the same box. Once you have placed the segments and are ready to save the match, you can decide what color to save the match and what name they can go under. For example, I chose to use my grandfather's name and so anytime I match someone through him they go under the color yellow and attached to his name. For me, this allows me to see the matches that I have through him.

A Look at Comparisons

By using various of my own cousins, confirmed paper trail matches, and even unknown matches I have begun to map my chromosomes, currently they look like this!

My DNA Painting

As you can see there are various colors across my chromosomes and some gray areas. Overall, I have been able to map ~91% of my DNA through 489 segments of mapping. Some of the larger chunks such as yellow (maternal grandfather) and red/blue (paternal matches) are attached to just my great-grandparents while smaller chunks to older ancestors. It's definitely a work in progress and not so straight forward in the sense that you won't always have a match to help identify a grey zone or to go back further a generation. It also depends on how much the match knows about their family and how willing they are to talk about shared your genealogy.  

As I had mentioned each color is set to different ancestors in my family tree. A cool feature on DNA Painter is that you can limit it to your maternal or paternal side depending on who you are looking at or focusing on at the moment. 

Once you start matching up cousins they sort of begin to stack over one another. Taking a look at just my maternal side of chromosome 1, I'll break down what the colors means and the stacking: 

Maternal Chromosome 1

This view of my maternal chromosome 1 is an expanded view of the different matches I have, as you can see I have turned off the "show match names" to provide anonymity. However based off the colors you can notice a few things.

The chromosome starts off with two shades of green but quickly jumps to a long yellow segment. Then again to a dark green segment. As you know the yellow segment represents my maternal grandfather, while the dark green represents my maternal grandmother. Weirdly enough you can see how my maternal grandfather's DNA just cut in between and left a small segment in the beginning from my grandmother. The light green segments belong to my great grand-grandfather who I was lucky to test before he passed. This means that from the long dark green piece (grandmother), the light green piece (great grandfather) marks what I inherited straight from him. You can deduce than that the other sections from the long dark green piece are from my great grandmother (red boxes added by me). Marked below: 

Chromosome 1 - Maternal Great-grandparents

Within the red boxes I added you can see there are purple segments, the segments are from matches that match my 2nd great-grandparents Pedro Dávila and Francisca Orozco, parents of my great-grandmother. Any match that falls in between the dark green lines match my maternal grandmother and then from there I can deduce if they match me through my great grandfather or great grandmother. 

On the flip side, there are the yellow segments. As you can see I only have yellow there, which means that I don't have other family members to help narrow where along my grandfather's family these matches are from. However, it's interesting to see who matches me there. 2 years ago I wrote about genetic Ashkenazi Jewish matches that had segments with me on chromosome 1 and they all overlapped one another. Read here! As you can see below, these matches are from my maternal grandfather and they are all stacked one on top of the other meaning that they along with my maternal grandfather somehow share an ancestor. The segments are fairly small so I would imagine this match is rather far back. 

Chromosome 1 - Jewish Matches

As you can see, there are a couple of ways to use DNA Painter. The cool thing is that it technically helps matching others a bit easier since you can deduce where exactly they match you along your family tree a bit quicker, especially if that cousin is unaware of much of their genealogical history or just quiet about your connection.

As I mentioned early having siblings allows you to see where you matches might differ. A quick example below is the maternal side of Chromosome 8. My entire chromosome comes from my maternal grandmother where as my older brother inherits most of it my maternal grandfather. Lastly, my little brother gets good sizable chunk from both of our grandparents! 

Chromosome 8 - Older Brother

Chromosome 8- Me

Chromosome 8- Younger Brother

Another step can be adding your ancestral ethnicity information which overlap your segments and you can get a better idea who from your ancestors gave you certain ethnic segments. This however can be a harder task for those of us who have choppy pieces inherited from our ancestors which aren't inherited in longer pieces and we might have no idea exactly who they are from. However, if you take the time and with a bit of luck you might be able to piece together where some of these pieces came from.

Here you can see on my X-chromosome I've inherited some native Indigenous ancestry but also some European from my grandmother and her X-chromosome ancestors. These segments came from 23andMe and I overlapped them onto my grandmother's side seeing as how they all fall under the dark green line. 

X-Chromosome Inheritance

Conclusions

There's definitely a lot to play with and learn from on DNA Painter. For me, it's helped provide some clarity to matches especially when it seems that everyone matches everyone in my family. Knowing which lines they match through DNA Painter allow me to say "okay, now I can specify this conversation to my ancestors from this region/town/surnames". However, don't be fooled! Some matches share segments with both of my parents and therefore I save them twice, once under my maternal matches and again under my paternal matches when mapping my chromosomes. This way I don't associate incorrectly that segment to another ancestor. So you definitely have to be alert to how you match and use various cousins or profiles if you have them to confirm that match. I'm far from being an expert with DNA Painter but knowing the few things I know it has allowed me to become a bit more confident with genetic genealogy and using it to the best of my ability! 

At a Complete and Utter Standstill...

In the last couple of weeks, I've taken another stab at researching my Correa side of the family but as the title suggests I am going nowhere! Though I haven't be able to move much further into the family tree, I've decided to post about them and what I do know about the family and hopefully get some clarity or ideas for new places to search.

Salinas

Back in 2015 I visited Salinas, Puerto Rico. Here I was able to meet some cousins who were Correa distant cousins as well and was able to chat with them about our history. Since this is the more recent town in our family's history finding baptism, marriage, and death records has been fairly easy. My great-grandfather was born there in 1920 along with my 2nd great-grandfather born there in 1895. My 3rd great-grandfather Manuel Correa Ortiz, was either born in Salinas or Coamo, I have yet to find a baptism record for him. His siblings born before and after him are registered in the baptismal books of Salinas yet my Manuel is estimated to have been born around 1858 and he doesn't appear in the 1st baptismal book of Salinas which covers the years 1854-1867. Maybe he's a bit older than I expected or maybe he was actually born in Coamo?

Coamo

My 4th great-grandparents married in Coamo in 1850, They were Juan (Nepomucino) Correa and Bibiana Ortiz. They're both listed as "pardos libres" and being natives of that town. Their parents are listed as José León Correa and María de la Cruz Rodríguez for Juan Correa and Antonia Ortiz for Bibiana Ortiz. It is possible that the first children from this relationship were baptized in Coamo and honestly I'm not sure if I've ever checked the first years after their marriage to see if any children were born in Coamo. However, by 1854 they had registered their daughter María Asunción Correa Ortiz.

A quick look at the baptismal book of Coamo between 1851-1855 show no "Correa" children indexed at the end of the book.

Marriage Nº 193- Juan Correa & Bibiana Ortiz [FamilySearch]

Moving up to my 5th great-grandfather José de León Correa, he married twice in Coamo - once in 1809 to Rosa Ortiz and a second time in 1819 to my 5th great-grandmother María de la Cruz Rodríguez Ruiz. In his first marriage in 1809 it seems that the church in San Juan was aware of his marriage seeing as how it mentions ... "Santa Yglesia Catedral de Puerto Rico". It seems that José León Correa had permission or was approved by the church in San Juan to marry and the priest in Coamo was aware of that. No race is mentioned here for them but in other records José León Correa appears as "pardo libre".

Marriage- José León Correa & Rosa Ortiz [FamilySearch]

The question now is: Where in San Juan are they registered?

San Juan

In San Juan for the 1700s there was one church that appears on FamilySearch which is the "Iglesia Católica, Nuestra Señora de los Remedios". What's interesting is that in the notes it states: "La iglesia también se conoce por las denominaciones Catedral de San Juan, Basílica Menor o Sagrario de la Santa Iglesia Catedral" (FamilySearch). Here we see the same terminology of Catedral de San Juan and Santa Iglesia Catedral, so my hunch is that my family should be somewhere within these books.

But unfortunately... I can't find ANYTHING!

I've searched between 1783-1800 in the San Juan pardos baptisms searching for José León Correa. According to the records I have he would have been born around 1790, so technically this range of years should be enough to find him... Nothing!

Next I checked marriages for Juan Francisco Correa and María Eugenia Carcaño - my 6th great-grandparents. I searched the white marriages from 1772-1778, the pardo weddings between May 1797-1818... Nothing! I even checked in Guaynabo which is nearby between Aug. 1771-Dec. 1790 and nothing there as well. I know there is a chunk missing before 1797 in the pardo marriages so it's possible that they're in there somewhere.

I've also checked the confirmations of San Juan between 1792-1808 for any Correa Carcaño children... nothing! Here there are a mix of white, mixed, and slave children so I would technically catch one of their confirmations one way or another, but still no hints of a Juan Francisco Correa or María Eugenia Carcaño.

My last searches were the death records of San Juan, I've searched between 1803-1809, 1820-1834 for my 6th great-grandparents and of course... nothing!

Something I do suggest is keeping track of these searches in the notes of your family tree, I have mine on Ancestry and so I have notes on what and where I have searched. That way I'm not searching in circles for their records, especially when you stop and pick up searching months later.

Notes on José León [Personal Family Tree]

Elsewhere?

It's possible that they were registered somewhere else and that José León Correa really wasn't from San Juan. Usually when someone says they're from another town, jumping into those records I have been able to find them. This is the first time that I'm having such a hard time finding even any hint of them. There are actually very little mentions of "Correa" in San Juan to begin with. Some people have suggested that he might have been from Arecibo where there are a good number of Correas, but seeing as how the records for this town aren't online I haven't been able to search their church records.  Coamo is another town with Correas, but as you can see my family is from there and I have searched those years to no avail.

Conclusions

Really there aren't any! My next guess would be to push back the years and see if possibly José León was born before the 1780s. This would make him a bit older than Rosa Ortiz when they married seeing as how she was born about 1791 but honestly in this time and even recently, men could be older than their wives and no one would blink any eye. Another theory is that they were not consider pardo in San Juan but "mulato" or even "blanco" but I feel that might more of an off theory. Still, it's important to keep an eye open for changing of races across documents which definitely happened back in the days.

Also, I'd have to continue searching in nearby towns for any hints of Juan Francisco Correa and María Eugenia Carcaño. Hoping that sooner rather than later I'm able to crack this wall once again and push these lines further back!